On this date, December 30, 1912, Lee Humiston, using a 1,000 cc twin cylinder chain driven Excelsior circled the banked one-mile oval track at Prince’s Playa del Rey, California in 36 seconds flat to become the first motorcyclist in the world “officially” timed at 100 mph.
One week after his milestone accomplishment, “The Humiston Comet,” as he was promptly nicknamed by the press, surpassed Jake DeRosier’s record for 100 miles, trimming nearly seven and a half minutes from the fatally injured rider’s best time. Excelsior had won the race to the magic 100 mph mark and they had smashed the Indian-held record for the 100-mile distance as well.
The publicity was enormous. Every school boy in America knew that a man had traveled at 100 miles per hour on a motorcycle, and that he had accomplished this feat on an Excelsior built in Chicago.
