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Kinda cool article found in 1980 SkateBoarder magazine by Leon Dixon

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You're welcome.

The article in Skateboarder magazine was just one of dozens and dozens I wrote for various publications in the 1970s and 1980s. All in an effort to make people aware of what was then a new hobby. Only a handful of people across the USA were beginning to collect what I defined as "Classic Bicycles" back then.

To be a "serious" bicycle collector back then, you could only be interested in high-wheelers and contraptions from the turn of the 19th-20th century. Otherwise, anything newer? You were nothing and nobody. I got an eye opening in the 1970s when I tried to display an Elgin Twin-Bar, my 1939 Mercury "World's Fair" display bicycle and a couple of others in a showing of pre-1920 antiques. The California region of the big antique bicycle collector group (of which I was a member) flat outright refused to allow me to set up and show these bicycles. Their reason was that balloon tire bicycles were NOT "historically significant" and they were just "junk toys" unworthy of being shown with "fine antiques." They actually said this. Today, the same group allows showing and mention of classics, but not back then!

Anyway, the Skateboarder editor did several things to tamper with the article I wrote ...and thus ruined it. First, despite my careful work, they swapped captions on the photos I provided. Yes, I took the photos myself. Next the editor decided to plop what I recall to be a hot-rodded girl's postwar Hiawatha photo in with my accurately identified photos. Then made this worse by slugging a caption in saying "1939 obscure fully restored cruiser." Please. The rear carrier was missing, seat was a modern thingie, headbadge was missing, head light was missing, wheels changed and big knobby tires added... and on and on. Hardly what could be termed "fully restored." I never would have allowed such a thingie in one of my articles. But? Most editors just could not seem to resist tampering with my work and just HAD to mess with it. The "1939 obscure full restored" was nothing of the sort. But the editor never bothered to check with me or show me bluelines so I at least could have corrected the mess that was created. So that's how the magazine hit the news stands. At least it was liked... and apparently still is.

I took all of the photos except for the so-called "1939 obscure." Kid on my Phantom was "Chuckie"... my neighbor in Huntington Beach, California back then. He was about 11 or 12 then (took the pics in 1978), so he'd be into his 50s by now). I staged the photos with the baseball glove and got Chuckie to wear a striped 1950s-look T-shirt. I spent several weeks trying to locate high-top sneakers to no avail. But even the low-tops Chuck is wearing here are ancient now.

The misty "fade-out" treatment on my photos was not my idea. This was (again) something the magazine dreamed up. I still have the original color photos that I did for the magazine.

Reference to Classic Bicycle & Whizzer News was my newsletter. It was the first in the hobby (1977) and has been imitated but never equalled many times. It was the first place where classified advertisements for classic bicycles existed and first place where people across North America could meet and interact with one another. Decades before there were other newsletters or the internet.

The Schwinn Black Phantom was mine. It was restored from an original beginning in the late 1960s. It was completed in the early 1970s with all NOS parts, except for the original frame, fork, carrier and chainguard. The NOS fenders came from an old Schwinn shop I knew in Detroit. The original tank was toast so I got a NOS one from my friend, Montie Oberholltzer in Ohio (no idea if Montie is still around, but he was THE big Schwinn parts guy in the early 1970s). I think the tank cost me $17.50. Even the decals I used back then were NOS (by the way, you spray fixative on ancient water-transfer decals before you dip them). I started collecting Schwinn original decals in the 1950s. I believe my Phantom was the very first authentically restored Schwinn Black Phantom and I have correspondence with Schwinn about it going back to the early 1970s. In the 1970s-80s I had the most expertise on Phantoms and had every piece of dealer and factory information imaginable. Even Schwinn had lost many of their records by the 1970s and could not even remember when they started and stopped with this model. Funny, they never contacted me when they decided to repop the Phantom in 1995!

