Wanted 1942 CCM Road Racer Brochure

According to extant company documentation, the Road Racer was discontinued in Septembert 1941 for the duration of the war, as part of the war materials conservation program.

That's interesting,the bike serials as a 1942 (4H8192) so I ll  try for a 41  brochure or cataloge page for a Road Racer  would be very helpful

contact  gtflyte@hotmail.ca

Also T-MAR  thank you with the update .

I made up the serial number list many years ago based on information obtained from the CCM dealer's magazine VIM. Since I made the list, I have found that CCM started with a certain year's serial number around September of the previuos year. I know this from checking serial numbers against the original owner's good memories of when they purchased the bicycle.

When I made the serial number list, I gave it to about two other CCM enthusiasts in Ontario who proceeded to make the information available all over the web. I found that I could actually buy my serial number listr on Ebay for $5.00 at one point.

John Williamson

GT here is the page from the 1941 catalogue.

John

Wow John great response thanks for the page and the serial #'s

Gt

John, when you get a chance, could you post the pages showing Ladies bikes from the 1941 brochure? I had a momentary lapse of reason and stripped the house paint off a 1941. It was an experiment with oven cleaner and a pressure washer (which went well) but now I have to prime it before it rusts and decide on the colour scheme. What intrigued me was the lack of a head badge, lack of holes for a head badge, and what seem to be all-metal - wartime? - pedals. I wanted to see if there was black paint underneath. I think the original paint was maroon with white fenders but I want to see what the brochure shows. Cheers, -Brian R.

Brian, in I1941 CCM produced four ladies' models, the CCM Roadster, CCM Balloon, Rambler Roadster and Cadet., The major difference between the non-balloon models was the crankset, with the CCM employing the Triplex while the Rambler was outfitted with the one piece crank and the cottered UEK crankset was installed on the Cadet. The Cadet and Rambler received colour matched fenders while the CCM branded model used the contrasting Ashes of Roses fenders. The pedals spec'd on the CCM and Rambler were the Phillips 1568, which was a standard, rubber block model. The pedals on the Cadet aren't spec'd but are depicted as rubber block pedals. 

Of course, during the war, supply of components and material is always a concern, so there is a possibility that the pedals were sibstititutes. Other possibilities to explain the apparent variations is that it is actually a 1942 model maufacturesd in late 1941 or a 1941 frame that got rejected and delayed for a period in a rework or repair process. Also consider that member locomotion recently posted a war grade bicycle with a a head decal and maroon paint. Apparently, not all war grade bicycles were black. The colour may have depended on paint availability.

Ladies War Grade Pedals? Thanks very much T-Mar for posting the catalogue page, it is the exact model I'm working on except for the pedals. I remember the discussion about wartime bikes and I have a 1945 maroon men's bike with no badge holes. My 1941 Ladies is like the catalogue bike right down to the saddle and chrome rim with centre stripe edged in white, but has no badge or holes and the metal pedals. It seems as if there were semi-war-grade models prior to and following the full-war-grade black bikes. I will post a photo of the pedal here. Does anyone recognize it? The original owner swears they changed nothing on the bike other than covering it in crappy paint. If that's true these pedals came from CCM in 1941 or 1942. -Brian R.

I certainly wouldn't discount semi war grade models. CCM  put many wartime materials conservation measures into effect prior to CS39. For instance, CCM discontinued the Motorbikes, Balloon bikes, Delivery models and Racers in September 1941, well before the regulatuions came into effect. Being the largest Canandian bicycle manufacturer, the government would have valued CCM's input and company representives would almost certainly have been part of the committee set up to establish the warime regulations governing the industry. 

Consequently, CCM would have been aware of pending requirements and have been able to implement them well in advance, when it made the best sense for the company. It wouldn't surprise me if the decal head emblem was available and being trialed in late 1941, about the same time as the mentioned model discontinuations. Even though the new regulations weren't in effect, once they had the decal designed they would probably not have initiated a new production run of metal head badges and simply used up existing supply. Depending on how they managed their inventory and manufacturing process, there may have beena period when models were shipping with both decals and metal head emblems.

As for the pedals, I don't recall seeing this model. Are they steel or aluminum? They look like thck castings, as you would  expect with aluminum but I can't tell if that is dirt or rust. They certainly aren't in the 1941 catalogue or any of my 1950s ctatalogues. John's 1945 catalogue page depicts block pedals on the war grade models for that year. While there is a possibility that that they are OEM, I also wouldn't put a lot of faith in sixty-five year old memories, especially when it comes to female bicycles, It's not that female memories are worse, but far fewer females got directly  involved with the maintenance, preferring to leave it to their brother, father or spouse. Consequently, they tend not to remember changes.

I've had many cases where previous owners swore the bicycles were completely OEM, yet there were parts with date codes that post dated the frame by decades. Yesterday, a friend brought a 28 year old bicycle to me that he swore was bought new and locally, yet it had a shop decal for store 400km away. 

Um it says in the brochure that '' the guards'' were ''ashes of roses''....So would that be the fenders which used to be called mud guards, and ashes of roses is a mauve colour?

I've only seen white fenders on maroon bikes.It says you could get these bikes in maroon and blue. Has anyone seen bikes from this period with mauve fenders?

in the dictionary it discribes '' ashes of roses'' as a mauve colour.... does the brochure have it wrong?

I'm not sure what to make of the colour, and being a tad colour blind doesn't help. Is it grey as in ashes or reddish as in roses, or ugh -pink? Is it supposed to be reddish white? It doesn't seem like a very manly colour to me in name or in shade, so I was surprised to see it on the A-code 1949 men's I bought and in the catalogue for men's bikes. If I was a teen in the '50s I'm not sure I'd be excited to get a bike painted "ashes of roses". See photo which shows the contrast of  maroon rim, ashes of roses fender and white safety strip at back of fender. -Brian R.

T-Mar, the pedals are steel. My fridge magnets stick to them and they show signs of rust. Thanks for your response. The bike was used by a group of sisters, the eldest and first owner is now 88. It has its original saddle. The owner's husband of 60 years said he did nothing except paint it. It is possible the dealer swapped out the factory pedals for cheaper after market ones for one reason or another. That's why I posted the pic, to find out if this type has been seen before on CCMs.

I've always just called these fenders "off-white". Given the age and weathering, it's virtually impossible to tell what the original tint may have been. Besides, small differences in colour perception is normal, with people having varying degrees of sensitivity within a particular range of the colour spectrum.

If these pedals were factory substitutes, I would have expected them be Torrington, which appear to have been CCM's secondary source during this period, as they were also included in the1941 catalogue. The probability of CCM having supply issues with both their primary and secondary pedal sources at the same time, would be quite small.