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Photos of the 2013 Toronto Vintage Bicycle Show courtesy of Greg Chown and David Keough
Posted: September 19, 2013

 

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Dave Brown's 1896 Goold Co. Brantford Model B
Posted: September 06, 2013

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So What Happened After '83? (Part Three)
Posted: September 03, 2013

For the third part in this series, I thought it might be interesting to find out what happened to CCM bicycles after the company was purchased by Procycle in 1983. To that end, I contacted Raymond Dutil, founder and CEO of Procycle, who agreed to answer my questions by email. Although he has told me that the negotiations that led to his takeover of CCM could fill a book, in and of themselves, you will see that Mr. Dutil is, for the most part, a man of a few words. What follows is a transcript of my interview with him. Regards, John

  • Me: When Procycle began in 1977 was it a bicycle manufacturer from the outset?
  • Mr. Dutil: Yes
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  • Me: Did Procycle’s purchase of CCM in 1983 include the factory in Weston?
  • Mr. Dutil:  No
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  • Me: What happened to the inventory of parts and bicycles on hand at the time.
  • Mr. Dutil: Transferred to Procycle St-Georges, Beauce, Québec
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  • Me: How soon after its purchase of CCM did Procycle begin to manufacture CCM bicycles?
  • Mr. Dutil: 2 years after
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  • Me: What set the CCM line apart from the other lines of bicycles being produced by Procycle?
  • Mr. Dutil: We started to offer only to IBD. After we went to mass merchant.
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  • Me: Was the CCM line always manufactured in Canada?
  • Mr. Dutil: Up to 2004 Yes
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  • Me: When and why did Procycle cease production of the CCM bicycle line? 
  • Mr. Dutil: USD/CAD
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  • Me: When did Procycle sell the rights for the CCM bicycle line to Reebok?
  • Mr. Dutil: 2006
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  • Me: Do you know when those rights were transferred to Canadian Tire?
  • Mr. Dutil: No
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  • Me: The making of bicycles in Canada has always been a difficult proposition. What were/are its greatest challenges?
  • Mr. Dutil: Easy access to Asian producers  
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2014 Vintage CCM Calendar
Posted: August 12, 2013

 

2014 Vintage CCM Calendar

 

Send a photo of your favourite pre-1983 CCM bike(s) currently in your possession to john.mckenty@sympatico.ca and we will use them to produce a professional 2014 calendar.

Photos should be sharp, clear and free of clutter. No people in them.

We will need 14 photos - one for each month and one for the front and back cover.

Depending on the number of photos submitted, not all may be used.

Photos should be sent by the end of August in order to have the calendars available in the fall.

Along with the photos, please include a few brief details about the bike - year, model, personal history etc.  

We will produce a limited number of calendars so when they're gone, they're gone.

 

 

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This weekend in Ottawa.....
Posted: August 09, 2013

Cover Photo


 


THIS WEEKEND!  (Fri Aug 9th to Sunday August 11th)
Give your old bike a new life - in Kenya, Africa

What to bring: 

  • Adult-sized Mountain & hybrid bikes in working condition (wide tires, 24” and 26” wheels)
  • Bike tools, repair & patch kits, inner tubes, tires, seats and locks (with keys or combination) 
  • Cash donations to help with transport costs of bikes are appreciated
  • Please note that children’s bikes and bike frames without wheels are not suitable for this project. 
  • Click here for a detailed list of what we need and do not accept

When and Where:

Friday August 9th - 9:30am to 9:00pm
Saturday August 10th -  9:30am to 6:00pm 
*
Sunday August 11th -  10am to 5:00pm

Billings Bridge Centre
main doors (entrance #5)
2277 Riverside Drive, Ottawa
(corner Riverside Drive and Bank in Ottawa South - map)

* Bicycles for Humanity volunteers will be on site on Saturday August 10th between 10am and 1pm to greet donors and provide information the initiative

This year, we will be shipping a Bicycle Empowerment Centre (BEC) - a 40ft shipping container packed with 400 donated bicycles, spare parts and tools, converted into a bike shop on site - to Kibera, Kenya to benefit an orphan care organization.

Through a partnership with Wheels of Africa, B4H will establish the BEC to help empower and engage a community in creating sustainable and responsible economic development in Kenya, while enabling greater mobility in the area for students, workers, and healthcare volunteers.

