A closer look
Harley-Davidson's first ever motorcycle, built in a tiny wooden shed in 1903, was equipped with a motor so pathetically weak that it couldn't even propel the bike up a moderate hill without the rider furiously pedaling it like a bicycle. The iconic brand built entirely around tough-guy aesthetics, deafening exhausts, and leather-clad rebellion started off as an underpowered, motorized push-bike that required serious leg day endurance just to get over a small incline. Modern bikers will spend thirty grand on a chrome-plated road beast to look intimidating outside a suburban dive bar, completely ignoring the fact that their beloved brand's genesis was essentially an asthmatic ten-speed built by two guys experimenting in a backyard garden shed
