In their youth Bill Harley and Arthur Davidson shared a love for fishing and rode their bikes to local ponds. In 1895, they came across an inventor riding a motorcycle. Inspired by the machine they went on to start building motorized bikes, and the rest was history.

Fun fact: The bikes in the second image were touted as being a quit ride. So much that the company called them “The Silent Gray Fellow. This is unlike my neighbor who needs to warm up his hog for twenty minutes every morning before work and then hops on it to rev it up for the next minute before taking off through the neighborhood!