The BEC will benefit Kijiji Cha Upendo, “Village of Love” in Swahili – a community based organization that cares for and supports over 140 orphans and vulnerable children with programs aimed at meeting the most basic of needs: food, clothing/supplies and education. 

Billing Bridge Shopping Centre has graciously offered their facilities as the bike collection site for this year’s campaign. The drive will be led by the Security Team from Billings Bridge Centre and 20 VIC Management, Inc. property managers specializing in shopping centre management, leasing and development. 

We are so very grateful for the enthusiastic support from the many individuals and organizations who donate funds, goods, facilities and services and to the volunteers who give their time and energy towards helping improve lives!
 

THANK YOU!


P.S. Since the start of our initiative in 2007, we have delivered 7 containers filled with 2600+ bikes along with hundreds of spare parts and tools that benefited over 10 disadvantaged communities in Namibia and Malawi. We've initiated 3 community-based bike shops, created 15 jobs, and enabled improved access to healthcare, education, food, water, employment and social opportunities for thousands - and we did this together with the Ottawa community, as one community to another...  

P.P.S. If you do not have a suitable bike to donate, please consider a monetary donation to help with the transportation costs of the bikes to Africa - online donations are accepted and tax receipts are provided immediately via email. 

To date Vintage CCM has donated $1,000 to the Ottawa chapter of Bicycles For Humanity based on sales of Canada Cycle & Motor: The CCM Story. Thanks to all who have ordered the book and by so doing contributed to this very worthy cause.

 

 
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What was and is to be.....
Posted: July 17, 2013

Photos from the 2013 Canadian Vintage Bicycle Show held on Sunday, June 23

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The above photos are courtesy of Greg Chown.
Be sure to visit Greg at his blog Three Speed Mania.

Greg is also a key organizer for an upcoming event - that being the 2013 edition of the Toronto Vintage Bicycle Show to be held on Sunday July 28. More details here.

Toronto Vintage Bicycle Show 2013 poster

 

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2013 Canadian Vintage Bicycle Show
Posted: June 24, 2013


'Bumper crop' of vintage bikes

By Michael-Allan Marion, Brantford Expositor

Jamie McGregor, organizer of the annual Vintage Bicycle Show on Sunday at Heritage View Farm on Tutela Heights Road, shows a 1904 Brantford Red Bird 57 Special shaft-drive bicycle. The shaft-drive design had women in mind, so their long dresses would not get caught or soiled in a chain. They were made for only a few years, mainly because the bicycle had no brakes. (Brian Thompson, The Expositor)

Jamie McGregor, organizer of the annual Vintage Bicycle Show on Sunday at Heritage View Farm on Tutela Heights Road, shows a 1904 Brantford Red Bird 57 Special shaft-drive bicycle. The shaft-drive design had women in mind, so their long dresses would not get caught or soiled in a chain. They were made for only a few years, mainly because the bicycle had no brakes. (Brian Thompson, The Expositor)

It seemed almost everyone who walked the field of the 12th Canadian Vintage Bicycle Show either had known its organizer, Jamie McGregor, for years, or wanted to talk to him about a good lead on a bike from some time in their youth.

Or maybe even their parents' youth.

"You'll find what you're looking for right over there," McGregor quickly said Sunday under the bright hot sunshine over Heritage View Farm on Tutela Heights Road across from the Bell Homestead.

He was talking to a man who was looking for CCM model children's bikes.

McGregor simultaneously held in handshake the extended hand of a man who had greeted him warmly, directed him to a group of bikes, where he was sure to find what he was looking for, then patted him on the shoulder.

It was probably the 20th questioning visitor to grip his hand in the last 10 minutes.

"This is a bumper year and we have a bumper crop," McGregor said as the man headed on his way.

"It's nice seeing the diversity we have today," he said of the mix of Canadian and American bicycles, and the enduring popularity of the CCM ( Canadian Cycle and Motor Ltd.) brands.

What was his best vintage model to show?

We walked over to a Brantford Red Bird 57 Special from 1904. It was parked on a bike display ramp bearing all the merchandising display emblems from the time.

The bicycle had a shaft rather than a chain for pedalling.

