# Hyslop motorbike, 1922



## ccmerz (Jan 10, 2017)

This 28" motorbike is the only tank bike ever produced by a Canadian company.  There are no known examples.  I want to create this model using existing parts as closely as possible. It appears parts were sourced from US companies. Westfield?  Dayton?  I do have an early Elgin motorbike frame/fork as well as all other parts needed relevant for the build, except the chain ring/crank assembly and of course, no cigar tank, which I can fab. Finding the chain ring may be a problem. Who made this? There were many close variations of it made.  Thoughts?


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## ccmerz (Jan 10, 2017)

closeup of the bike


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## hoofhearted (Jan 10, 2017)

*Found the 1922 Hyslop catalog on google.

I wish the best good fortune to you in your
quest to replicate this machine.  

Personally I cannot identify anything about
this machine ... the illustration is waaay small, 
and the only image offered is the classic side-
shot.

I can gather no information about the o.d. of the
undertank bar ... details regarding that truss-fork ...
thicknesses of fender-bridges .. and the manner
in which the tubes are connected to one-another.

Can't even get a decent ''read'' on those fenders ...
are they the early, ''flat'' style ? ... Or maybe they
have the half-inch ''dropside'' feature.

The chainring is a Miami product ... available in 
26-T .. 28-T .. and 30-T.

The most difficult to find is the 26-T version.

......... patric cafaro*






ETHERNET IMAGE.

Have been collecting exotic badges, unusual forks and
seldom-seen chainrings ... since 1982.

The ONLY EXAMPLE of the above chainring that I had
in my collection, was spoken for by a fellow collector,
maybe five days ago.


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## ccmerz (Jan 10, 2017)

The fenders are the 1" drop side type. That is certainly the correct ring.  As far as all other related parts are concerned, I will assemble these as close to what the catalogue description is. That's all I can do. It's going to be a representation, nothing more, but the correct chain ring will be important! The project will not more forward without it.  As for the frame/truss, I am good with the Elgin of the period as a platform.


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## New Mexico Brant (Jan 10, 2017)

Very cool bike!  Good luck.  Have you tried running ads in the Waterloo county area?  The Mennonite folk from Pennsylvania that moved up there in the 19th century kept everything.  Years ago I picked some great material from that region...


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## Goldenindian (Jan 10, 2017)

Saved these from the web


 


Looks Davis sewing machine manufactured.
Not saying it's the same one in the ad...but still


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## David Brown (Jan 11, 2017)

I live in the Waterloo county Area and have never seen a Hyslop bike come up for sale . But that does not mean there are non out there ..


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## locomotion (Jan 11, 2017)

Hyslop sprocket


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## locomotion (Jan 11, 2017)

https://archive.org/details/hyslopbicycles00hysluoft


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## ccmerz (Jan 11, 2017)

So, this bike is a Hyslop, based on the chain ring, or just correct for this bike, as in not a Hyslop part, but supplied to the company and made elsewhere. Yea.....


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## locomotion (Jan 11, 2017)

Elusive Hyslop history since 1889!


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## hoofhearted (Jan 11, 2017)

*

Please do a CABE search  >>>  Vintage Head Badges Photos <<<
initiated  by Catfish.

When you find that thread ... drop down to Entry # 27 ... there you
find a wonderful champlevé Hyslop Brothers badge ... posted by
CABE member ...  ccmerz .

Interestingly ... if the viewer looks with a keen eye ... he / she can 
see a similar badge-perimeter shape ... to badges that  enjoy a 
reputation of also having a most-unusual perimeter.

Am speaking of the Schwinn Liberty ... the Davis-Built, Sear's Victor ...
and a hardware-store badge, The Famous.

Am still using my wife's computer ... and it will not allow me to post
the champlevé Hyslop Brothers badge ... originally posted by ccmerz.

Maybe someone can and will repost this beautiful badge.

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





 




 





 


*


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## ccmerz (Jan 11, 2017)

No one seems to know what make this bike is with 2 3/4" vertical hole spacing. As for the other image of the black Hyslop Motorbike, it's odd that the integrated truss rods at the top are far apart. Shouldn't they be conjoined for that time frame.


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## locomotion (Jan 11, 2017)

ccmerz said:


> So, this bike is a Hyslop, based on the chain ring, or just correct for this bike, as in not a Hyslop part, but supplied to the company and made elsewhere. Yea.....View attachment 408160 View attachment 408161 View attachment 408162




who knows!


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## hoofhearted (Jan 11, 2017)

*
The correct title of the Catfish thread is ... Vintage Head Badges Photos ...

Entry # 27 ... posted by ccmerz ... shows a dynamic Hyslop Brothers champlevé badge.

Still using my wife's computer ... which does not allow for the capture and posting of fotos that I would like to post.

Who among the CABE readers will go after the foto of the badge in Entry # 27 ... and post it in this thread ??

..........  patric

*


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## bicycle larry (Jan 11, 2017)

ccmerz said:


> So, this bike is a Hyslop, based on the chain ring, or just correct for this bike, as in not a Hyslop part, but supplied to the company and made elsewhere. Yea.....View attachment 408160 View attachment 408161 View attachment 408162



I like your bike ken ,its super nice .  from bicycle larry


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## Dale Alan (Jan 11, 2017)

Here is the pic from #27.


