Canby Oregon Motorcycle Bicycle Riders 1908 Real Photo Postcard

The early motor-bicycle, depicted here with a young rider, represents a critical transitional phase in personal transportation, emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These vehicles typically adapted standard bicycle frames by integrating a small internal combustion engine, often featuring belt drives and fuel tanks positioned along the frame or above the engine. This design allowed for greater speed and distance than conventional bicycles, catering to a growing public fascination with mechanized travel before the widespread adoption of purpose-built motorcycles.

This period, likely the 1900s to early 1910s, marked rapid innovation in individual mobility. While the bicycle (seen alongside the motor-bicycle) had already established itself as an accessible mode of transport, the motor-bicycle offered a novel blend of practicality and exhilaration. Such images capture the spirit of technological advancement and the nascent stages of motorized personal vehicles, which would profoundly reshape travel and leisure in the decades that followed, particularly in rural and developing areas where roads were less suited for early automobiles.