02x05 - History of Speed

[bunniefuu]

I'm so glad I didn't learn that
earlier in life.

Then I wouldn't have been here.
- No.

There it is. We're back.

Knock, knock. Don't panic.

I just want to borrow some brown sugar.

All good, buddies?
- How's it going, man?

Wow, it's so beautiful here.
- Yeah.

Keep the track flat.

That's why we're here.

It's really super gorgeous.

Wow.

We wanted to take this whole season
to the next level.

To go even bigger.

Last season was so
incredible with the hill climbers.

I've always wanted to try
board track racing.

That is so cool, with board track motorcycles.
That was the first extreme sport.

Was this five years ago?
My first time here...

You slept over there.
- My bed was right here.

I wanted to sleep near these girls.
These were my favorites.

I thought these were the best. And the DHs.
The shape, the look, everything.

I thought: Wow. If I were a motorcycle,
I'd be that one or that one.

That gave Harley an edge.
From that moment on, there was no turning back.

Harley-Davidson introduced
the Banjo Twin Cam in 1919.

They made about 14 of them


There aren't many left.

There's nothing on that motorcycle that they put
on their standard motorcycles. Absolutely nothing.

This is the beginning of speed.
Motorcycling had only existed for ten years.

Back then, they were learning for the first time
how to go fast and faster.

When I first saw the Banjo and the Cyclone,
I was immensely impressed.

I felt truly drawn
to those motorcycles.

I just wanted to ride them
and experience what it would be like.

There it is. That's it.

Matt, have you ever ridden a Banjo?
- No.

How cool is that?
- Not yet.

I don't know if there are any people
still alive who have ridden one.

That really puts things into perspective.
- Even we can't pull that off.

That's the best of the best.

When they were done racing them,
they destroyed them.

As far as is known,
there are five or six left out of the 14...

and you never know about the rest. If there's
even one left to look at...

so you can replicate it,
would be a miracle.

Wheels Through Time
has introduced me to so many people.

Nick and Brian saw the dream
become reality.

If you want something of this magnitude,
it's nerve-wracking at first.

The more people who understand that nerve-wracking
stress, the better.

A lot of ideas come from Walksler
from Wheels Through Time.

That's how I got to know
Competition Distribution.

They were there when we worked out
the idea to scan them.

To build something like this, we have to... Sean?

You have to scan all the data of the motorcycle.

Because, as Matt said,
nothing on it is from a standard JD.

So everything is unique.

This time, with the help of Sean
and Competition...

we were able to make it
a lot easier.

Lead times are shorter.
- We're keeping it in-house.

We all have team players who are
enthusiastic about these motorcycles...

and want to see them all race together.

The other one, which is the rarest,
is the Cyclone, right?

Aaron, can you bring that thing over?
I'll close my eyes.

Just prop it up somewhere.
Shall we put it here?

Yeah, where are we now? Wait a minute.

I met Aaron...
How did we meet?

On Instagram.
- That's where I meet everyone.

He called and said:
Hi, I'm Jason Momoa.

I saw your motorcycle.
It's insane.

Can I see it?
Or just bring it to my house.

Aaron is... Aaron, they only
made one of you.

God said: Yeah, that's fine.

Because whenever I ask him something, he says:
Yeah, I'll scan it. I can make it.

I showed him some 3D files
to recreate the Cyclones.

And he said: That is so cool.
We need to build ten of those.

It's the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful
motorcycles I've ever seen.

Wow. How long did this take you?

From start to finish,
about three and a half months.

The Cyclones were the fastest back then.


no brakes, or clutch.

All the power
goes to the rear wheel.

You're burning methanol between your legs
in a bicycle chassis.

This one was made in 1914.
The Banjo didn't come out until 1919.

Did this beat everything?
How did the Banjo beat the Cyclones?

They had a nickname: Fast and Fragile.

They are lightweight,
ridiculously fast...

but many parts didn't work well.

There might only be
five or six real Cyclones left.

It doesn't get any rarer than that.

If you're looking for antique racing history,
that's it.

Within a year, we'll all be riding
Banjos and Cyclones.

That's the most important thing.
This is it.

I had a crazy idea. Guys, is this possible?
And you said: Yeah, sure.

But it's pretty amazing to...

This is what you do. I can't
believe we're going to ride these.

I am speechless.
So honored, so excited.

I've wanted to do a board track race
since I was a teenager.

The end result,
namely that we're going to see multiple Cyclones...

multiple Banjos, CACs,
and another DAR...

all together.
- Yeah, not just one motorcycle, but all of them.

Yeah, three or four in the same place.
That's never happened before.

Riding a Cyclone
or a Banjo, that is awesome.

