If you or a relative are the original owner you probably know when you bought it, so you have a good idea of the bicycle’s age. If you just bought a bike for $50, you have established the value of the bicycle (and you are not likely to be able to sell it for $2000 to somebody else). One hundred miles rolled under your tires that day, one for each year of your long life.Ĭlose-ups of the parts tell a lot about your bikeīy the way, you probably know more about your bike than we do. After ninety miles that crazy fella slowed you down to a more sensible pace, but he didn’t stop. He must be slow, doesn’t know about those new bikes with quick releases (and gears and disc brakes)! You think longingly about that spot above the Harbour Pub bar where you sat last summer, with people lifting their drinks to you and admiring your “lines”. That crazy young fella catches them just in time and tightens them back on. On a long stretch of gravel after seventy miles you start to loose your dentures (er, axle nuts). Your coaster brake hasn’t ached this badly, ever. You keep going, even through a rain storm.
At thirty miles there was a bit of gravel, just like in the old days. Someone fires a pistol and that young fella starts you rolling. They all look excited and freshly overhauled, some with new tires even. There are some old timers like yourself, along with some of those young upstarts like those you met back in the Classic Cycle storage room. You and that crazy fella Tristan racin’ like in the old days at L’Eroicaīefore the week is up you find yourself at the start of what looks like a race, no doubt about it. You haven’t rolled this far in decades! Look at those hills! Grand Junction, Colorado? Isn’t Palm Springs a better place to spend your golden years? Is the air here a bit thin? First ten miles, then thirty. Unpacked and reassembled in Colorado, this young fella starts riding around on you.
Before you knew what happened you were being crammed into a cardboard box and loaded onto a UPS truck. You were being tuned! Fresh grease? That hadn’t happened in years! 70 pounds of pressure in your tires? Hey, what’s going on? You are a display bike now, not a rider. Then one day you were roughly woken from a nap and brought into the work room at Classic Cycle. At Jeff’s Classic Cycle shop you met a bunch of old timers like yourself, and you talked about the old days… The cobblestones, racing around, snaring dresses and trouser legs with your chain… It was a good retirement. In the ’80′s your family decided to sell your garage (along with their house) and you were given to a guy named Jeff who seemed to like your kind. You kids and your stickers! Get a real head tube badge! Harry raised the original $16.50 purchase price by collecting clam shells from the Minnesota river and selling them to a local button factory.īy the way, if you take a look at the Iver Johnson Truss-bridge bike from the same era, you’ll note that the RaCycle was about a third of the price of the Iver Johnson. This bike was originally owned by Harry Nettleton of Red Wing, Minnesota. They connected people with jobs and schools, connected rural areas of the country with cities, connected extended families (and liberated family members from one another). However they were judged, early “safety” bicycles like this one really brought inexpensive personal transportation to the masses. According to the manufacturer, a 1904 Worlds Fair jury “consisting of the ablest consulting and manufacturing engineers in Europe and America, were unanimous in their decision that the Racycle was the most perfectly constructed, easiest running bicycle in the world.”
The copy in old advertising and press releases like this one was so earnest. Check out the old ad that we found for RaCycle bikes.
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