William Chadeayne

William Chadeayne was an early long-distance motorcyclist from Buffalo, New York. He set a transcontinental record for North America in 1905, going from New York City to San Francisco in 47 and a half days. He was an officer of the Thomas Auto-Bi company and rode one of their motorcycles on the transcontinental record-setting trip.

The 1905 transcontinental journey took place between September 13 and October 30, 1905. He described the roads even east of the Mississippi as "unspeakably vile ... seas of mud or oceans of sand", taking exactly two weeks to arrive in Chicago. There were insufficient roads in America at the time to beat the previous record set by George A. Wyman two years earlier, so Chadeayne rode on railroad tracks six or seven hundred miles. In the portion from Ogden, Utah to San Francisco he was nearly killed by a train.

The motorcycle he rode was a 3 horsepower (2.2 kW), single-cylinder 1906 model year Auto-Bi which cost $145 new.

The trip was recognized as the second transcontinental motorcycle trip in North America, and one of the first ten by any form of motor vehicle.