Normally you only see those in a museum.

So Cyclone, Banjo, CAC,
maybe a few Peashooters.

We're going to Billy's place and
next year we're going to race them. Yeah?

Why wait a year?
- That's up to you guys.

Because we need a lot of them.
But once we have them...

that will be my first experience with it,
so that's awesome.

Racing together with those motorcycles.
They aren't just hanging on a wall.

We're filming it and showing
what those things could do.

What people did. We're keeping them alive.

This is the Cyclone.
They were quite unique for their time.

These beat pretty much
every motorcycle on the track...

when they didn't fall apart.

They didn't become a success
because they were too complicated.

The drivetrain consists
of bevel gears.

Everything is razor-thin.
The gears broke.

If a single tooth breaks, everything
inside the casing gets smashed to pieces.

There are some issues with the engines.

They're built to go all out,
but they're very fragile.

Nobody ever finished a 100-mile race
on a Cyclone because they broke down.

I've made some improvements
to the Cyclone's design.

This is a spiral-cut tooth.

Originally this was a normal
straight-cut bevel gear.

That only engages one tooth at a time.

When you put the pressure
of the entire valve train...

on a tooth only a few millimeters thick,
you're asking for trouble.

That's insane. That's what everything ran on.
- Oh, yeah.

How long did this take you?
How long have you guys been working on this?

I've been dreaming of building one
of these for a few years.

But I started on it
six months ago.

We got hold of 3D scans and drew
new CAD files around the scans.

Some friends had the dimensions
of the original.

We had enough information...

to put the files together
to make this.

And with modern printing
and CAD technology...

things that even NASA engineers
were drooling over ten years ago...

you can now order on Amazon
for $1000.

That's awesome, man.
- Yeah.

And your passion is just incredible,
everything you do.

Not many people would just lend out
an original Cyclone engine.

I've used information
from hundreds of different sources.

Museums, prints,
we're pretty much starting at the beginning.

You're basically doing research.

This is what we're going to make. That frame is awesome.
You found a Reading frame, didn't you?

Yeah.
- There's only one motorcycle like this.

I have one photo.
I don't even know if it still exists.

Probably not.
- Yeah. So this is a Reading, look here.

And we're going to write Roam here.

We're going to make a Roamie. The Roamer.

Putting everything together
requires undivided attention.

It might seem crazy,
but it's just like archaeology.

You're trying to solve a puzzle
from a century ago.

Two Cyclones and a Reading standard.
Otherwise known as the Roamer.

PRUNDALE, CALIFORNIA

I've been working on motorcycles for 18 years.
I started when I was 12.

I had a few friends
who loved dirt bikes.

My dad said that if I wanted to ride with them,
I had to work for it.

He brought home a 1984 CR250.

It was a piece of junk.

He said if I could start it,
I could ride it.

I couldn't even reach the footpegs.
I wrestled with it for hours. I was stubborn.

I asked for help.
He had to show me how it worked.

The following weeks we took it apart.
And the motorcycles got older and older.

I visited swap meets...

and experimented
with my own parts.

And it turned into a...

pretty financially devastating
addiction.

I do what I love,
I build motorcycles...

I make my own parts,
I cast the metal.

It's everything I've wanted to do
since I was little.

It's so cool to make something and then
ride it and enjoy it.

The first time I saw
an antique motorcycle...

was with Pickers in middle school.

He dragged an Excelsior frame
out of a barn.

I had never seen
such a cool motorcycle.

That summer I spent all my time on Google
downloading pictures of motorcycles.

I put lawnmower engines
on bicycle frames.

I tried to make board track racer replicas.

You get more and more attached
to the originality of the motorcycles...

the longer you work with them.

When I had a Cyclone cylinder head
in my garage, I was already going crazy.

With three complete Cyclones
in my garage...

sometimes I just have to walk away.

All I want to do is
sit on the stool and stare at it.

But then I don't get anything else done.

MAGGIE VALLEY, NORTH CAROLINA

This is the Banjo's gearbox.

So this comes out of the scanning software.

With this software you repair
any missed parts.

You can manipulate this and...

You're doing Sean's work for him.

Yeah, pretty much.
- I get it.

So you scan it, because he
can't do it right, now I get it.

Yeah, he can't do it right
and you're cleaning up his mess.

Exactly.
- Come here. Look at this.

Those blue pieces are from Sean.
Those are obvious.

But that yellow means
he didn't do his job right.

So it actually costs you more money
because he didn't do it right.

That's right.
- Understood.

I don't think this project
would have been possible...

without the help of everyone involved.
Without Matt, with his motorcycle.

Competition and their help with scanning.

