A Minnesota man has been reunited with his 1938 NSU 251 OSL, nearly 56  years after the German motorcycle sank to the bottom of a lake.

In 1956, Wyman Ailie bought the motorcycle for his then-15-year-old son Dean from a farmer who brought the bike back with him from Germany during World War II. That December, Dean Ailie went for a ride with his friends and on his way home, decided to take a shortcut across the frozen surface of Big Swan Lake in Dassel, Minn.

He had taken that route safely on the way out, but the way home was a different story. The ice cracked underneath him, and rider and motorcycle fell into the water. According to reports, air trapped in Ailie’s leather jacket buoyed him up to the surface where he was rescued by a pair of nearby fishermen. The NSU however was lost to the lake. Continue Reading »

This week is catchup time for Track Facts. Four tracks of the Moto GP 2009 Season will be covered in this installment. Sachsenring, Donington Park, Automotodrom Brno and Indianapolis.

Hit the jump for all the details.

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Here at Motorcycle.com, we spend an awful lot of time searching out and covering stories about the motorcycles that will shape the future of the industry. Sometimes it is also a good idea to turn around and look back at just how far we’ve come. The first known motorcycle in existence was constructed back in 1885 by German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach near Stuttgart. Essentially a motorized wooden bicycle, the Reitwagen, (riding car) as it was called, was the first petroleum-powered transportation device.

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