A bike built today could be labeled a 2021 or 2022 model. ![]() While we like to be accurate in our descriptions, we don’t really care if a particular bike was made in 1952 or if it was 1953. This website is not intended to be a research archive. We display them in this space to share their beauty and showcase the skill and creativity that went into making them. The bikes featured in this museum section are privately owned by Paul Johnson and Jeff Groman, as well as other employees and friends of Classic Cycle. While we don’t buy bikes outright, we’ll likely take your old bike as a trade-in for something new…. If what you’re really after is to get rid of an old bike, keep us in mind. You could have a bike that will never sell (a vintage Schwinn) because there are still thousands of them out there, or you could have a bike that will cause a bidding war (Bridgestone MB-1) because people rode them into the ground and they want another one. Bikes that were sold in large numbers could fall into one of two camps. If you have a one-of-a-kind bicycle, it may mean that no one has ever heard of it and/or nobody is looking for one. If you remember purchasing the bike you also know if it was a high-end racing model or a basic bike from Walmart. 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). Jeanne Omelenchuk won 16 national speed skating titles, five cycling national champion titles (the first women to win the national championship in two major sports), and competed on three Olympic teams.Ĭlose-ups of the parts tell a lot about your bikeīy the way, you probably know more about your bike than we do. Together with coach Mike Walden and the Wolverine Sports Club in Detroit, the “Michigan Mafia” took home countless national victories in cycling (and speed skating). The Omelenchuks had quite an influence on athletics in the midwest. ![]() From handlebar stems to hubs to pedals, the Omelenchuk shop made their own equipment, and they made it well. The spokes, having been soldered at the rim, are adjusted with little turnbuckles halfway down their length. Built with a specially extruded rod rim, with a tubeless tire casing glued directly to the aluminum. Up front we have a custom front hub and fork, built as wide as the rear end of the bike, a design that must have been quite a bit more rigid laterally when ridden on banked velodromes. ![]() Looks like the rider is headed for the beach, not snow… Now I have to admit that neither of these bikes were even close to being the first fat bikes.Ĭheck out this photo that Jeff unearthed from the 1940’s. Surly and some QBP employees must have come to the same conclusion too, as Surly was pretty blatant in copying many of Erik’s design elements for the first Surly Pugsley. That Peacock Groove bike was a hoot to ride around through the Minneapolis autumn leaves, and I understood what a game changer a bike like that would be for a cyclist who had to endure a midwest winter. I had the chance to ride the first snow bike that Erik ever made. It felt slow to me, but on top of hard-packed snow it just cruised.Įrik Noren, the gifted artisan behind Peacock Groove custom bicycles once worked at QBP (the bicycle wholesaler behind Surly bikes) in Minneapolis. My friend Mike Madden raced the Iditabike a number of times, and he had a Fat Chance mountain bike fitted with double rims (two regular mountain bike rims, welded together so that a 26 x 2” tire would spread out and provide a bigger footprint in the snow). I thought that I had seen, and maybe even ridden, two of the very first bikes designed for riding on snow (that are now referred to as “Fat Bikes”. I also have a couple of friends that used to do the Alaskan Iditarod bike event back in the early 1990’s. I’m a Minnesotan and have competed in winter bike races.
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