My Phantom equipped with front and rear expander brakes (yesss, this was legit and orderable) and red grips was cloned (but with a set of badly mandrel-bent muffler shop handlebars) and placed in the so-called "Schwinn Museum" and pictured in books that had no connection to me and did not mention me. So that thingie you see in the books and museum is NOT mine. And for the guy who once argued at a show that I was "wrong" about Phantoms having red grips... nope. Some did... some didn't in the early days of the run. How and why? It depended on the wholesale-distributor who handled the Schwinn dealer where you bought your Phantom. And I'll bet the Phantom experts out there today can't tell you this fact.

The 1939 Mercury was obtained in the early 1970s from a man who had odd one-offs and prototype bicycles from Murray-Ohio Company. He told me that this Mercury was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair and had been kept by Murray for decades since. To this day, the chrome is original. By the way, my head shroud (they were made of zinc) was never chromed and never had a "MERCURY" decal on it. Why? It was the first usable sample piece made, not regular production. How did it look bright and have a shine at the World's Fair? Viktor Schreckengost (who was a friend and who designed this bicycle) told me that they merely buffed the shroud on this display bicycle. So it was never chromed and no decal was ever on it.

The Whizzer in these photos was THE most decked-out accessorized, most unmolested original Whizzer Special (yesss, that was a factory model) around in the early 1970s. Red and ivory colors. I used to take it to display at bicycle industry shows like BDS-EXPO, NBDA Convention and Interbike from 1970s to 1990s. Nobody seems to remember this anymore.

When nobody cared and a lot of this stuff was heaved into dumpsters, I saved the paper archives of Whizzer Motorbike Company. This included original catalogues, decals, factory blueprints, internal newsletters, service info, dealer books, all of the advertisements, news clippings, photos and even boxes of correspondence files between Whizzer Company and its dealers and individual customers. Yes. I also interviewed everyone I could find alive who worked for Whizzer back then and recorded all of the history going back to 1939.

The Rolls front fork shown on the Schwinn Beach Cruiser is one I helped design way back when. While it looks similar to a Schwinn fork (NOT my idea), it was very different. Spring action was fully adjustable and fork had Delrin bushings. Beautiful operation. My friend and I tried to interest mountain biker types in the early days. Their response? They hated it. We got answers at the debut showing like "Who would want a suspension fork on a mountain bike? It would suck up all your pedaling power!" So help me. That's what they said. Today? You can't find a mountain bike that doesn't have a suspension fork or frame not available. But this is how things work.

The Roadmaster Luxury Liner was restored by a movie actor friend. Decades before mangled repop Lux Liners appeared. Graphic on the chain guard was not a decal... it was done by hand! I had restored at least three Roadmaster Luxury Liners in the 1970s. Decades later when bumbling Brunswick decided to make their "replica"... nobody said a word. Instead, they blundered ahead and released their "Johnny Cash" "got it all-a piece-at-a-time" repop "1948" amalgram (more like 1948-1949-1950-1952).

The 1948 Silver King hextube was bought in the early 1970s and is totally original, unmolested except for the tires. I got my first frame in the 1960s from Acme Bike Shop on Mack Avenue in Detroit. The man who owned the shop was quite fond of Silver Kings and started gathering them in his shop back when they were new in the 1930s. His basement was full of them in the 1960s!

Now... since people are obviously now looking for early examples of my old bicycle articles, try this one on for size. My Popular Mechanics article of cover date of January, 1978 was actually published in three different languages. The Spanish-language edition came out in March of 1978 and was entitled, "Restaure su Bicicleta!" Try finding that one! And how do you think the people across Latin America got interested in this stuff? Yes.

SchwinnPhantomChuckie3.jpg
 
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The article in Skateboarder magazine was just one of dozens and dozens I wrote for various publications in the 1970s and 1980s. All in an effort to make people aware of what was then a new hobby. Only a handful of people across the USA were beginning to collect what I defined as "Classic Bicycles" back then.

