The single overhead camshafts had no positive lubrication, but ran in a cast reservoir of oil, which could be refilled via a spring-loaded cap—something of a handicap in long-distance racing. The cam acted on rockers with a stirrup over the valve spring, which, in theory, eliminated fore-and-aft loads to the valve stem. The camshafts and magneto were driven through long, elegant shaft-and- bevel drives, hidden within a shapely, rounded timing cover; the overall effect of the engine’s architecture is strikingly beautiful and the design so good that using only a 5.5:1 compression ratio, the Cyclone produced a staggering 45 HP, about four times its nearest road-going rival, and in an era with no paved roads. The price for all this engineering was a staggering $350, while the next most expensive motorcycle available was a Henderson 4-cylinder, the “Duesenberg of motorcycles,” which cost $325 and was considered a plaything of the very wealthy. A top-of-the-line Harley- Davidson V-twin was $235. The Cyclone was offered both as a roadster and racer, in a choice of dark blue or the factory racing team’s canary yellow. The roadster had a fully sprung frame, using a trailing-link front fork with horizontal leaf springs (á lá Indian), and a triangulated rear swingarm with vertical leaf springs—a unique design—while both models used a simple U-shaped loop frame and a direct single-speed transmission. The roadster had the benefit of a clutch and a drum rear brake, while the racer had no clutch or brakes, as was typical for the all-or-nothing racing of the era. To debut the racing Cyclone in 1914, the factory hired professional rider Don Johns, whose first appearance at a Labor Day race in Stockton, California, was a devastating display of domination, as he beat the track record and every other machine present, including the previously all-conquering Indian 8-Valve racers, and won both the 5- and 10-mile Championships. After the race, the crowd went wild and had to be restrained from tearing apart the Cyclone for souvenirs. Other racers clamoring to ride the Cyclone were J.A. “Jock” McNeil and Larry “Cave Man” Fleckenstein, who was timed at 108 MPH at a Minneapolis motordrome in 1914. The next year, McNeil was timed at 111.1 MPH at the Omaha, Nebraska, board track, which was nearly 20 MPH faster than the internationally recognized world record of 93.48 MPH, held by Indian, and a 100 MPH mark recorded by Lee Humiston on an Excelsior. Officials at the Federation of American Motorcyclists (FAM) simply could not accept the 111 MPH figure and thus ignored it.
