# twin bar



## Balloontyre (Jul 29, 2013)

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?sbk=1&nav=SEARCH&itemId=261252124858


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## Freqman1 (Jul 29, 2013)

That's a lot of money + $219 shipping? for a lot of wrong/missing parts. V/r Shawn


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## Iverider (Jul 30, 2013)

Still cheaper than the broken frame BBC has up for sale. 

At least the BBC Twinbar includes the bottom bracket shroud and head shroud.


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## babyjesus (Jul 30, 2013)

Balloontyre said:


> http://item.mobileweb.ebay.com/viewitem?sbk=1&nav=SEARCH&itemId=261252124858




Most beautiful frame ever - even in their simplest and most minimal form they are beautiful. The twinbar frame is a wonderful mix of streamlined art deco and yet minimalism - 2 almost contrasting qualities that work brilliantly together. I don't know if the tanks and rack pods do the frame justice or not. But the shrouds, dual lights, crank pods look perfect - but as with this bike on ebay which has basically nothing left on it, it looks beautiful nonetheless in it's minimal simplicity. A frame with so few joins. Fantastic - it's no wonder they were a best seller even for the adults I do believe. 
The whole adding a tank idea was a bit of a sad sellout to keep up with the mainstream desire for tanks and kids wanting bikes that looked like motorbikes - not to say the tanks are that bad but they take away from the minimal quality of the double parallel bar with looptail and only 4 joins at the head. I love looptails on these and Colsons, Mercury  - ok I'm getting over excited 

....yeah it seems to be a bit over the mark pricewise


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## Freqman1 (Jul 30, 2013)

babyjesus said:


> Most beautiful frame ever - even in their simplest and most minimal form they are beautiful. The twinbar frame is a wonderful mix of streamlined art deco and yet minimalism - 2 almost contrasting qualities that work brilliantly together. I don't know if the tanks and rack pods do the frame justice or not. But the shrouds, dual lights, crank pods look perfect - but as with this bike on ebay which has basically nothing left on it, it looks beautiful nonetheless in it's minimal simplicity. A frame with so few joins. Fantastic - it's no wonder they were a best seller even for the adults I do believe.
> The whole adding a tank idea was a bit of a sad sellout to keep up with the mainstream desire for tanks and kids wanting bikes that looked like motorbikes - not to say the tanks are that bad but they take away from the minimal quality of the double parallel bar with looptail and only 4 joins at the head. I love looptails on these and Colsons, Mercury  - ok I'm getting over excited
> 
> ....yeah it seems to be a bit over the mark pricewise




I agree Marc. Nearly every bike in my collection is a top-of-the-line, deluxe model except for my Twin 20. Like I said in a previous post regarding these, this is simply a case of where less is more. Once you get to the 40, 50, 60 of this model its just too much crap hanging on it that ruins the elegant design--my opinion anyway! V/r Shawn


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## babyjesus (Jul 31, 2013)

Freqman1 said:


> I agree Marc. Nearly every bike in my collection is a top-of-the-line, deluxe model except for my Twin 20. Like I said in a previous post regarding these, this is simply a case of where less is more. Once you get to the 40, 50, 60 of this model its just too much crap hanging on it that ruins the elegant design--my opinion anyway! V/r Shawn




I totally agree - and you gotta real nice one there - in my opinion those are the best colours - infact what you have may well be the nicest model although I do love the dual lights on the front - I have a very similar one with dual lights, almost identical, just with dual lights - and it's possibly my favourite bike.  The thing about twinbars is they have presence.  They just do - in real life they are impressive, whereas something like a twinflex looks great in photos and in person but they just don't strike you the same way when you see them in real life.  Twinflexes look almost better in photos.  Thats obviously just my taste and little example but regardless, there are bikes which really have a powerful impression in real life and twinbars surely do - I've heard others say the same thing.

I agree the higher ones have too many parts hanging off them.  As it happens I have every single one except the twin 30 and I have a few of the 4 star deluxe cuz that's my fave although I might prefer it without the pod/rack.  To be fair on the others though, the twin 40 is stunning, it has a very simple shroud with built in light giving it a more minimal look than a 20 even because it hasn't as light on the front fender - here's mine:





...and also to be fair the shroud on a T60 is nothing short of streamline art deco beauty as is the T40/T50 shroud:








....they really are stunning pieces, but the tank, albeit a beautiful piece of metal unto itself is just cluttering the rest of the bike.  A T50 is just a T40 with a tank and some other possible bluebird part upgrades but it doesn't better the 40 in my opinion.  

Shawn, your T20 is a real beauty - I just love the way the colours are put on and I like steel pinstriped fenders in a way more than the aluminium ones just because pintriping is a more artistic way to decorate a bike over just plain shiny parts. 

I really do love the twinbars


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## jkent (Jul 31, 2013)

I can't believe the bike on EBay is bringing that strong of money when I was hard pressed to get $950 shipped out of mine and it was in a lot better shape. But then again I sold mine here on the Cabe.


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## Freqman1 (Jul 31, 2013)

The Twin 20 I posted above was bought here on the CABE in March of 2012 for $875 shipped! Like I said in a post eleswhere here on the CABE I've seen some bikes really pick up steam to include the Twin Bar bikes, Robins, and just about all pre war Huffmans. V/r Shawn


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## babyjesus (Aug 1, 2013)

jkent said:


> I can't believe the bike on EBay is bringing that strong of money when I was hard pressed to get $950 shipped out of mine and it was in a lot better shape. But then again I sold mine here on the Cabe.
> View attachment 106852




Nice T20 - I am suprised how high the prices for twinbars are these days.  The fact you got 950 for yours is impressive - I mean that's serious money.  10 years ago you wouldn't have got 400 for it so I guess we can safely say the value of twinbars has doubled.  Not that I'm in it for the money in any way shape of form (I can't even sell a bike if I try).  I must say I'm kind of glad I spent money on bikes the last 10 years and not dinners in fancy restaurants.  At the end of the day my collection should be worth a fair bit - if I just think about the twinbars alone it's not bad. My first twinbar was a restored T20 just like Shawn's beautiful red and white one - it was the same almost and I got it for 425 bucks.  I got an unrestored one also about 8 years ago with all the parts except the pod/rack and dual lights (it has a dual light type shroud) for just short of 350 and although the dual lights and pod/rack are tricky and pricey parts, I still ended up with a complete 4* deluxe for about 700 bucks.  I also remember again about 7 or 8 years ago bicyclebones won an auction for an untouched good condition complete 4* deluxe in burgundy and cream for 720 bucks - stunning bike which needed only a set of inner tubes and possibly new tires.  Such a bike now is worth about triple that. 

I conclude twinbars have doubled in value since 2003/2004/2005  - I think they were always under appreciated because they don't have tanks - but that is starting to change.


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