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## hoofhearted (Jan 11, 2017)

Dale Alan said:


> Here is the pic from #27.





*Thank you - Dale Alan .. of Northern NY.

But am afraid I have lost hope in Canadian CABErs ...
none of which helped with my personal request to be 
helpful in this thread ... helpful in a way that would 
benefit Canadians in a Hyslop Brothers thread.

As a collector from SW Ohio ... I really don't give two
hoots in a row about Canadian bicycles.

Patric Cafaro*


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## barracuda (Jan 11, 2017)

Goldenindian said:


> Looks Davis sewing machine manufactured.




Vancouver Daily World, Dec., 1921, looks to be running a Smith motor wheel:





After bikes, Hyslop Brothers were car dealers early on in the industry, around 1901, eventually suppling Cadillacs to Canadian troops overseas in WW1. Much of their workforce was killed or disabled in the war.





Bikes were a part of their business, as importers, and it appears they ordered bikes made for them as well. Jobbing auto parts and accessories seems to have been about 90% of their business.





Another nice setup:





I doubt any off this will help with your re-creation, though.


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## Brian R. (Jan 11, 2017)

hoofhearted said:


> *Thank you - Dale Alan .. of Northern NY.
> 
> But am afraid I have lost hope in Canadian CABErs ...
> none of which helped with my personal request to be
> ...





Hey Patric, thank you for helping! and thank you for identifying the chainring. Please don't take our lack of help/response to your helpful posts personally. The truth is there are so very few of us (CDN bicycle collectors) around to offer any kind of response, and from among this small group I think almost nothing is known about the Hyslop Brothers. The closest thing we have in Canada to the CABE is a site called Vintageccm.com. I started a thread there about Hyslop and didn't get a single response from anyone. You can still hear the crickets. The 1916 article posted by Barracuda just now has taught me more about Hyslop than I've known in my lifetime up until now, and I wrote my major university paper on "Technological Innovation in the Canadian Bicycle Industry". Hyslop doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, but the Fran's Diner restaurant that occupies the spot at the NW corner of Victoria and Shuter where the Hyslop building used to stand has a Wikipedia page. I've eaten in that Fran's and at the time I had no idea that 100 years ago I would have been sitting in the Hyslop Cadillac showroom (For anyone who's visited Toronto, Hyslop was located across the street from Massey Hall, just east of the Eaton's Centre.)  Anyway, Patric, thanks for giving at least one hoot about Canadian bikes, if not two hoots  Please keep the great info flowing north. Cheers.


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## Brian R. (Jan 11, 2017)

Another photo of the Hyslop building at the NW corner of Victoria and Shuter. You can see the word Bicycles on the corner, 2nd floor, above the Cadillac sign. This pic was taken in 1919, three years after the other pic from the 1916 article above. It looks like business was good and they spruced up their facade a little. So if this was their retail dealership, shipping room and offices, and in the basement they stored tires, where the heck was their bicycle factory?


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## hoofhearted (Jan 12, 2017)

Brian R. said:


> Hey Patric, thank you for helping! and thank you for identifying the chainring. Please don't take our lack of help/response to your helpful posts personally. The truth is there are so very few of us (CDN bicycle collectors) around to offer any kind of response, and from among this small group I think almost nothing is known about the Hyslop Brothers. The closest thing we have in Canada to the CABE is a site called Vintageccm.com. I started a thread there about Hyslop and didn't get a single response from anyone. You can still hear the crickets. The 1916 article posted by Barracuda just now has taught me more about Hyslop than I've known in my lifetime up until now, and I wrote my major university paper on "Technological Innovation in the Canadian Bicycle Industry". Hyslop doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, but the Fran's Diner restaurant that occupies the spot at the NW corner of Victoria and Shuter where the Hyslop building used to stand has a Wikipedia page. I've eaten in that Fran's and at the time I had no idea that 100 years ago I would have been sitting in the Hyslop Cadillac showroom (For anyone who's visited Toronto, Hyslop was located across the street from Massey Hall, just east of the Eaton's Centre.)  Anyway, Patric, thanks for giving at least one hoot about Canadian bikes, if not two hoots  Please keep the great info flowing north. Cheers.





*Thank you for your response, Brian R.

It is apparent that you are a gentleman, and a scholar. 
Please count on me to continue to be helpful, when  I can.

....... patric*


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## Dale Alan (Jan 12, 2017)

Patric,

Don't give up hope, hopefully more info will surface. I live on the border with Canada,because of that I am exposed to some bikes of Canada.I will admit though,I know very little of Hyslop . I have a friend across the river that really knows his stuff about bikes of Canada .He does not do the whole internet thing. I will see if He has any paper goods and experience on this subject.


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## locomotion (Jan 12, 2017)

Most of us Canadian collectors, are either scholars, working mens, family mens or in some cases all or none of the above
fortunately for me, work and family, take precedence over posting a pictures for someone who wants it done on command

your help  M. ...... patric is appreciated, but your condescendant tone surely is not

If an american had the time to do it before a Canadian, that is great and who cares who does it
remember that where a fellow collector lives ..... means nothing
and that the Canadian demographics is surely at our disadvantage


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## hoofhearted (Jan 12, 2017)

*
Thank you - Max.

