When you ride your bike to work every day, certain sights become familiar. Sometimes, though, they're not the ones you anticipate.
If you live in a city, you probably see bikes parked in the same places every day. Some leave in the morning, on commutes to work or school. But others remain in the same spot and start to look like street fixtures.
This Royce Union three-speed has been parked on East 139th Street for three years, maybe more. I say two years because that's when I started riding along a route that includes the block on which the bike is parked.
The bike is from the mid-60s or thereabouts. I know that because I had a bike just like it--actually, the diamond frame, a.k.a. male, version. Also, mine was black and white. It was lovely but, oh, I would have loved the color of this one. (That tells you something about the kind of kid I was!)
Royce-Union started in England early in the 20th Century. Later, they started to manufacture bikes in the Netherlands and, by the 1960s, Japan. Later they would make their wares in Taiwan. I'm guessing that by now, their stuff is coming out of China or possibly Malaysia. You can more or less trace the geographical history of bicycle manufacture from the company's timeline!
Not surprisingly, those '60's bikes--like the one in the photos and the one I had so many years ago--were imitations of English three-speed . Whatever market existed for adult wheels in those pre-Bike Boom days was filled mainly by so-called "English Racers" from Raleigh, Dunelt and other British manufacturers and, to a lesser degree, similar bikes from Continental makers and Schwinn.
One detail of this bike I just love is the white saddle bag. My bike had a bag just like it, in black. The saddle was also like the one I see parked in the Bronx, but in black.
I also had to chuckle at the "RU" on the bag and saddle. I attended Rutgers University many years ago. Of course, many items pertaining to the school are emblazoned "RU", though in a very different style and color. I couldn't help but to wonder, though, whether the Royce Union had any non-standardized parts. In a way, I hope it doesn't, because I'd love to hear someone go into a bike shop and ask for an "RU Screw."
(You have to have gone to Rutgers to fully appreciate that one!)
I took Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear, out for a spin this morning. My plan was to finish before the worst of the heat and humidity we would experience this afternoon. I succeeded at that, and at avoiding the downpour that would end them.
My ride took me through, among other places, the non-hipster parts of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Believe it or not, they still exist, mainly south of the Williamsburg Bridge and east of Bedford Avenue. They are, in some ways, time-capsules of what this city was like, say, 40 years ago.
On this date in 1977, one of the most infamous blackouts in history darkened New York City. Brooklyn's Broadway, which cuts through the borough from the East River to East New York, incurred some of the most serious looting and arson that night in a city that was already suffering from a reputation for anarchy.
At that time, all of Williamsburg--and much of the rest of this city--bore more resemblance to today's South and East Williamsburg than it does to the nightlife capital to its north and west. Hipster-equivalents of that time never would have ventured into such a place: In fact, about the only young white people to be found were those who were born and raised there and hadn't gone to college, joined the military or gotten out in some other way. And, perhaps, a few punk-rockers and anti-establishment artists, who are practically the antithesis of hipsters.
You see, in the year Howard Cosell supposedly exclaimed, "The Bronx is Burning!", most residents of neighborhoods like Williamsburg were poor or blue-collar. If they were white (usually Italian, German or Irish) they weren't young. Those who were young, or even middle-aged, were likely to be Puerto Rican, Black or Hasidic Jews--like the folks who live in the non-hipster enclaves today.
I saw them on the streets today: the kids running and doing the kinds of things kids do everywhere when school's out. Their mothers were never more than a few steps away, propped against poles or fences or sitting on stoops in front of the houses.
Even with the hipsters nowhere to be seen, I saw plenty of bikes. Some were being ridden, mainly by folks like me who were pedaling through the neighborhood. Others were chained to parking meters, signposts and other immovable objects. Ironically, they might have been new--or, at least, not more than a few years old--during the days to which I've alluded, but I probably would not have seen them because, in those days, there were relatively few cyclists in this city, and almost none in neighborhoods like the ones I've mentioned.
I saw this French ten-speed bike from around the mid-1970's as I spun down Franklin Avenue:
Paris Sport was a "house" brand for bikes imported by Park Cycle and Sports of Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. They were made by several French manufacturers, most commonly Dangre-Starnord, a company based in Valenciennes (a northern French town along the Paris-Roubaix race route) that also sold bikes under the France-Sport and Nord-Star brands.
So it's not surprising that the bike resembles machines from Gitane, Jeunet and Mercier made in that era. What I found interesting, though, were some of the apparent changes.
The reason this bike caught my eye was the Sun Tour bar end shifters ("Barcons"). One rarely sees them on any bike parked on a New York street, and they certainly were not original equipment on the bike. More likely, the bike had shifters on the down tube or handlebar stem, and they probably would have been made by Huret, the manufacturer of the "Svelto" derailleur that probably is orignial equipment.
Seeing Weinmann "Vainqueur" centerpull brakes on a French bike is not unusual. However, if you look closely, you will see that the "yoke" that pulls on the straddle cable is not Weinmann's. This one looks clunkier, and the cable hangers on the steerer tube and seat bolt are thinner than the ones that usually came with Weinmann brakes. The hangers look like they could be Mafac, but may have been from CLB, whose brakes and fitments (except for their later "Professional" sidepulls) looked like cruder versions of Mafac's offerings.
I am guessing that someone simply replaced parts as they needed replacing, or simply didn't have the money to do a complete "makeover". (I mean, what else would explain such good shift levers with such ordinary derailleurs?) I am also guessing that whoever rides the bike now "inherited" it from somebody and has no idea of what I'm talking about.
The same might be said for this bike parked a few blocks away:
It's the first time I've seen a Royce Union--or, for that matter, any bike with a chainguard like that--in such a color.
It looks like the same model as (or one similar to) the Royce Union three-speed my grandfather gave me about three years before I could ride it. Like my old bike, it was made in Japan. But the color--and the head tube that could have passed for aluminum if not for the rust spots--reminded me of a bike I often saw a couple of decades later:
The Vitus 979 was, of course, one of the first widely-ridden aluminum frames. It was available in anodized blue, green, gold, red, purple and the pink shown in the above photo. As much as I love the other colors, whenever someone mentions the Vitus 979, that rose hue is the first that comes to my mind.
Somehow I doubt that the Royce Union came with such a finish. I suspect that the bike had once been purple or magenta, or perhaps even red, and had faded--a common fate for the paint on Japanese bikes of the time.
At least it's being used, or looks as if it is, if not by its original owner--who may or may not have lived in the neighborhood the night the lights went out.
I'm going to start making good on a sort-of-promise that I made (or was it a promise I sort-of-made) in the early days of this blog: I'm going to write posts about the bikes I've owned and, perhaps, a few that I've ridden and haven't owned.
My bikes probably won't appear chronologically, or according to any other kind of scheme. However, I do plan to make a list of posts of my bikes past, and make that list available on the sidebar of this blog.
I've been looking through my old photos for some images of my old rides. Now I just need to buy a scanner, or find one that I can use somewhere. I don't have photos of some of my bikes; for those, I'll use old catalogue illustrations or borrow photos from other websites.
If any of you have a time machine, I'll go back and take photos of my old bikes. So far, I figure that I've had about sixty bikes during my lifetime.
In case you're interested, here are some links to posts I've already written about pedals past:
Royce-Union Three-Speed
Nishiki International
Schwinn Continental
Romic Sport-Tourer
Bridgestone RB-2
I don't know how long it will be before I post all of my old bikes on this blog, but I intend to do so. I hope that you'll continue coming here, not just for those posts, but for all of the scintillating wit and wisdom I plan to write in between them.