"That makes it rare," said McGregor.

Among the multitude of wheels were Victorian Penny Farthings, as well as "muscle" bikes and banana bikes from the 1960s, and racing models from most decades.

McGregor pointed to a group of BMX bikes.

The event also had displays that showed the impact of its own age over time.

The BMX brand name was introduced in the early 1970s when kids began racing their bicycles on dirt tracks in southern California. It was their way of aping motocross stars.

"You wouldn't notice it, but they're starting to get old," McGregor mused.

"I guess it means we're getting older, too."

Veteran attendees have identified the show as a place where they're likely to find the parts they need for their handyman projects.

Admittance to the show was a $5 donation to the Stedman Community Hospice and donations for food and drink.

For years, McGregor has used the show as a hospice fundraiser after the facility provided end-of-life care to his father, John, who died there six years ago.

michael-allan.marion@sunmedia.ca

 

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World Champions
Posted: June 15, 2013

 As the current NHL season winds its way to a slow and some would say painful close (I mean c'mon hockey in June), it's perhaps a good time to reflect upon the first world champions of hockey - the CCM Canadas.

By 1930 there were sufficient countries playing hockey for the International Ice Hockey federation to stage its first world championship tournament independent of the Olympics. The games were to take place in Chamonix, France and for the first time ever in a major competition, a team from outside North America or Europe would take part with Japan entering a team in the competition.

Canada's entry at the tournament was to be an industrial league team belonging to the Canada Cycle & Motor Co. of Weston, Ontario. In 1929 the CCM team had not only won the Toronto Mercantile title, but had also defeated the winner of the city's Mining and Brokers League.

That fall when company official George Braden travelled to Europe, he decided that overseas hockey players would benefit from increased exposure to Canadian hockey, not to mention Canadian hockey equipment. As export manager for CCM, Braden, no doubt, saw before him a lucrative new market for the company's merchandise. 

When Braden obtained permission from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to send the CCM team on a European tour, it was decided that the company team would also represent the country at the newly-formed world championships in Chamonix.

So it was that on Dec. 5, 1929, the CCM team, along with Braden and coach Les Grant, gathered at Toronto’s Union Station to catch the train to Saint John, New Brunswick. From here they set sail the following day eventually arriving in London on Dec.14th. Wearing red sweaters with a large white maple leaf and the name "Canadas" prominently displayed across them, the team averaged a game every second night, scoring victory after victory en route to the world championships scheduled to begin on Jan. 27, 1930.

   

 Unfortunately when warm weather at the outdoor venue in Chamonix pushed the start of the final games back four days, the round-robin system was abandoned for a knock-out format and the Canadian team was given a bye directly into the finals.

To stay in shape while awaiting the final game the Canadas scheduled games in Vienna, Austria. During a stretch of three games in three nights, the team dropped a 1-0 decision to the Austrian national team. It was the first Canadian loss in twenty-five games, with the game being played in a heavy downpour of rain. The Canadas bounced back the next night with a 6-0 win over the Vienna Skating Club.

By now the weather had forced the final games of the tournament to be moved to Berlin where the Canadas were scheduled to play the European champion team from Germany in the final game. Spurred on by the hometown crowd, the German team took an early lead, but the Canadas stormed back for a decisive 6-1 victory with Gordie Grant and Alec Park each scoring a pair of goals.

     

Having won the world championship, the CCM team arrived back in Toronto on the evening of Feb. 25, 1930. Since leaving town the CCM squad had travelled 22,500 kilometres, won thirty-one games and outscored their opponents 304 – 26.

  

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A Visit With Ron Miller
Posted: June 01, 2013
Recently I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with Ron Miller who had left his Nova Scotia home to journey across Canada and the Northern United States on both personal and bike-related business. Ron is one of the long-standing figures in the antique bicycle community in Canada. His knowledge and extensive experience with old bikes has made him one of this country's "go-to-guys" for advice and information. In fact, seldom, if ever, has a book been written about cycling in Canada that didn't acknowledge some form of assistance from Ron. Below is an article that appeared in the Chronicle Herald on March 29th of this year.   
John
 

Queens County cyclist and bicycle historian Ron Miller owns many rare bikes including a tricycle made by the British car company Rover in 1884. Miller says it is the earliest and sole surviving Rover in the world. (BEVERLEY WARE/ South Shore Bureau)
Queens County cyclist and bicycle historian Ron Miller owns many rare bikes including a tricycle made by the British car company Rover in 1884. Miller says it is the earliest and sole surviving Rover in the world. (BEVERLEY WARE/ South Shore Bureau)

 

Miller on a roll with antique bicycles
by
Beverley Ware

MERSEY POINT — It’s not that Ron Miller has an obsession. It’s more like an extremely enthusiastic passion.

