Leaving Waterloo

Sheldon Brown dubbed the quarter-century or so following World War II as the "Dark Ages" of US Cycling. Few adults cycled and nearly all of them were clustered around a few cities.  So, perhaps not surprisingly, high-quality cycling gear was difficult to come by, as nearly all American bicycle manufacturing consisted of bikes for kids.  Those tiny number of shops and mail-order companies that offered high-end parts and bikes, as often as not, ordered them for their customers from Europe or a few companies in the US.

As for the bikes:  Some frame builders, like Dick Power of Queens, New York (who, interestingly, sponsored and mentored female riders) and George Olemenchuk of Detroit, turned out some well-crafted machines that rode well. But they made small numbers of frames that rarely, if ever, were ridden by cyclists beyond their immediate environs.  Quite possibly the only nationally-availabe, US-made, world-class (Did I use enough modifying phrases?) bike was Schwinn's aptly-named Paramount. But you couldn't buy one of the showroom floor--unless, of course, your local Schwinn dealer stocked one (and if they did, the probably stocked only one) and it happened to be the right size for you.

1971 Schwinn Paramount

 

Then came the 1970s "Bike Boom."  High-quality racing and touring bikes from England, France, Italy and Japan appeared even in small-town bike shops.  Some might debate that they had ride qualities that the Paramount lacked, but few argued that the workmanship of those imported bikes was better. But they--especially the Japanese bikes--offered much better value for the money, as the Paramount's price doubled within three years.

More to the point, though, the newly-available bikes made Paramounts, as nice as the were, seem stodgy.  And, according to people in the industry, the Paramount's production facilities and methods were dated.  Moreover, by the end of the decade, a number of American custom frame builders like Albert Eisentraut and Bruce Gordon were turning out bikes that rivaled those of their overseas counterparts.

So, in 1980 Paramount production moved to a new facility in Waterloo, Wisconsin.  (Not long after, much of Schwinn's other production shifted from Chicago to Mississippi.) These changes occurred around the same time Schwinn ownership and management shifted to a new generation. But the company failed to keep up with changes in the industry--they were late to the mountain bike and very late to the BMX game--and declared bankruptcy for the first time in 1991.

In the wake of those developments, two members of that new management generation--Richard Schwinn and Marc Muller--took over the Paramount facility and started a company familiar to a generation of American bike enthusiasts:  Waterford.  It focused on building, essentially, updated custom versions of the Paramount:  hand-crafted lugged frames from Reynolds, Tange or other high-quality alloy steel tubing.  Later, they added another line of bikes--Gunnar--with TIG-welded steel frames that weren't available in custom sizes or colors.

A late-model Waterford

Last month, Schwinn and Muller announced that Waterford/Gunnar was closing up shop.  The reason, they said is that they and several other key employees are retiring. They fulfilled their remaining orders and sold the building.  This Saturday, the 24th, there will be a "farewell" ride beginning at the factory, where there will be an "open house."  On that day, an online auction will begin.  Running until 10 July, there won't be many frames or forks available for sale.  But it might be a good source for current or aspiring builders or manufacturers or a collector with "an interest in something from the legendary Waterford factory," according to the company.

The First—To Be Recognized

On this date 50 years ago, two baseball teams took to the field.  The game they would play would have little bearing on league standings:  One team held a comfortable lead in its division; the other was fighting to stay out of last place.

Two players,  however, noticed that something was different.  Pittsburgh Pirates’ catcher Manny Sanguillen recalls that his teammate Dave Cash alerted him that something unprecedented was happening.  “We have nine brown players on the field,” Sanguillen, a native of Panama, said to himself.

A quarter-century after Jackie Robinson became the first known* Black player in Major League Baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates—who would win the World Series that year—fielded an entirely nonwhite lineup against their cross-state rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies.

I am mentioning that milestone on this blog because some have accused cycling of having a “color problem.”  I don’t disagree, though I believe the “problem” is different from what is commonly perceived.

If you look at images of cyclists in advertising and other media, you might come to the conclusion that cycling is “a white thing” or that “Blacks don’t ride.”

