News
Getting A Chance To Document A Collection
Where I live in an outlying area of Winnipeg we have a local museum, being a railroad town its mostly train related. In the 15 years I've lived here I've always heard rumours about a collection of vintage bicycles in the basement of the museum. I've been to see the curator several times over the years wanting to document those bikes in the basement, he acknowledged they were there but the basement was strictly off limits to visitors. Thats where the matter lay till 2 weeks ago when I heard the museum had a new curator, she was happy to see me and said I had come by at a great time. They are closed for a month to change displays, the new theme will be transportation.......she was planning on bringing one of the bikes up for display but knew nothing about bikes, and here I come eager to photograph them and see whats there. So Friday March 1st at 3 PM I'll see this mysterious collection that I've heard about. I'm imagining it will be mostly older CCM middleweights, but won't know till I see them. If its really worthwhile I'll take lots of pics to share on the CCM forum and record serial numbers.
Great opportunity Oldrider. Thanks for offering to share your discovery with us.
John
cool, can't wait to see your pictures!
I'm back from my museum adventure........I went there not knowing how many there were or what exactly I'd see but as I suspected they were mostly older CCMs, 5 in total. There was a early 40s loopframe ladies CCM that had been the property of the telegraph company, messenger boys had used that bike. There was a 1940ish singlebar trussrod roadster in amazing paint condition, black with gold darts and a diamond badge, had never seen that color combo before. There was a mid 30s doublebar CCM that I suspect from the chainring had been badged as a Hudson Bay Ranger, the badge was missing. There was also what I think was a 1920s CCM with wooden rims, in nice shape too, even the toolbag behind the seat was still there. But what really amazed me was the 5th bike, a ladies model with what had been a decal as a headbadge, it was worn away though. It was a skiptooth chain style with some sort of an internal braking mechanism, there was no brake arm nor evidence there had ever been one, I spun the wheel and turned the crank in reverse at first thinking the arm was missing but it stopped nicely, my first time seeing something like this. It had one of the smallest chainrings I've ever seen on an old bike..........the serial # on it was only 4 digits, D322, on top portion of the seat tube, exact location where some CCMs had it, but I have no idea what it was. I can't figure out how to post pics here so I will send John the pics of the skiptooth and maybe others here will know what it is. If theres interest in seeing pics of the others please let me know.
The coaster brake on the bicycle you talked about is a Hercules brake made by CCM or for them. It did not have a brake arm you just made sure ithe wheel nuts where tight. They used this brake from the early 1900,s to middle 20,s with out the brake arm then did put a arm on it . It went though some changes from the beginning . The early ones are mostly shot and where subject to cracks around the bearing housing. The one marked New Hercules where a lot better braking. I have used this brake on a lot of my bike and they work fine.
The other bikes that OldRider saw at the museum yesterday.
well they look like cool project bikes.
You got that right Old Bikes! Sadly though none of them are for sale and they'll likely never leave that basement :(
Thats too bad, i was going to say i really dig that black and gold camel back. It still looks to be in really nice shape as far as the paint and decals go too. Dosn't look like it would need much work to be a nice rider or a decent show piece. Thanks for sharing these OldRider!
I had a chance to look at those bikes around 13 years ago. They probably have not moved since then. I asked what they were doing with them. They said nothing, not selling them. The mens bike with wood rims looks like the bottom bar was replaced or it was a single top bar bike. I don't think I have seen a CCM with a straight bottom bar. It also looks like the bottom bar shows the welds at the ends. The ladies bike is an early one also.
The black and gold mens bike is nice.
Did you get a chance to look at the bicycle license plates. I remember them having a bunch of early ones all with number 1 on them. Someone from Transcona who was disabled got the number 1 plate every year. He donated them to the museum.
Now that I look at the black woodrim CCM again, I can see what you mean. To me it looked like my 1936 HB Ranger, exact same chainring so without the badge on it I assumed Hudson Bay.I told her though the bars were wrong if it was like mine, it should have the crossbrace. Maybe gave her the wrong info now!
The dry basement is causing those beautiful saddles to crumble, I touched one and a small piece fell off. Its sad that they can't be ridden. I never got to see the license plates but she did mention they had quite a few in their collection. She has the original owners manual for that black and gold camelback, she will find it in the archives, scan the pages and send it to me.
Yes it's such fun to watch these lovely old bikes crumble into scale.
It's the wrong thing to do, you could store them in a nitrogen filld room which would stop the rusting.
People store food in Nitrogen filled rooms all the time, it's cheap and easy.
Or they could sell them to collectors who would sign a contract to lend them to the museum when they wanted it back for display. the collectors could restore them to keep the poor things from rusting