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Navy Bicycles

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It has a wald stem, the headset looks to be from the 1970's and the rear hub appears to be the same as what was found in 1960's Schwinns.
 
I don't have info on this bike, but I suspect it has newer parts and the color combo is puzzling, why have the cranks painted olive drab if the rest of the bike is grey?. Also in the military when anything was painted in drab, or grey, it was ALL painted. Not just the frame but EVERYTHING. Even the headset, and fender rivets.
 
Also in the military when anything was painted in drab, or grey, it was ALL painted. Not just the frame but EVERYTHING. Even the headset, and fender rivets.

Actually this wasn't the case, at least not upon leaving the factory... Plenty of surviving Original bikes confirm this...

Columbia did make bicycles for the USN during WW2, similar to the one in the auction which is not all correct.
 
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Hi Johan

I'm aware that Columbia made bikes for the navy. What I said was, it makes no sense to paint the cranks olive drab, and the frame haze grey.

And why would the factory or the navy paint the bearing cups black, and then leave the goose neck grey? It doesn't make sense.

There are too many inconsistances, OD would not have been on the same bike as navy grey.

Actually this wasn't the case, at least not upon leaving the factory... Plenty of surviving Original bikes confirm this...

Columbia did make bicycles for the USN during WW2, similar to the one in the auction which is not all correct.
 
Ship Yard Pearl Harbor

In 1970 the navy yard at Pearl Harbor Hawaii had at least 25 bikes for the shipyard workers to ride around the shipyard on. It made their job easier as the ships were spread out in various parts of the yard. I think they were Schwinns but I may be wrong. they were all full balloon tire bikes and all had large baskets on the front. they were all painted red or green, and looked like they were painted several times. I think these bikes were from the late 40s. They had one large bike rack they would be parked in every night. I recall one of my pals (He was drunk) taking off on one for a joy ride. One of my buddies bought a real nice 65 GTO convert. We were driving through the yards about to leave the base, had the top down of course,and my pal hit one of the yard workers with the passenger front fender. that old guy went flying off that bike and onto the grass. the bikes rear fender was smashed.
My pal Jerry who was driving yelled "SORRY BUB!" and we kept going cause we had to get some beers. .......hope the old guy was ok.
It would be interesting if the U.S. Navy still provides bikes for the shipyard workers.
 
Yup albeit I don't remember the colors but, them old clunkers were there in the mid 70's too.

And that brings us to da point,, da navy has bikes all over the globe, it would not be surprising to have newer bikes too.

most are inside of da ship yards, and there's some at various ports fer da dummies to get around on. Me were da lucks-ski kine, back in da day, cause da gives me da ships truck when getting around otherwise, I'd be able to ID them in 70's too.
 
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I know that Columbia adverts aren't always the best historical record as far as what was actual done in practice. The Columbia Compax "paratrooper" bike being an example of that. Also, again, using the advertisement and the life magazine cover as a guide it looks like the bars and head badge are chrome. The cover picture shows a lot of chrome but that may be an off the shelf bicycle I'm not sure. The Compax on Johan's fine site shows what looks to be mostly dark perhaps black with the exception of the head badge but the Compax may not be a good example of what the standard Navy bicycle was. Is there any official word as to what the black out methodology was? Johan, you mention that there is some evidence one way or another way. Also curious about color on these. As someone who has spent time on a Navy base or two, I can validate that they paint almost anything gray or yellow at some point. I'm curious though how you would expect them to come from factory as well as any picture or evidence of them being painted otherwise.

Thank you,
Ryan
 
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