Just as African Americans have been playing baseball for as long as the game has existed (and Latin Americans for nearly as long), black and brown (and yellow and red) people have been riding almost since the first bicycles were made.  

Anyone familiar with the history of cycling knows about Major Taylor, the first Black cycling World Champion.  There have been other Black and Brown elite riders in the century since Taylor‘s victory, but they haven’t received the recognition, let alone the money, of white champions—including some who won by, ahem, questionable methods. Their lower visibility causes bike makers and related companies to conclude that people darker than themselves don’t mount.

If you live in any large US city, the kids riding BMX in the park are more than likely not to be White.  So are the folks who deliver portfolios or pizzas—or go to work in stores, warehouses or other places—by bicycle.

Oh, and I’ve seen more than a few groups, formally organized or not, of Black or Hispanic people, riding to train or just for fun. In fact, when I was a regular off-rode rider, I pedaled singletrack and local trails with a “posse” in which I was the only White rider.

The thing is, such riding usually goes unnoticed by those who form the public images of cyclists,  just as great Black and Latin American hitters and pitchers—who were at least the equal of their White counterparts—remained as invisible as most Little Leaguers when they played in the Negro Leagues rather than the self-appointed Major Leagues.

*—I have enormous respect for Jackie Robinson. But it’s entirely possible that he wasn’t the first Black Major League Baseball player: Others, including Babe Ruth himself, were rumored to be Negroes who passed as white.

Why I Still Can Say I'm In Midlife

 Could it be that bicycling has an even longer history than we realized?

From Teeshirtpalace

Worth Its Weight In...

A few days ago, someone paid $5.2 million for a LeBron James trading card from his rookie year.  While I cannot understand paying that much money for a piece of cardboard, I am not surprised:  Basketball, more than any other team sport, focuses attention on individual stars.  And Le Bron James is arguably the brightest of the 21st Century, much as Michael Jordan, "Magic" Johnson and Julius "Dr. J" Erving were the luminaries of their times.

Of course, if someone can afford to spend that much money on a card, well, who am I to tell them they shouldn't?  I suppose that if I had that much money, I probably would--after I helped people I want to help--develop some collection or another.  And some people would wonder why in the world I was collecting whatever it was I was collecting.

If I were collecting bicycles...hmm...would I want classics?   Bikes from a particular country or region?  Genre?  Color?  Or would I concentrate on really obscure bikes, or ones that were not meant to be ridden?

In that last category might be this machine:

Photo by Lisa Powell, for the Springfield News-Sun

The color on the frame didn't come from a Krylon rattle-can. (Aside:  Graffiti artists don't like Krylon. Don't ask how I know that!)  In fact, it didn't come from any can or brush.  It is actual gold.  

To be exact, it's 14 karat gold plating on a chromed frame.  Very few bikes are chromed these days because it's expensive and some jurisdictions have made it all but impossible to do because of its environmental impact.  Also, if not done properly, it's worse than leaving the metal bare.

Even fewer bikes have ever been plated with gold.  For a time, some Campagnolo parts were available with gold plating; a few bike makers made special-edition machines--sometimes one-offs--with the shiny yellow stuff.  In 1972-73, Lambert of England offered its bike built from "aircraft tubing" with gold plating--for $259.95.  Soon afterward, the price of gold skyrocketed and Lambert discontinued those bikes--which, I am sure, are collector's items.

Most other gold-plated bikes were from makers at the very top end of the food chain.  Note that I said "most":  The bike in the photo is not anywhere near that level.

It is, in fact, a Huffy--the millionth bike produced by the company, on 13 May 1947.

The bike is on display in the Dayton Cyclery Building its namesake city's Carillon Park.  Other bikes in the museum pay homage to Miami Valley's history as a bicycle-making center.  Fabricators included a couple of young men who would parlay their knowledge and skills into another invention that would change the world.

Their names were Orville and Wilbur.  They used, not only the expertise in machinery they gleaned from building and repairing bikes, but what they learned about aerodynamics from different bike designs and riding positions. 

Hmm...I wonder what the Wright Brothers thought about Huffy bikes.  From what I've read, Huffy--known in those days as Huffman--bikes were actually respectable.

