By Joe Berk
That stunning motorcycle you see above is a 1915 Cyclone, one of only 12 known to exist. I took the photo during a recent visit to the Legends Motorcycle Museum in Springville, Utah (a visit which will be the subject of an upcoming blog and an article in Motorcycle Classics magazine). I was in bad shape during that visit. My leg was giving me a lot of grief, and that, too, will be the subject of an upcoming blog. Because of that, I was in and out of the Legends Museum quickly, snapping photos, and eager to settle back into my uber-comfortable Subie Outback for the 600-mile trek back to California. It wasn’t until I was home and I started processing the Legends photos through PhotoShop that I took a close look at the Cyclone. I had three thoughts:
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- Damn, that’s a stunning motorcycle,
- Gresh’s current resurrection effort is focused on (sort of) a Buell Cyclone, and
- Zongshen also uses the Cyclone name (the RX1, RX2, RX3, RX4, and RX6 motorcycles are all branded as Cyclone motorcycles).
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The above had me wondering: What is the story behind that stunning yellow motorcycle in the Legends Museum, and are there other motorcycles out there called Cyclones?
The Zongshen Cyclones
I fired off an email to my good buddy Fan at Zongshen with the above picture, who readily agreed the Legends Cyclone was drop dead gorgeous.
You know, names can be a funny thing. When we started importing Zongshen motorcycles from Zongshen, the chief marketing/export guy in Zongshen chided me for using the Zongshen name when we (i.e., CSC) starting writing and blogging about the RX3. It seemed that calling the bikes Zongshens would be the natural thing to do, but I jumped the gun at that one. Zongshen wanted us to use our name (CSC) on the bikes, so we did. The other bit of RX3 naming funny business back in 2014 were the large decals that Zongshen put on the fuel tank. They said “Speed” in large letters. When we started publishing those photos, the Internet trolls made fun of us. I told the troll community that we originally wanted the decals to say “methamphetamine,” but that was too long to fit on the fuel tank.
Back to the Cyclone name: I searched Google because I knew BSA used “Cyclone” as a model name back in the 1960s and I wondered if there were others. There were. In addition to BSA, Buell, Ariel and Kawasaki used the name, too. Let’s take a look at each.
The Buell Cyclone
Buell built its Cyclone model from 1997 to 2002. As you know, Uncle Joe is resurrecting a 1995 Buell Thunderbolt, and as he puts it, it is mostly a Cyclone. It’s a fun process to follow along. You can get all the details here.
The Original Joerns Cyclone
The Joerns Motor Manufacturing Company of St. Paul, Minnesota built the first motorcycles named Cyclones. These were board track racing and road-going motorcycles and they were fast (as in over 100 mph back in 1915). These bikes are also rare, with only about a dozen known to exist today. Joerns used a 1000cc V-twin overhead cam engine that produced about 45 horsepower. The one you see here sold at a 2025 Mecum auction for $1.32 million (with buyer’s premium), making it the most expensive motorcycle ever sold at auction. When I say “the one you see here” I don’t mean one like the one you see here. My photo above shows the actual motorcycle that went for that amount, and it’s the one on display in the Legends Motorcycle Museum. It was once owned by Bud Ekins, and if you don’t know who he was, here’s a bit of background.
At the end of the video, you can catch a glimpse of Rick Salisbury, the man who won the Cyclone auction and the owner of the Legends Motorcycle Museum.
The BSA Cyclone
In the mid-1960s, Triumph and BSA dominated the U.S. big bore street scene. These were primarily 650cc vertical twins, but both Triumph and BSA offered 500cc twins as well. BSA’s 500cc twin was the Cyclone, and it is a rare animal. It was made for the U.S. and U.K. markets. The BSA Cyclone produced about 33 horsepower.
BSA had other weather-related names for its models. There was the Cyclone you see here. They also had models named the Lightning, the Thunderbolt, the Golden Flash, and the Super Flash.
The Kawasaki Cyclone
Kawasaki has a 148cc two-stroke sports bike they call the Cyclone. It’s not sold in the U.S.; it is instead sold in Southeast Asia (the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia) and occasionally Argentina. It’s a cool looking small bike, but I think Kawasaki made the right decision. I don’t think there would be much of a market for it here in America.
The Ariel Cyclone
You may have heard of the British motorcycle manufacturer Ariel; you may not have known that Ariel was purchased by BSA in the 1940s and kept as a separate marque. Ariel offered a 650cc vertical twin they called the Cyclone in the late 1950s. Less than 300 (or 174, depending on which source you believe) Ariel Cyclones were manufactured during a three-year (or two-year run, again, depending on which source you believe) production run.
The Ariel Cyclone followed the period’s traditional British formula: A 650cc (actually, 646cc) vertical twin, with drum brakes and a non-unit-construction 4-speed transmission. It was a handsome bike, but it was not a serious competitor to either of the leading British bikes of the era (BSA and Triumph). I’ve never seen one and I never heard of this motorcycle until I researched the Cyclone name for this blog.
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