Curtiss had ridden a bicycle in races, and got the utmost speed out of it; but the bicycle, as a man-propelled vehicle, did not travel fast enough to suit him. He therefore set about devising means for increasing its speed possibilities. One day Smellie, his old employer, came into Curtiss' shop, tired out and perspiring from his efforts in pedaling his bicycle up the hill. "Glenn," he said, "I'm going to give the blamed thing up until they get something to push it." That was Curtiss' cue, and it promptly became his problem–getting something to push it! He determined to mount a gasoline engine on a bicycle, and at once began to search for the necessary castings. Finally he secured them and began the task of building a motor. Unfortunately, the man who sold him the castings sent no instructions for building a motor, so the problem was left to Curtiss and to those who interested themselves in his work. They studied and planned and made experiments, learning something new about motors all the while. Eventually, with the assistance of local mechanics, the castings were "machined" and the motor assembled. Curtiss afterward described it as a remarkable contrivance; but it did the work. This motor had a two-inch bore and a two-an-a-half-inch stroke, and drove the bicycle wheel by a friction roller pulley. First, Curtiss made the pulley of wood, then of leather, and finally of rubber. It was tried first on the front wheel and then on the rear one, and so numerous were the changes in and additions to its equipment, that the bystanders and there was the usual number of these saw only the humorous side of the thing and declared that it looked like a sort of Happy Hooligan bicycle with tin cans hung on wherever there was room. The tomato can again came to the front in Curtiss' experiments, and now served to fashion a rough and ready sort of carburetor, filled with gasoline and covered over with a gauze screen, which sucked up the liquid by capillary attraction. Thus it vaporized and was conducted to the cylinder by a pipe from the top of the can. Then came the first demonstration of a bicycle driven by power other than leg muscles, and it attracted almost as much attention in Hammondsport as the first bicycle road race which Curtiss had won some years before. The newfangled machine, which the village oracle declared could not be made to go unless the rider put his legs to work, did not promise much of a success on its initial trip. Curtiss started off for the post-office, but had to pedal all the way there, the motor refusing to do its part. Coming from the post-office, however, it began popping and shoved the wheels around at an amazing rate, while Curtiss sat calmly upright and viewed the excited citizens of Hammondsport as he sped by. [Illustration: THE EVOLUTION OF AN AVIATOR] [Illustration: (A) POST CARD SENT BY CURTISS TO HIS WIFE, JANUARY 24, 1907 (B) CURTISS MAKING WORLD'S MOTORCYCLE RECORD, ORMOND]