Piercing Its Facade

This post will do something that, to my knowledge, few if any other pieces of writing have done:  mention an early bicycle suspension system and a French ladies' utility bicycle from the 1960s or 1970s.

That wasn't my original intention, but in the admittedly-cursory research I did, the two topics became entangled.

How did I start on this path (pun intended)? Well, a few days ago I saw this

parked around the corner from my apartment.

At first glance, it looks like any number of French ladies' utility/city bikes of its time:  The swept-down top lateral tubes lend it a grace most "beast" bikes don't have.   That detail distinguihes somewhat from the mixte bikes that made their way to the US during the 1970s Bike Boom.  Those bikes--like the Peugeot UO8 mixte--had straight twin lateral tubes.  As a result, bikes like the U08 had slightly tighter geometry than bikes like the one in this post, which gave them a somewhat sprightlier ride.

You can still find plenty of bikes like the one in my photos parked on Paris streets and all over France:  they were, and still are, for many French women what classic British three-speeds were for generations of women riding to work, the marketplace or the park in much of the Anglophone world.

But I knew, right away, something was odd about this bike.  One give-away was the "Belle de Paris" decal on the downtube:  I mean, if you saw that in a movie, you'd think it was a joke.  No French bike maker would have given such a name to a bike it planned to sell in France--or to anyone who knows anything about French bikes!

(I think now of the car Renault sold as "Le Car" in the US.  Even if you don't know or care about anything French, you just had to roll up your eyes on seeing that!)

Another odd thing about the bike is the brand name:  Pierce-Arrow.  As far as I know, there never was a French bike-maker by that name.  And then there's this:

Some of the Motobecanes imported early in the US Bike Boom had fork crown caps stamped with the telltale "M" emblem.  Also, some bikes made by Motobecane and sold under other names--like Astra--bore it.

And, of course, Motobecane made many bikes like this one:  Of all French manufacturers, it's likely that only Peugeot made more.  So, I surmised--correctly, my research would confirm--that I was looking at a Motobecane rebadged as "Pierce-Arrow".

So what of Pierce-Arrow?

Anyone who knows anything about the history of luxury automobiles knows the name.  Heck, even I knew about them!  Before World War II, they had a cache on par with the revered names of today like Rolls-Royce and Mercedes Benz.  And, like most other auto manufacturers of the time--and a few that survive today (think of Peugeot and Ford)--Pierce-Arrow was a bicycle-maker before it manufactured cars (and, in Pierce's and Peugeot's case, motorcycles).  And, in another interesting parallel with Peugeot, Pierce began as an industrial company that manufactured a variety of items (Yes, that peppermill was made by the same company that made the PX-10!) before venturing into wheeled goods.

George N. Pierce started his company in Buffalo, NY in 1872.  In 1890, at the dawn of the first "Bike Boom," Pierce produced its first bicycles.  They quickly developed a reputation for quality and elegance as well as elegance.  As per the latter, the company offered one of the early "ladies'" models of safety bicycle, with a graceful tube that swept down from the head tube.  

Seamless joint. From 1897 Pierce Bicycle catalogue.

As for technical innovations, they contributed two that would influence later bicycle develpment.  According to their 1897 catalogue, their frames had seamless joints achieved by "fittings inside one tube and shaped to fit snugly around the opposite tube."  This can be seen as a predecessor of both lugged and fillet-brazed joints:  the joining methods used to this day on most high-quality steel frames.  

Pierce Cushion Frame, 1901

The other?  One of the earliest frame suspension systems.  In 1898, their Cushion Frame line featured a shock absorber on the post connecting the rear axle to the seat pillar.  Hmm...I think I saw something like that on a few mountain bikes--in 1998, or thereabouts!

Anyway, Pierce continued to make bicycles until 1918, when the Emblem Manufacturing company in the nearby community of Angola acquired them.  Emblem continued to produce bicycles until 1940--ironically, two years after Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company ceased to exist.

