# April 28 1914 Bicycling and Motorcycle review



## sm2501

I just ran across this set of copies in my stash. Poor copies of copies, but interesting nevertheless.


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## sm2501

5 more...enjoy!


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## Oldnut

*Review*

Thanks if you like motorbikes this is gold---


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## tailhole

That's awesome!  Thanks!!!


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## bricycle

Much Thanks Scott, now I know I have the Emblem Special bike.


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## dave the wave

great info scott .thank you


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## chitown

*Super cool info!*

Thanks Scott for this glimpse at the birth of the Motorbike! A lot more players building moto's than I thought in 1914.


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## hoofhearted

*SCOTT ... thank you for posting your way-complete April 28, 1914 motorbike documentation.

Although I have made reference to these documents in several postings in The CABE (within related threads) 
i have never been able to produce digital hardcopy as you have just done. You're the best !!!*

..........  patric


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## sm2501

Here's a couple more pages of 1914 info from the Chicago Cycle Supply catalog...courtesy of geosbike.


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## carlitos60

*Very Interesting Info!!*

Very Interesting Info!!

*Wonder when did they stop making the California Style Bars???

*I Have a 22" and a 26" and They are Cool as He**!

Thanks!


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## fat tire trader

When was the "Big Boom Year"?


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## hoofhearted

fat tire trader said:


> When was the "Big Boom Year"?





*fat tire trader ... i'd have to say 1914 ... looks like all major U.S. bicycle manufacturers had a 
motorbike of sorts entered into a commercial venture, at that time ....*

Great Question !!!

......... patric


*fat tire trader .... THIS is for YOU ........*






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## fat tire trader

Its not 1914. It is referenced in the bottom of the second column of the 1914 article. My guess is that it was closer to the turn of the century.


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## hoofhearted

*fat tire trader ... i agree with you ... a "big boom year" of notoriety would hardly celebrate a modification 
to the diamond-frame bicycle .. creating a "bulldog" or "motorbike" by adding and/or bending a unit of frame 
tubing.   The (article-stated) "big boom year" certainly makes a reference to a time much earlier than 1914 ... 
TOC or earlier ...... but i can't venture a ghost of a guess on any particular year.

Maybe i'm overstating the significance of the 'motorbike' design ... just 'cause i likes it !!!  That "big boom year"
may simply refer to a year of bicycle production with respect to 'numbers' made ... celebrating at "The Altar of Quantity". 

Still ... a Great Question !!!*

............  patric






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## Balloontyre

fat tire trader said:


> When was the "Big Boom Year"?



Maybe it's a reference to the economy of 1896 and the crash?


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## bricycle

fat tire trader said:


> When was the "Big Boom Year"?




close to 1898.


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## Balloontyre

bricycle said:


> close to 1898.



Seems that by '98 most manufacturers were out of business or on the way out


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## bricycle

Balloontyre said:


> Seems that by '98 most manufacturers were out of business or on the way out




I just picked that date, because it seems that was when the bike field was most flooded... could be 1896?


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## Balloontyre

bricycle said:


> I just picked that date, because it seems that was when the bike field was most flooded... could be 1896?



Ya it was flooded, lots of used bikes and NOS bikes from previous years were offered in ads of '98. It could be '98, I'm just thinking after the economy went south in '96 there was likely a downturn of production and lots of overstock.


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## chitown

Balloontyre said:


> Seems that by '98 most manufacturers were out of business or on the way out




Or bought out by colonel Pope and the ABC... then shut down by Pope so he could eliminate his competition and sell the manufacturing equipment. He really picked a bad time to start a monopoly. The 90's was the beginning of the assembled bicycle and the end of the armory style that came before it. That's when there were hundreds of bicycle manufacturers. They used companies like Aurora Automatic Machinery for their lugs and Shelby tubing for the frames. The armory style of building needed huge facilities and massive machining capabilities. Western Wheel Works showed that stamped metal parts could be used at a fraction of the cost of castings or lath produced parts. Iver Johnson was one of the only companies that survived by producing everything in house. Even Westfield Mfg called itself an assembler of bikes in the late teens when they were testifying in front of congress in regards to tariffs.


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## hoofhearted

*If there was a big bicycle boom pre-1914 .. this typer believes that boom was related to at least 
two of the following three ...  The Safety Bicycle ... The Female, Drop-Top Tube Safety Bicycle ... 
The Dunlop Pneumatic Tire.*

Just can't assign a year.

..........  patric


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## fordsnake

The introduction of the motorcycle and the automobile were the pins that deflated the bicycle industry.

98% of pre 1900 were made for adults – a utilitarian mode of transportation! 

