Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: motorcycle

This is another rare vehicle that, in this case, I had never heard of before. This is a 1922 Martinsyde Quick Six motorbike. These were very fast for any road vehicles of the time, capable of 130Km/h (80 m.p.h.). The 738cc V-twin engine could produce 22 horsepower, which was actually more than the Ford Model T's of the time, so it was mostly down to the power-to-weight ratio. The Martinsyde company was originally founded in 1908 in Woking, Surrey, England to produce aircraft, but from 1919 they began producing motorbikes as well. This business turned out to be very short-lived, as although the motorbikes sold reasonably well, the factory in Woking burnt down in 1922. Bat Motor Manufacturing ended up buying Martinsyde, and ended up producing the last Martinsydes in 1924 and 1925 before focusing entirely on their own designs. There were a number of other motorcycles/motorbikes at the Josefuv dul car show, but because I've never been very into motorcycles I rationed my time with them, and concentrated on car pictures.

The motorcycle in the foreground appears to be a Jawa Type 353 motorcycle. I don't know a lot about motorcycles, but Wikipedia will indicate that (if this is a Type 353), it would have been built between 1954 and 1962. Wikipedia claims that the displacement of the single-cylinder engine visible in this photo would have been 249.5cc. These motorcycles actually remain fairly common in everyday use in the Czech Republic, although the Jawa Moto company has long since moved on to more modern designs. About 10 or 15 years ago, I saw a much newer Jawa (I have no memory of the model) on sale in a Tesco supermarket for around 10,000Kc, or roughly $442 U.S., so their popularity may be down to their being spectacularly inexpensive, even if it could be presumed that a new Jawa today would be more than 10,000Kc. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawa_353

IMZ-Ural were a Soviet manufacturer of military motorcycles based originally in Irbit, Russia, but now in Petropavl, Kazakhstan for assembly, and Redmond, Washington State, USA for administration. IMZ-Ural are entirely unrelated (beyond their Communist origins) to UralAZ, who build trucks in Miass, Russia. Wikipedia claims that Ural are the oldest manufacturer of motorcycles equipped with sidecars from the factory, but I can't confirm this. I don't know a lot about the history of Ural motorcycles, or motorcycles more generally. However, the military livery of this one may be authentic, given that originally these motorcycles were intended for the Red Army in World War II. This looks like an M-72 model, although I may be missing key spotting features.

This BMW was also among the motorcycles displayed at the Palace of Culture and Science, but being a BMW it's naturally a lot less exotic, even if it is very old.

Jawa motorbikes have been made in the Czech Republic since 1929, and the company is still active today. They're still especially common in the countryside, and some of them, like this one, are quite old (I don't know the exact year of this one, unfortunately), as they're especially high-quality, and can last for decades.