The Motorcycle That Taught Glenn Curtiss How to Fly
If motorcycles had birth certificates, this one would be signed by the man who taught America to fly.
In 1909, while the Wright brothers were locked in a bitter patent dispute with Glenn Curtiss and others over the fundamentals of powered flight, Curtiss was busy building machines that didn’t need wings to terrify onlookers. Down in the sleepy Finger Lakes town of Hammondsport, New York, he bolted together a 61-cubic-inch (1,000 cc) air-cooled V-twin that could push a bicycle-with-an-engine past fifty miles an hour on dirt roads. He called it the Curtiss Roadster. Everyone else just called it insane.
Only a handful were ever made. Fewer still survived. In July 2017 it was entrusted to the dean of Curtiss historians, Dale Stoner of Ohio. He assembled the machine with religious attention to originality, and completed the job in 2019. And today, it sits quietly in Warwick, Rhode Island, waiting for its next chapter.
This isn’t just a motorcycle. It’s the missing link between the bicycle and the airplane. The same man who built this engine would go on to pioneer lightweight V-8 designs for aircraft that powered military trainers like the JN-4 Jenny during World War I, strap wings to similar powerplants, and win the first international air race in history at Reims, France, in August 1909—the same summer this Roadster left the factory.
Few pre-1912 Curtiss motorcycles are known to exist worldwide. Auction houses whisper six-figure numbers for lesser examples.
But Brass-Era collectors know the window is closing. These machines are 116 years old. After a lifetime of saving the unsaveable, Dick Shappy has decided the time is right for this Curtiss to find its next caretaker.
So here it is: 1909 Curtiss V-Twin Roadster. The motorcycle that taught Glenn Curtiss how to fly—before he ever left the ground.
Sometimes history doesn’t hang on a museum wall. Sometimes it just needs a kickstarter and a brave right hand.
