I take a last ride around San Francisco, cable cars started in 1873 in the city so would have been a familiar sight to George
I go past the former location of the California Motorcycle Company
THE CALIFORNIA MOTOR COMPANY – At the turn of the last century, J.W. Leavitt and L.H. Bill owned/operated bicycle shops in the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, CA. In 1901, Leavitt and Bill founded the California Motor Company. They hired Roy C. Marks as chief mechanical engineer. Their goal was to mass produce the motorized bicycle, dubbed the ‘California’, based on Marks design. The CMC factory was located at the San Francisco bicycle shops at 730 & 309 Larkin Street. The CMC was struggling to expand the market for its California motor-bicycle. Something of a ‘dud’, its first model was just 90cc and 1/2 horsepower. At that displacement it was prone to mechanical breakdowns as the under powered motor labored to carry a rider. In 1902 the California was fitted with a larger 200cc, 1.25 HP motor. If Leavitt & Bill could not make CMC profitable though the sales of the ‘California’ at least they could make the company attractive on the ever expanding motorcycle production market.
That area location now looks like this and are Federal buildings
On towards Lotta Fountain…
I had to do a little research, the main question was why to start here? Lotta Crabtree was a very well-known Gold-Rush-era performer and she donated this fountain to the city.
I found this video that gives a lot of detail about an overlooked historical piece right in the heart of the city, the video tells a lot of details from its original positioning, and the history in its later years and is worth watching. I contacted the maker of the vlog and he had never heard about George Wyman!
George A. Wyman made a ceremonial start of his transcontinental motorcycle ride from this spot at 2:30 p.m. It was known as “Newspaper Square” at the time and looked like this.
Today it’s a little different
I stood there for a while taking it in, what must he have been feeling, mostly unknown territory ahead of him, and because he was going to try and be first not only completing the task but doing it in a reasonable time was obviously important.
George didn’t go sightseeing as he crossed the country, he came across as all business when I read his diary, he completed the ride efficiently and actually mentioned, ‘that he felt his crossing could be done quicker’ (more on that later) so for whatever reason I then got it into my head right there…to hit every single one of his ‘waypoints’ and see how many days the modern day motorcyclist could do the exact same ride in.
Just like George Wyman, I rode from sun up to sundown every day!
From his diary –
May 16, 1903 – Across America on a Motor Bicycle
At Lotta’s Fountain
Market & Kearney Streets
(San Francisco to Vallejo, CA)
“Little more than three miles constituted the first day’s travel of my journey across the American continent. It is just three miles from the corner of Market and Kearney streets, San Francisco, to the boat that steams to Vallejo, California, and, leaving the corner formed by those streets at 2:30 o’clock on the bright afternoon of May 16, less than two hours later I had passed through the Golden Gate and was in Vallejo and aboard the “Ark,” or houseboat of my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Brerton, which was anchored there. I slept aboard the “Ark” that night.”
George had mentioned he passed through the Golden Gate, as noted in the previous post, it would be around 30 years until the bridge of the same name would be built. Algorithms being what they are, this documentary footage popped up in my feed about the Golden Gate Bridge construction, I found it fascinating, you might too.
The terminal today looks like this and most likely hasn’t changed too much, I wished I could load my bike on it to sail to Vallejo, but now it’s passengers only, I’d have to jump on the freeway!
This was George’s journey, drawn on a map from 1900
The faint purple line is the waypoint to waypoint route
He would have been aboard a steamer like this
today things look a little different
May 17, 1903
(Vallejo to Sacramento, CA)
“At 7:20 o’clock the next morning I said goodbye to my hospitable hosts and to the Pacific, and turned my face toward the ocean that laps the further shore of America. I at once began to go up in the world. I knew I would go higher; also I knew my mount. I was traveling familiar ground. During the previous summer I had made the journey on a California motor bicycle to Reno, Nevada, and knew that crossing the Sierras, even when helped by a motor, was not exactly a path of roses. But it was that tour, nevertheless, that fired me with desire to attempt this longer journey – to become the first motorcyclist to ride from ocean to ocean.
For thirteen miles out of Vallejo the road was a succession of land waves; one steep hill succeeded by another, but the motor was working like clockwork and covered the distance in but a few moments over the hour, and in the face of a wind the force of which was constantly increasing. The further I went the harder blew the wind. Finally it actually blew the motor to a standstill. I promptly dismounted and broke off the muffler. The added power proved equal to the emergency, and the wind ceased to worry. My next dismount was rather sudden. While going well and with no thought of the road I ran full tilt into a patch of sand. I landed ungracefully, but unharmed, ten feet away. The fall, however broke my cyclometer and also cracked the glass of the oil cup in the motor – damage which the plentiful use of tire tape at least temporarily repaired.
Entering the splendid farming country of the Sacramento Valley, it is easy to imagine this the garden spot of the world. Magnificent farms, well-kept vineyards and a profusion of peach, pear, and almond orchards line the road; and that scene so common to Californians’ eyes and so odd to visitors’ – great gangs of pigtailed Chinese at work with the rake and hoe – is everywhere observable.
At Davisville, 59 miles from Vallejo, **(formerly called Davis)
With the Railroad station behind me looking down main Street today
those always genial and well meaning prevaricators, the natives, informed me that the road to Sacramento, which point I had set as the day’s destination, was in good shape; and though I knew that in many places the Sacramento River, swollen by the melting snow of the Sierras, had, as is the case each year, overflowed its banks. I trustingly believed them. Alas! for human faith. Eight miles from Davisville the road lost itself in the overflowing river. The water was too deep to navigate on a motor bicycle or any other bicycle, so I faced about and retraced the road for four miles, or until I reached the railroad tracks.
The river and its tributaries, and for several miles the lowlands, are spanned by trestlework, on which the rails are laid. The crossties of the roadbed proper are not laid with punctilious exactitude, nor are the intervaling spaces leveled or smoothed. They make uncomfortable and wearying walking: they make bicycle riding of any sort dangerous when it is not absolutely impossible. On the trestles themselves the ties are laid sufficiently close together to make them ride-able – rather “choppy” riding, it is true, but much faster and less tiresome than trundling. I walked the road-bed; I “bumped it” across the trestles and that night, the 17th, I slept in Sacramento, a day’s journey of 82 miles and slept soundly.”
The above view is now blocked by the trees
so I looked for a better viewpoint
This was his first 2 days of travel
continued…
rtwPaul 