...... patric*


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## Brian R. (Jan 12, 2017)

THE HYSLOP ENIGMA - this is what I will call the strange lack of information and surviving bicycles from a company that seems to have been a major player in the Canadian bicycle business over four decades - 1889-1920s(?). I found nothing when researching the academic paper I mentioned in post #20 above. There's nothing in John McKenty's book "Canada Cycle & Motor, the CCM Story, and nothing in Glen Norcliffe's book "The Ride to Modernity, the Bicycle in Canada, 1869-1900." The Hyslop Bros. 1922 catalogue, the company's wholesale catalogue opens with the following: "When a firm engaged in building Bicycles for 33 years can withstand the forces of competition and still retain its leadership..." and on page 2: "For thirty-three years Hyslop bicycles have been made in Toronto and shipped to all points of the Dominion." So where are the bikes? I don't have one yet. Dave Brown has been collecting for decades and has never seen one. Max, Ken, and Mario each have (at least) one each. There's the black Motorbike model listed in an above post, so that's four. How many more are there out there? If there are any CABE'rs out there who have one can you post a photo of it? 

There are three things that I am trying to find out about Hyslop:

1. Hyslop claims to have been a "manufacturer" but to what extent is this true? Did they weld tubing together and buy everything else from suppliers? Did they import complete frame sets from American companies and throw on some British hubs and Canadian wood rims? Is the answer both, and that it changed over the years?

2. They had a nice three story building at the corner of Victoria and Shuter in downtown Toronto but by the 1916 it was a Cadillac dealership with retail space, shipping space, office space and tire storage. They were still printing bicycle catalogues in 1922, so where was their bicycle "factory"? (if they were importing complete bikes by then, maybe they had a warehouse and no factory)?

3. What happened to Hyslop Bros. in the end? Did their car business make their bike business slowly fade away and then their Cadillac business was absorbed by General Motors? Was it killed by the Great Depression? What was their last year of bicycle sales?

Anyone?


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## locomotion (Jan 12, 2017)

Brian R. said:


> 1. Hyslop claims to have been a "manufacturer" but to what extent is this true? Did they weld tubing together and buy everything else from suppliers? Did they import complete frame sets from American companies and throw on some British hubs and Canadian wood rims? Is the answer both, and that it changed over the years?
> Anyone?




My rear hub is a Eadie, and rims are the steel-lined wood model.


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## Brian R. (Jan 12, 2017)

Eadie is British, isn't it? made by B.S.A.?


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## Dale Alan (Jan 12, 2017)

Brian R. said:


> Eadie is British, isn't it? made by B.S.A.?



Here is some info on that.


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## ccmerz (Jan 12, 2017)

yes, here is one I pulled apart from my Phillips 30's bike.


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## locomotion (Jan 12, 2017)

Brian R. said:


> Eadie is British, isn't it? made by B.S.A.?



I didn't know that, thanks for the info you guys


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## locomotion (Jan 12, 2017)

ccmerz said:


> yes, here is one I pulled apart from my Phillips 30's bike.View attachment 408592 View attachment 408594 View attachment 408595



yours is marked BSA, does it say Eadie anywhere Ken?


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## David Brown (Jan 12, 2017)

Rick Wolfe has one of the earliest Hislop bikes  1890,s  I know of and it is pretty neat.  But  I don't have a picture of it. Has a brake in the crank if my memory is correct.


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## barracuda (Jan 12, 2017)




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## barracuda (Jan 12, 2017)

1919:


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## Brian R. (Jan 13, 2017)

By chance I happened to be driving past Victoria & Shuter today, so I stopped to take a pic. The Frans Diner is the spot where the Hyslop bldg stood. You can see signs for Massey Hall (music) and the Eaton's Centre.


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## locomotion (Jan 13, 2017)

barracuda said:


> 1919:
> 
> View attachment 408720




so this article could confirm that they actually manufactured bicycles, and that the flu was actually strong enough in 1919 to kill you instantly!!


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## Nashman (Jan 13, 2017)

ccmerz said:


> The fenders are the 1" drop side type. That is certainly the correct ring.  As far as all other related parts are concerned, I will assemble these as close to what the catalogue description is. That's all I can do. It's going to be a representation, nothing more, but the correct chain ring will be important! The project will not more forward without it.  As for the frame/truss, I am good with the Elgin of the period as a platform.



Cool project!  Good for you. Canadian bikes are too often overlooked in the grand scheme of things based on low production and sparse population density. I myself am guilty of shifting ( no pun intended) my tastes to the more "spacelike" American ballooners, whereas I focused on CCM and all things Canadian ( see pic) in my early collecting days. Cheers!

Bob ( not sure you can open this?)


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## Nashman (Jan 13, 2017)

locomotion said:


> so this article could confirm that they actually manufactured bicycles, and that the flu was actually strong enough in 1919 to kill you in an instant!!!



neat..dang flu,,


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