Now, from what I've gleaned, the company's bicycles were never called Pierce-Arrow.  That appelation was reserved for cars. Bicycles and motorcycles were always called "Pierce."  The Pierce-Arrow name, however, would be conflated with Pierce bicycles--possibly because of the arrow in Pierce's emblem.  In the years after the last Pierce bicycles were made, at least one distributor sold bicycles rebadged as "Pierce-Arrow."  To my knowledge, no bicycle manufacturer ever made a "Pierce Arrow" line of bikes:  That label was a creation of the distributor/importer, just as "Nishiki," "Azuki," "Centurion," "Shogun" and "Univega" were.  (Although those bikes were made in Japan, you can't buy one with any of those names in the Land of the Rising Sun.)  Apparently, the distributor was banking on the residual cache of the "Pierce Arrow" name.

Don't you just love the fender details?  I think Velo Orange's "Facette" fenders were inspired by these, or something like them.

So...whoever bought the bike I saw parked in my neighborhood may have thought he or she was getting some connection to a classic car.  Instead, he or she got something like what a madame would have pedaled to school, work, the market or to her relatives in the next village or arrondissement.  

Reflecting Phantoms and Sting Rays

Some Christians celebrate today, the 6th of January, as the Epiphany.  It's the day after the Twelfth Night of Christmas, so this day is often regarded as the end of the Christmas season.

While some folks take down their Christmas trees and decorations the day after the holiday, or on New Year's Day, I've known many others who put away their holiday decorations on this date.  Also, many decorations in public places like shopping malls and town squares are removed on or around this date.

Such places include the Atlas Park, about 10 kilometers from my apartment.  It's an open-air mall very similar in design to European Village of Palm Coast, Florida.  Both opened around the same time:  just in time for the financial crisis of 2007-2008.  But while EV was built on previously undeveloped land, AP was constructed on the site of Atlas Terminal Industrial Park, which once housed General Electric, Kraft, Westinghouse and New York Telephone as well as other manufacturers.

I don't know whether any Christmas decorations were ever made there.  In the confines of ATIP, however, a company made functional objects that could have served as tree or window ornaments:

If you're of, ahem, a certain age, you might have ridden a bike equipped with those reflectors.  You might still have them, or these:

Gulco "6 pie" reflector, above and below.

6

Schwinns and other bikes from the 1940s through the 1970s came with Gulco reflectors.  Sometimes the company's information was engraved on the metal backing:  Charles Gulotta Company (hence Gulco) of Glendale, New York.  

We all know that modern reflectors and lights do their jobs better than their earlier counterparts.  But you have to admit, those old lights and reflectors had style, or at least character, you just don't find in the new stuff.

Bikes from the 1940s and 1950s used the "bubble" or "jewel" reflectors, while Sting Rays and "muscle" bikes from the 1960s and 1970s came with "2 pie" or "6 pie" reflectors.   All fetch premium prices on eBay.  So does the special bracket that attached "6 pie" reflectors to "banana" seats on Sting Rays.

The small "jewel" reflectors were sometimes attached to the end of leather strips wrapped around hub shafts.  Hipsters and other urban fixed-gear riders sometimes replicate those "hub shiners" on their new machines.

Gulotta/Gulco didn't make reflectors only for bicycles.  The smaller ones were often used to attach license plates to cars and motorcycles; other "shiners" were also found on boats, trucks and other vehicles.

During the 1970s, Japanese bicycles found popularity among American cyclists.  Much about them was equal or superior to their American and European counterparts:  the lug work was often cleaner (at least on the lower- and middle-priced bikes), the SunTour and Shimano derailleurs were easier to shift and more precise and the bikes  represented better overall values for the money.  The Cateye reflectors that came with Fujis, Nishikis, Miyatas and other Japanese bikes were brighter, lighter in weight and sturdier (or at least less delicate).

I tried to obtain information on how long Gulotta/Gulco continued to manufacture.  All I could find were reports that "Charles Gulotta Co Inc" was first registered as a business name in 1925; a trademark application was filed in 1960, approved the following year and renewed in 1981 and "dead/cancelled" in 2002.  So, my guess is that Gulotta/Gulco was making reflectors--though, possibly, not bike-specific ones--into the 1980s, and possibly the 1990s.  By 2000, Atlas was no longer functioning as an industrial facility.

If you're restoring a Schwinn Phantom or Sting Ray, it simply wouldn't be complete without the right reflector--made in my neighborhood, more or less!