Admittedly, it’s hard to miss the penny farthing in his living room. Or the full-sized antique wooden bike on a shelf high up on his living room wall. Or the bike frame hanging from the ceiling.

Miller loves bicycles. He has large bikes, small bikes, bike lamps, bike chains, bike pedals, bike horns and even bike bugles.

Where most people would have a dining room cabinet display of crystal or china, Miller has dust-free bike lights and horns and cyclometers, which would measure how far the cyclist had gone.

There’s no media room in the finished basement of his waterfront home in Mersey Point, just minutes outside Liverpool. That, too, is filled with bikes.

Besides being all-things bicycle, there’s one other thing Miller’s treasures have in common: they’re very old.

The penny farthing in his living room, for instance, was made in 1888, and Miller’s thrilled the weather is warming up so he can get outside and ride it. The wooden bike perched high on the wall in the living room was made around 1890.

But Miller’s most treasured piece is an adult tricycle made in 1884 by the British motor company Rover.

“It’s the only one like it in the world, as far as I know,” he said.

Miller biked a lot as a kid. He got his first bike, a green three-speed Raleigh, in 1952 when he was 10 years old, and he rode it everywhere. That is, until he turned 16, when he sold it and bought a Volkswagen car.

While he owned several cars over the years, the spirit of that bike never left Miller. When he was 30, he tracked it down and bought it back.

“It was just sentimental,” he recalled with a smile.

Some of the bikes Miller finds in flea markets and at auctions.

“Frequently they find me.”

Such as the Rover. Miller said someone spotted him driving to Halifax one day with the penny farthing on the back of his car. That person phoned a friend in Halifax who happened to know Miller, so the man asked his friend if he thought Miller would be interested in an old tricycle he had at home in Chester. He had no idea how rare the adult bike was.

It seems Miller’s head is filled with as much information about bikes as his house is filled with bike paraphernalia.

The first bikes were made in 1818, he said, and were basically two wooden wheels with a wooden frame — no chain, no pedals — and the cyclist sat on the seat and ran.

Pedals were added to the front wheel in 1865, leading to the development of the penny farthing because a cyclist had to pedal like crazy to make the small wheel get up to any speed.

The penny farthing went out of fashion when the bike chain was introduced because it meant the front wheel didn’t need to be huge anymore.

Miller can also tell you about valves on bike tires — the European one is the best because it doesn’t let out air — and that CCM made its first bike in 1899. It almost went out of business that first year but managed to hang on until 1983, when it sold its name to a Montreal company.

Rubber tires replaced wood around 1888 and led to the first real bike boom, but the tires weren’t perfected for years.

“It’s complex to get a simple, reliable, workable tire,” Miller said.

It would be 90 years before the next bike boom hit during the oil crisis of the 1970s.

At 70, Miller doesn’t just admire bikes, he makes tremendous use of them, joining cyclists from around the world each year for trips in England and Europe.

Last year, he cycled from London to Kent, in England. This spring, he’ll ride his 1924 Sunbeam from Prague to some other town in the Czech Republic.

“I think I’ve done the Rhine River three times, its entire length.”

He cycles from 50 to 100 kilometres a day on these trips, averaging about 500 kilometres a week.

A retired mechanical designer with the Ontario Science Centre, Miller has created a little business on the side to meet the unique needs of antique bike lovers around the world, though he concedes he doesn’t make any money at it.

He developed a system to make vacuum-formed rubber pedals to replace damaged antique rubber in old metal pedals.

He puts the original rubber part into a tube, pours liquid silicone rubber inside, then adds polyurethane rubber and seals it. He puts it in a vacuum system that he developed to remove any bubbles, then puts it into his homemade pressurized chamber. After sitting under four tonnes of pressure for eight hours, the new pedals are ready to be mailed to customers around the world.

