They’re called Desert Sleds, and for good reason; those hefty, somewhat bastardized motorcycles were built to carry their riders quickly and efficiently across portions of what constitute the Great American Desert.
Desert Sleds came to be during the 1950s and early 1960s when motorcyclists realized they could race their motorcycles practically unimpeded over vast stretches of California’s Mojave Desert, much of which is located within AMA District 37’s boundaries. Up to then few people, motorcyclists included, cared much about that big, unsupervised sandbox. When District 37 desert racing got underway shortly after World War II ended, who cared that hundreds of motorcycle racers at a time were plowing across the sand at breakneck speeds?
Oh, to be fair, select indigenous Americans had, for eons, occupied the desert with little disruption from outsiders, plus prospectors and miners searching for precious metals spent a fair amount of their time scurrying about in that hot wasteland. And not to be overlooked, pioneers striking out for new beginnings in California and Oregon had to venture into that vast unknown before reaching their new Promised Land that stretched along America’s bountiful western coastline.
Eventually, though, motorcycle racers realized they could race practically unabated on the desert floor, and the racing boomed.
In the beginning
Most early racers based their Desert Sled conversions on street-going British bikes powered by the most modern vertical twin- or single-cylinder engines of the time.