Do you have to adjust and sand everything?

Or does it come out like that?
- It comes out like that.

Just like that?
- Yeah.

They have a basic understanding
of what we want to achieve here...

so we saved time on something
very difficult, just like last time.

With the material, which we
were skeptical about last time...

Can you say something about
the density of the material...

compared to a traditional casting pattern, because
that was hard for us with the DAH.

This is aerospace technology. This is being
used in modern car factories right now...

directly printing parts,
engine parts, everything.

This is 99.8 percent density.

This not only saves us time
with prototypes, production...

but on the other hand, the hours and
hours we used to spend on machining.

It saves us a lot of time.

So being able to do this
sounds like it's going to be a lot more efficient.

Awesome.
- So cheaper, folks at home.

Much cheaper for Jason and Brian.

That means we can
build more motorcycles.

If you save money,
we get more motorcycles.

That's all that matters.
Back to you, Susan.

MOONACHIE, NEW JERSEY

I know Nick from racing
and from swap meets.

Nick and I have the same idea
of how things should be done.

We approach things the same way.

We exchange a lot of ideas.

The DAH project brought us together.

Because back then, with COVID and everything,
we talked every day.

It was a very complicated project.

Fortunately, it was always:
'What do you think of this?' 'Great.'

If I wanted pink, he said: Cool.
If I wanted blue, he said: Fine.

We're often on the same wavelength.

A project like this, without the
right team and the right partner...

would be a nightmare.

Nick and I are similar.

A motorcycle will let you know
if everything is right.

Some go together easily,
others put up a fight.

Ideally it takes years
to get it finished...

but J's deadline is a few months.

For me, the scariest thing
is to truly do it justice.

Making something that
will stand the test of time...

and that will handle the many rides.

J asks a lot of these machines.

I want them to look
like replicas of an original motorcycle.

There are some inherent differences...

because we are basing ourselves
on historical photos and such.

These motorcycles don't exist.

Even the motorcycle at Wheels Through Time
is a unique example.

They changed the motorcycles
almost every race.

Nick and I, by doing our thing
with modern technology in 2025...

are putting our own spin on it,
because we have no other choice.

Doing it in this era makes it a bit different...

than what they did over


With a project like this
you have to outsource certain things...

to get it finished at the right pace.

I've mainly focused on building
the frames and construction.

We're both good. Nick can do
everything I can and vice versa.

But Nick is an insane
motorcycle builder.

I've been working on motorcycles
since my teens.

Dirt bikes, and stuff.
That's how we all started.

I started with Shovelheads and Panheads.

I fixed those up, but I had no money.

I went to swap meets
to pick out parts.

I've been wrenching on motorcycles since I was 17.

I built my first motorcycle
in my mom's garage.

Shortly after that I started motorcycle racing.

I tattooed for 15 years.

I messed around with motorcycles as
a creative outlet after work.

And then COVID hit and everything stopped.

And then I started focusing mostly
on wrenching on motorcycles.

When everything reopened after COVID,
I was so busy with the motorcycles...

that I didn't even consider
tattooing again.

When I was young and started with motorcycles,
I never thought...

that I'd be building the rarest motorcycles
in the world for Aquaman.

It's awesome.

Oh, god. Look how beautiful it is.

That really is the most beautiful motorcycle, right?

Wow.
- Looks good.

How fast does this thing go?


- Scary.

Direct drive, barely any brakes.
- Wow.

It's going to be amazing when those two
ride next to each other. God, man.

We're racing against the Harleys.

That's amazing. We want
to make the impossible possible.

We're making Banjos, DARs, CAC.

This one is based on a photo.
We didn't even know the color.

Look at that.

You're unbelievable, man. Wow.

It's the Roamer. The Roaming Standard.

And those rods too. My god.
All mechanical. Wow.

Oh, my god.

Look at that.

Dude. What is that?
- A Cyclone, model R15.

Strand made three motorcycles back then.

A race bike,
a street model, and a standard model.

It was a Speedster, that's the R15.

Is that this?
- Yeah.

A Speedster.

It's got all the amenities.
Clutch, brake, floorboard.

But it comes souped-up
straight from the factory.

You're something else. Truly one of a kind.

How do you do that?

Some call it weaponized autism.

Oh, my god, man. Incredible.

Dude, nothing like it.
Oh, my god, man.

Look at my boots.
- This thing is going to be terrifying.

On The Roam. Nick, thank you
for making my dreams come true.

Dude...
- I can't wait.

Line them all up.

You're going 100 miles per hour
on a bicycle frame...

with 100 percent ethanol, basically
a b*mb. You're riding in circles on a b*mb.