To be a "serious" bicycle collector back then, you could only be interested in high-wheelers and contraptions from the turn of the 19th century. Otherwise, anything newer? You were nothing and nobody. I got an eye opening in the 1970s when I tried to display an Elgin Twin-Bar, my 1939 Mercury "World's Fair" display bicycle and a couple of others in a showing of pre-1920 antiques. The California region of the big antique bicycle collector group (of which I was a member) flat outright refused to allow me to set up and show these bicycles. Their reason was that balloon tire bicycles were NOT "historically significant" and they were just "junk toys" unworthy of being shown with "fine antiques." They actually said this. Today, the same group allows showing and mention of classics, but not back then!

Anyway, the Skateboarder editor did several things to tamper with the article I wrote ...and thus ruined it. First, they swapped captions on the photos I provided. Yes, I took the photos myself. Next the editor decided to plop what I recall to be a hot-rodded girl's postwar Hiawatha photo in with my accurately identified photos. Then mde this worse by a slugging a caption in saying "1939 obscure fully restored cruiser." Please. The rear carrier was missing, seat was a modern thingie, headbadge was missing, head light was missing, wheels changed and big knobby tires added... and on and on. Hardly what could be termed "fully restored." I never would have allowed such a thingie in one of my articles. But? Most editors just could not seem to resist tampering with my work and just HAD to mess with it. The "1939 obscure full restored" was nothing of the sort. But the editor never bothered to check with me or show me bluelines so I at least could have corrected the mess that was created. So that's how the magazine hit the news stands. At least it was liked... and apparently still is.

I took all of the photos except for the so-called "1939 obscure." Kid on my Phantom was "Chuckie"... my neighbor in Huntington Beach, California back then. I staged the photos with the baseball glove and got Chuckie to wear a striped 1950s-look T-shirt. I spent several weeks trying to locate high-top sneakers to no avail. But even the low-tops Chuck is wearing here are ancient now.

The misty "fade-out" treatment on my photos was not my idea. This was (again) something the magazine dreamed up. I still have the original photos that I did for the magazine.

Reference to Classic Bicycle & Whizzer News was my newsletter. It was the first in the hobby (1977) and has been imitated but never equalled many times. It was the first place where classified advertisements for classic bicycles existed and first place where people across North America could meet and interact with one another. Decades before there were other newsletters or the internet.

The Schwinn Black Phantom was mine. It was restored from an original beginning in the late 1960s. It was completed in the early 1970s with all NOS parts, except for the original frame, fork, carrier and chainguard. The NOS fenders came from an old Schwinn shop I knew in Detroit. The originsal tank was toast so I got a NOS one from my friend, Montie Oberholltzer in Ohio (no idea if Montie is still around, but he was THE big Schwinn parts guy in the early 1970s). I think the tank cost me $17.50. Even the decals I used back then were NOS (by the way, you spray fixative on ancient water-transfer decals before you dip them). By the way, I started collecting Schwinn original decals in the 1950s. I believe my Phantom was the very first authentically restored Schwinn Black Phantom and I have correspondence with Schwinn about it going back to the early 1970s. In the 1970s-80s I had the most expertise on Phantoms and had every piece of dealer and factory information imaginable. Even Schwinn had lost many of their records by the 1970s and could not even remember when they started and stopped with this model. Funny, they never contacted me when they decided to repop the Phantom in 1995!

The 1939 Mercury was obtained in the early 1970s from a man who had odd one-offs and prototype bicycles from Murray-Ohio Company. He told my that this Mercury was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair and had been kept by Murray for decades since. to this day, the chrome is original.

The Whizzer in these photos was THE most decked-out accessorized, most unmolested original Whizzer Special (yesss, that was a factory model) around in the early 1970s. Red and ivory colors. I used to take it to display at bicycle industry shows like BDS-EXPO, NBDA Convention and Interbike from 1970s to 1990s. Nobody seems to remember this anymore.