Miller said the only real change to the bicycle in the past 120 years has been its technology and materials.

That aside, cycling still comes down to one thing.

“You still have to have good strong legs.”

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Welland Vale and the Co-operative Cycle & Motor Co.
Posted: May 11, 2013

When the Welland Vale Manufacturing Co. of St. Catharines opened a Toronto retail outlet in February 1898, it laid claim to being the largest sporting goods store in the city, handling everything from ice skates to tennis racquets. At the time it was reported that the company had “left no stone unturned to make their premises at 149 Yonge Street a place worthy of the bicycles they sell.” (Toronto Star 02/04/1899)

Established in 1874 by William J. Chaplin the Welland Vale Manufacturing Co. produced a variety of steel goods, including axes, saws and harvesting tools. By 1896, however, the bulk of their factory had been given over to the production of a successful line of bicycles, that included the Perfect, Garden City and Dominion lines, as well as a popular chainless model. In 1899 when the Welland Vale bicycle works became part of the CCM merger, the St. Catharine's operation proved to be CCM's busiest factory.

  

Then on May 16, 1900, a serious fire ravaged the St. Catharines factory bringing an abrupt end to its manufacture of bicycles. Described as “the most disastrous conflagration” that had occurred in the history of the city, the fire destroyed the large building occupied by CCM, as well as the remaining shops of the Welland Vale Manufacturing Co., causing half a million dollars damage and putting five hundred employees out of work.

  

Following the fire CCM announced that it would not rebuild in St. Catharines, but had instead agreed to a deal with the city of Brantford to move the Welland Vale bicycle works to that city. In return CCM was to receive from the city of Brantford a seven year extension on the company's tax exempt status in that city.

“Mr. Joseph Shenstone, General Manager of the Canada Cycle & Motor Company, Toronto, has been here [Brantford] and the deal has been completed. The full details of the scheme are not yet allowed to transpire, but all the wheels and tools hitherto made at the Welland Vale factory will be made at the Brantford factory. Mr. Shenstone had a conference with the Manufacturers’’ Committee of the City Council, and an arrangement was agreed upon to have the manufacture of the chainless wheel take place in the Brantford factory.” (Globe May 30, 1900).

 It was a move that didn’t sit well with folks in St. Catharines who found themselves without their bicycle works. In an effort to appease the disgruntled, when the St. Catharines Board of Trade announced that the Welland Vale Manufacturing Co. and Chaplin Saw Works intended to rebuild and to take on more employees than before the fire, it also announced that the Co-Operative Cycle & Motor Co. from Brantford and Ingersoll had commenced business in St. Catharines and "compensates the city for the loss of the Welland Vale bicycle works.” (Annual Report of the St. Catharines Board of Trade for 1900).

 
Photo courtesy: Gerald Hobbis

 Incorporated in November 1900, the Co-Operative Cycle & Motor Co. had been formed for the purpose of acquiring the plant, machinery, stock-in-trade, business and good-will of the McBurney-Beattie Co. of Toronto and the W. G. Nott Bicycle Co. of Brantford. Among the directors of the newly-formed company were Jas. Coulter of Ingersoll and Chas. F. Verity of Brantford. W.G. Nott was the president and manager of the operation, while J. McBurney of Toronto was its vice president. 

  

The company purchased land in St. Catharines and erected a large three storey factory where they turned out "wheels" as rapidly as machinery, skill and labour allowed.They continued to make the E. Z. bicycles, formerly made by the W. G. Nott Bicycle Co., as well as the McBurney-Beattie bicycle and opened up branch retails outlets in Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton and London. 

 

There’s little question that the Co-operative Cycle & Motor Co. had hoped to cash in on the similarity of its company name to that of the Canada Cycle & Motor Co., not to mention the CCM acronym, but, in the end, it wasn't enough. Although expectations ran high in St. Catharines regarding the company, unfortunately within a few years Co-operative Cycle & Motor Co. found itself in financial difficulties and had to shut down.

Meanwhile to the east in Toronto the newly-formed CCM continued to produce bicycles under the old Welland Vale model designation of Perfect and did so well into the 1920s. 

  

  

  

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