This is what they did in the '20s.
They pushed the limits of speed.

I had never experienced that
and wanted to take it a step further.

Soon we'll have three Banjos,
one DAR, two CACs.

I had never seen those. You had.

And some 8-valve stuff.
- Oh, yeah. Indeed.

What a party.
A step up from season one.

Buckle up.

HOHENWALD, TENNESSEE

Banjo, buddy.

To see all these new and old friends
come together for the same goal.

We spent a few years building
those impossible machines...

and now we finally see the final result. Everyone was in shock.

Look at that.
- Wow.

Baby, you are gorgeous.

Go sit on that.

A DAR with original paint.

If I can't ride it,
I don't even want to sit on it.

You ride everything.

We're riding all of them.

For a motorcycle enthusiast
this is a special moment.

Our great-grandparents did this
and it still exists.

It's still in our souls and we're bringing
it back. They had fun.

It's like going back in time


This is just really...

These things were
relics for decades.

You looked at them and talked about them.
- You couldn't get your hands on one.

Yeah. And now they're so valuable
that no one will ever ride them.

This is almost just as special.
- We have three. Three against three.

I have a place
where these are always welcome.

Oh, man. This is going to be good.
- They can all come. Oh, man.

Thanks, Billy.
- You gotta do something.

Good job. Truly beautiful.
- Yeah. Thanks.

When I was growing up,
I looked up to all those people.

It's so cool to connect
with those guys.

I don't want to say they're
my heroes, but they kind of are.

They're legends and they build
the coolest stuff in the world.

To be able to ride something as legendary
as a Cyclone feels like a dream.

Okay, well, this is pretty much...

These three motorcycles are legendary.
This is a dream come true.

Building these with my friends
and the idea of building this...

Look, guys. This is the Banjo.
This is the 8-valve.

We're going to race, a chromed Banjo.

It's a lot to take in,
having those three together.

This is where the dream ends.

There it is.

Look at it.
- Is it shiny enough?

I love you, man. Awesome.
- Well done, guys.

Hey, look.

It's great. Our friends, Tom
and Sean, entered a contest.

They scanned everything.
We sent it out.

And these two badasses, Brian and Nick...

That's a baby Bosch.
- Right there.

We got those three. That cost me...
This is Walksler's.

When I saw this, I was inspired.
- That's perfection.

It's also to honor Harley.

This is everything we love so much
and now we're going to race it.

I think it would be so cool
to have those big trophies...

of everything we've done
and the inspiration of old friends.

This is a work of art.

What we're about to do...

This is probably the first time
a couple of Banjo race bikes...

hit the track in over 100 years.

You're taking Harley-Davidson's
rarest race bike...

the pinnacle of their development
from the '20s...

and we're going to ride them for the first time
in a century.

I'm a little nervous.
Excited and nervous.

But it's a healthy caution.

They went super fast back then
and did crazy things.

That will be the case now too.

These motorcycles were never safe.

Racing an old motorcycle on the track
without brakes or a clutch...

gives you a massive rush. My heart
is racing. My body is warming up.

You know how it is because you've
done it before, but still.

Just like jumping out of an airplane
and not knowing how it turns out.

You hope you're safe and everything
will be fine, but it's a risk.

Few people have seen
all those motorcycles working at once.

When I saw the Cyclones
and all those Harleys...

that is just unique.
Everyone was blown away.

It's truly an honor because all your friends
come together to make your dream come true.

Within a certain timeframe, and the weather
and conditions have to be right.

Every motorcycle was so different.
They all gave a different experience.

That's what made it so special.

Every motorcycle, how the frames were built.

Everything felt different
and made a different sound.

I've never ridden
on a dirt track before...

but it's perfect
for riding against the wall.

It's such a strange feeling.
You can have a perfect moment.

You're very alert. You get lost
in the moment and you feel everything.

All your senses are working. You've
never heard sounds like that.

The smells, the speed,
how the motorcycle feels and the track.

And when you hit the gas,
you bring this wild animal to life.

Those guys wet the track, I'd never
seen that before.

Filming the board track the way we
do, being a part of it...

getting the camera in there
and really experiencing that...

riding along with that rider,
that was an amazing experience.

I gotta say,
seeing this whole season...

it's weird to say,
but when I saw it...

knowing how hard we had worked,
it brought tears to my eyes.

It's so crazy,
I'm looking at motorcycles...

and I got tears in my eyes, because
I knew how hard we had worked...

to get these motorcycles running,
so I could show this.

And this experience
brought all my friends together.

And it was so cool.

You watched the sun go down
and evening fall.

A great atmosphere.
I'm so grateful. Truly so grateful.