Once the motorcycle craze (post 1900) swept the country, almost every bike manufacture transition to making a motorcycle. The motorcycle trend quickly dissipated with the introduction of the automobile! Adults quickly adopted to sans physical exertion and luxury comfort. 

Once this behavior model became the excepted norm, (1905-1920's?) the bicycle market lost its glimmer!

Bike manufactures quickly looked for new avenues to sell product and found it in a younger market...promoting and selling to young boys! Bike designs quickly took on the styles of pseudo motorbikes, replicas of their Dad's or the big brothers' motorcycles.


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## fat tire trader

I agree with Patric, that the big boom year was a year when more bikes were produced than other years. Like I said before, I'm guessing that the year was closer to 1900, for the same reasons that Fordsnake states, although, those reasons I considered obvious and not worth mentioning. Sitting on my doorstep right now is a box containing a TOC Schwinn World tandem. I wonder what questions I will have once it is unboxed. I now own 4 TOC tandems, an Ide, a Rambler, a Columbus and now a Schwinn. I also have a Colson, a Schwinn Town and Country, a highly mountainbiked Schwinn Twin, a Rollfast and two Santana tandems. How many can I ride at once? I'm getting dizzy thinking about it.


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## Balloontyre

*A new thread catagory*

Pre Boom!! 

This thread is boomin with great stuff.


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## fordsnake




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## bricycle

Balloontyre said:


> Pre Boom!!
> 
> This thread is boomin with great stuff.




..hey Balloon, you have room for some pre-boom?


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## bricycle

thanks for setting the record straight Carlton.  

see, 1897 is "close to" 1898....
...but it's not Rare.......  oh, that was another thread....


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## fat tire trader

Now that is the answer that I was looking for 1897 Thanks!


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## catfish

Wow! Very cool info!!!! Thanks for posting this.


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## Balloontyre

sm2501 said:


> 5 more...enjoy!
> 
> View attachment 139020




what bike is the bottom right? under the Merkle


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## hoofhearted

Balloontyre said:


> what bike is the bottom right? under the Merkel



















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## Balloontyre

*Still trying to solve the mystery*

Schwinn yes, thank you.   What is the double bar on bottom left page 59?

No Meads...

Premier reads like a Mead ad, describes a ribbed fork. Here is a 1915 Crusader advanced circular clip showing the motorbike frame. Offered in various colors, unlike the Ranger brown only.

The schwinn, (No fork description)looks like the Ranger motorbike. 

 Come on readers, who's got a pic of 1915 Ranger motorbike with truss fork????


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## sm2501

This is from the 1915 catalog-


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## sm2501

Balloontyre said:


> Come on readers, who's got a pic of 1915 Ranger motorbike with truss fork????




Oh...you wanted a photo..not a catalog page. I won wondering why I was posting a cat pages that you already posted. 

Anyway, here's another page from another 1915 catalog.


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## wasp3245

*Great review of 1914*

Hello all 

 ABC   American Bicycle Company was formed in May 1899
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bicycle_Company
  with Albert Spaulding as the chief architect ...and he was ruthless.... 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalding_(sports_equipment)
 after ABC hit the skids Pope tried to pick up the pieces ...  but the slow death had set in .  

Bruce Epperson's  most excellent book  Peddling Bicycles to America    goes into great detail of all the back stabbing 
this is a must read if interested into American cycle history ...


http://books.google.com/books?id=2F...pperson&hl=en&sa=X&ei=d_UPU9GnCojR2QWxmYDIDw&
ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=bruce%20epperson&f=false

1893 Columbia Expo   and major railroad financial disaster  ... bike sales minimal, 94 moderate  increase , 95 huge demand as the economy improves  and cycling become cool within the upper society circles   ,,bicycle industry scrambles to build bikes  tubing shortage from England does not help..  96 production and sales continue up ...production out runs demand  97 ripples of troubles in the industry begin . Before ABC   Garford does the same type monopoly in the saddle industry... he becomes the saddle King and earns the  role helping Spaulding in forming  ABC. 

Problem the bikes built in 94-97 are just too darn good  you do not need to replace them annually....for that fact if maintained I understand folks still ride 110 year bikes! 
.1898 the big push to the next big thing to spur sales the Chainless......  and  the coaster brake late in the year ....     too little too late  prices fell through the floor ... the high luster attraction to  the bicycle was gone amongst the very rich as they now turned to automobiles,   the young and wild to motor bikes and the common man jumped on the street cars for a nickle ...

Much money was made and lost in the cycling world ....

Thank you for posting the 1914    literature ... great to see the variety of models offered .