When nobody cared and a lot of this stuff was heaved into dumpsters, I saved the paper archives of Whizzer Motorbike Company. This included original catalogues, decals, factory blueprints, internal newsletters, service info, dealer books, all of the advertisements, news clippings, photos and even boxes of correspondence files between Whizzer Company and its dealers and individual customers. Yes. I also interviewed everyone I could find alive who worked for Whizzer back then and recorded all of the history going back to 1939.

The Rolls front fork shown on the Schwinn Beach Cruiser is one I helped design way back when. While it looks similar to a Schwinn fork (NOT my idea), it was very different. Spring action was fully adjustable and fork had Delrin bushings. Beautiful operation. My friend and I tried to interest mountain biker types in the early days. Their response? They hated it. We got answers at the debut showing like "Who would want a suspension fork on a mountain bike? It would suck up all your pedaling power!" So help me. Today? You can't find a mountain bike that doesn't have a suspension fork or frame not available. But this is how things work.

The Roadmaster Luxury Liner was restored by a movie actor friend. Decades before mangled repop Lux Liners appeared. Graphic on the chain guard was not a decal... it was done by hand! I had restored at least three Roadmaster Luxury Liners in the 1970s. Decades later when bumbling Brunswick decided to make their "replica"... nobody said a word.

The 1948 Silver King hextube was bought in the early 1970s and is totally original, unmolested except for the tires. I got my first frame in the 1960s from Acme Bike Shop on Mack Avenue in Detroit. The man who owned the shop was quite fond of Silver Kings and started gathering them in his shop back when they were new in the 1930s. His basement was full of them in the 1960s!

Now... since people are obviously now looking for early examples of my bicycle articles, try this one on for size. My Popular Mechanics article of cover date of January, 1978 was actually published in three different languages. The Spanish-language edition came out in March of 1978 and was entitled, "Restaure su Bicicleta!" Try finding that one! And how do you think the people across Latin America got interested? Yes.
It's my understanding that Ray Burch the marketing VP at Schwinn for many years came to work at Schwinn after working for Whizzer. He was the connection between the two companies during the 1950's.

Ray is no longer with us.

John
 
It's my understanding that Ray Burch the marketing VP at Schwinn for many years came to work at Schwinn after working for Whizzer. He was the connection between the two companies during the 1950's.

Ray is no longer with us.

John
Hello...

Yes, I knew Ray. Last time we talked, I believe he was somewhere down around San Diego. Yes, I know Ray has passed– like so many others in the history.

Ray Burch did indeed come to Schwinn from Whizzer. I have some of his early communications from Whizzer. And Schwinn. And Keith Kingbay also did work for Whizzer at one point. Important work that nobody seems to know about today, except me. BUT... the Schwinn connection to Whizzer was actually via issues between Schwinn and Whizzer. These were mainly over the Pacemaker frame and similarity thereof to Schwinn's cantilever design. A design that Schwinn aggressively protected.

Frank Schwinn and Whizzer president, Dietrich Kohlsaat all-of-a-dogbone-sudden became fast friends after that looming threat. And thus the association with Schwinn and kinda-sorta transfer/interplay of personnel. Think... Japanese Keiretsu.

A P.R. version of the marriage was covered in Whizzer Motorbike Company's magazine, "This Whizzer Age." That magazine issue featured Frank Schwinn and Dietrich Kohlsaat on the cover. Yes, I have the magazine. After that the industry got amnesia. Today, say "Whizzer" and people automatically (ironically) think, "Schwinn." Some will even argue and say that Schwinn made Whizzer! It is what it is.

Nobody alive today seems to remember or know that Cleveland Welding Company and their Roadmaster bicycles were the ones originally allied with Whizzer. After WW2, Whizzer ads and info originally featured Roadmaster, not Schwinn. That all changed with the Pacemaker debacle and this is how Schwinn took over the manufacture of the Pacemaker. And other things happened.... but that's another story.

