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  • Retrobike

    FRONT WHEEL DIVE

    Jul 10, 2019 5 minutes
    WORDS ALAN CATHCART
    PHOTOS
    PHIL MASTERS

    BY 1920, the basic format of the motorcycle as we know it today was well established, even if detail design of things like forks and brakes and rear suspension had yet to evolve. And then there was the Megola, with what looked like a mini radial aircraft engine shoved within the spokes of the front wheel.

    The Megola was the product of a consortium of three German engineers — Meixner, Gockerell (better known as Cockerell) and Landgraf, who each contributed the first two letters of their surnames — to commercialise in 1921 a two-wheeled design produced the year before by Cockerell. This originally featured a three-cylinder engine located in the rear wheel, soon replaced by a five-cylinder one, but by the time production began, Cockerell had hit on the

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