Cheers Carey


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## hoofhearted

*Great Thread ... bee-bump-a-loo-la .. you can re-read ... just for the good it'll do ya .....*


..........  patric




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## Fowler1

bottom right, page 61! i need to know more info about that "America Truss Farme" and the  fork on it. any info is greatly greatly appreciated!!


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## nj_shore

I don't see any women's bicycles in the publications.  I just picked this up, any info on the model/year?


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## razinhellcustomz

bricycle said:


> close to 1898.



98 or 99 the year of my grand parents birth on my dad's side. Razin.


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## hoofhearted

*@sm2501 

Scott … would like to see this thread become
a stickie.  Wonderful and pertinent information
for the I.D. of those ''mystery'' units that have 
been popping up in recent years.

Thanks …..

….. patric*


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## cyclingday

Back when this was first posted, I would’ve never even dreamed that an original, Auto-Wheel would find its way into my hands.
It just goes to show, that you never know what is going to show up next.






Thanks, Patric, for refreshing this wonderful trip down memory lane.


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## creebobby

Way cool.
Does anybody know if the Excelsiors pictured are Schwinn or Original Michigan City?

Also, does anyone have scans of the complete Schwinn 1917 (or other teens) Excelsior catalog?


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## razinhellcustomz

fat tire trader said:


> I agree with Patric, that the big boom year was a year when more bikes were produced than other years. Like I said before, I'm guessing that the year was closer to 1900, for the same reasons that Fordsnake states, although, those reasons I considered obvious and not worth mentioning. Sitting on my doorstep right now is a box containing a TOC Schwinn World tandem. I wonder what questions I will have once it is unboxed. I now own 4 TOC tandems, an Ide, a Rambler, a Columbus and now a Schwinn. I also have a Colson, a Schwinn Town and Country, a highly mountainbiked Schwinn Twin, a Rollfast and two Santana tandems. How many can I ride at once? I'm getting dizzy thinking about it.



One at a time unless you decide to CLONE your self. Razin.


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## razinhellcustomz

cyclingday said:


> Back when this was first posted, I would’ve never even dreamed that an original, Auto-Wheel would find its way into my hands.
> It just goes to show, that you never know what is going to show up next.View attachment 1152572
> View attachment 1152573
> Thanks, Patric, for refreshing this wonderful trip down memory lane.



Are those Auto Wheels by chance made by Perry Wheel? I have a chrome Perry wheel from the late 50's -early 60's. Really cool looking wood wheel. Thanks for sharing. Razin. P.S. really nice bike too.


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## frank562

sm2501 said:


> 5 more...enjoy!
> 
> View attachment 139020
> View attachment 139021
> View attachment 139022
> View attachment 139023
> View attachment 139024



Many thanks for sharing it


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## Roger K

Great post. I can't identify the lower right bike on page 58, it's interesting since it shows a short lived fad where both the front and the rear sprocket were made larger for no apparent reason, the ratio stayed the same  

Some of the bikes would have been hard to identify as teens bikes - they look very TOC, like National model 163 on bottom left of page 63, it even had a wooden chainguard with ropes that I would date to about 1897


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## Archie Sturmer

Roger K said:


> I can't identify the lower right bike on page 58.



It looks like an *Excelsior Cycle *double bar, listed for $35; (not associated with A&S).
Another member posted a better scan of the same page 58, (somewhere on the CABE).



In the text, *Excelsior Cycle Co.* is mentioned on page 59, (in between the text for _Emblem Angola_ and _Iver Johnson_).
The sprockets look fairly typical, like 26-10, or so; with a _Fauber-like_ pattern in front.


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## catfish

Great info.


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## Redphantom

Scott this information is so valuable to me it’s my best data on these bikes I have! Thanks buddy your the information guru!!!! Keep it up P “Professor Scott”! Thanks again for your effort helps us all. Respectfully Rick


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## Roger K

I was mixing up the page numbers when I wondered about the bike with both front and rear sprockets enlarged, it's on page 59;


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## chitown

Roger K said:


> I was mixing up the page numbers when I wondered about the bike with both front and rear sprockets enlarged, it's on page 59;
> 
> View attachment 1734382





Looks like a Miami machine. Here are some from 1915/16 showing similar gearing.


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## Redphantom

sm2501 said:


> Here's a couple more pages of 1914 info from the Chicago Cycle Supply catalog...courtesy of geosbike.
> 
> View attachment 139066
> View attachment 139067



Scott thank you this information really opened up the era of mid teens. I was a TOC lover but these bikes are very cool 😎. I see why the more experienced collectors add them to there stable 😎👍😍Rick


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