Thanks for remembering Classic Bicycle & Whizzer News. As everyone who came along to imitate it eventually discovered– even with lots of money and bunches of people to help– (and several imitation Leons) paper print media like that simply can't generate enough revenue. Even now with a far larger audience and potential than CBWN ever had. And CBWN started from nothing... with no hobby and no annual meets and no national activity. All while trying to create something where nothing had existed before. In the end, every newsletter that imitated CBWN has gone belly-up– no matter how much money was shoveled into the furnace. Even with a ready-made hobby and network already existing and not needing to be created anymore. And no matter how many bunches of people communed to make them work.
 
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I'm sure a good steak, and an "open bar tab" smoothed things over. Those were the days of unlimited expense accounts.

I knew Keith, but never knew his connection with Whizzer. Keith was Schwinn's Cycling Ambassador during my time. He was active in promoting bicycle paths nationwide and working with the federal government to write the CPSC bicycle safety regulations. If you ever had an unresolved customer problem, just call Keith and he would take care of it.

They did a traveling "dog and pony show" for the dealerships. They would rent a hotel room, Stan Natanek did the service school during the day, Keith Kingbay did cycling presentation in the evening, then Harry Delaney finished up the evening with a How to Sell presentation. Basically it was how to deal with difficult customers and maintain good P.R. for your dealership and Schwinn. If any CABE member has a white plastic poker chip with the Schwinn logo in red on one side, and a red COOL IT! on the backside, it was given out by Harry Delaney at the Schwinn sales school. You were to carry it in your pocket, and before you lost your cool, just grab the Cool IT poker chip and back down the heated conversation.

No discussion about the Key Schwinn Employees would be complete without Frank Brilando. He was the guy that signed off on all of Schwinn's engineering. You name anything Schwinn produced and Frank had a hand in it. I placed an order for a 1963 P-14 Lime Green Paramount Track bike. Frank delivered it to me at the velodrome in Northbrook for me to ride at the National's. He said be careful, the pinstriping is still wet. Everyone at Schwinn was dealer focused.

Many have collected the small gold colored lapel pins. Originally it was a balloon tank cruiser model, and in the 70's it was changed to a road bike ten speed. The running joke was they were made only for Schwinn executives to pin on flight attendants. It was a race to see who did the most pinning's, Brownie was the unofficial leader. These are different times.

Thanks for your information, it brings loose ends together.

John
 
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Hello John,

One more response.

I'm familiar with the Schwinn pins you describe. But there were far more than merely two types. There were at least four types of balloon model pins and at least two types of lightweight bicycle types. Here (attached) is just a sample of some of my original Schwinn pins. I have more. There was also a gold Shelby bicycle pin that has sometimes been confused with the early Schwinn pin. Got those too.

Yes I'm very familiar with the "dog & pony shows" for Schwinn dealerships. At one time, mega-dealer George Garner (who I knew) was also involved in these. George even wrote a column for Schwinn dealers in the Schwinn Reporter publication (I have all of the original Schwinn Reporter issues in binders). Of course I have autographed George Garner photos and lit. George had shops in both SoCal and Illinois. He had movie star looks, so George was great P.R. for Schwinn. No idea if he is still with us.

As for Keith Kingbay, his later time with Schwinn was spent in the so-named "Excelsior Fitness Division" where he continued promoting cycling and fitness. Keith was an old time bicycle racer and could still out-ride many youngsters in his golden years. But Keith was also hugely involved earlier with Schwinn's Service School and service issues. He did columns in The Schwinn Reporter. In fact Keith wrote the 1950s-60s "Schwinn Service Manual" that was a service backbone for many years. I still have my original, autographed to me.

Hope this adds to the story...

Was able to upload three more images...hope you like this one...

(tried to upload additional images... but I keep getting messages that the files are "too big" even after I reduced the file sizes twice)

SchwinnPinsTooWM.jpeg


SchwinnFactorySVCWM.jpeg


Schwinn-BuiltNews6WM.jpeg


SchwinnReportersEarlyWM.jpeg
 
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