Folding Bikes - BSA Folding Paratrooper's Bike for sale
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I found this bike for sale on ebay, it is on sale from an online auction house with a buy it now price of £1,250 or thereabouts.
There is a fantastic amount of info, details, history, photos etc attached to this sale :-
BSA Airborne Folder (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BSA-Airborne-Folding-Paratroopers-Vintage-WW2-Bicycle_W0QQitemZ270427113076QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Collectables_Militaria_LE?hash=item3ef6b64674&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_27403wt_1165)
Enjoy!
werewolf
08-08-09, 01:16 PM
1,250 pounds!
I used to own that exact bike. I bought it mail order from a tiny ad in the back of the NY Times in the late 1950's for $19.99.
I was riding the bike on the city street and a car cut me off and I went sailing through the air and the bike was totaled. The driver's insurance company representative came to our apartment in northern Manhattan and made us an offer, $20, to settle the case, which we accepted. We were very naive.
werewolf
08-08-09, 01:18 PM
As I recall, the worst feature on that bike was the pedals. The little round retractable bars were welded on and couldn't be replaced by real pedals
The point of my post was not the price, but the extraordinary amount of info , history etc
Anybody notice?
werewolf
08-08-09, 01:52 PM
"Pedals are fitted rather than the original pedal bars; this was common practice after the war. If you're not wearing army boots, the wartime pedal bars are not suitable for riding. Companies that sold army surplus bicycles, such as Pride & Clark, often replaced the chain ring and pedal sets."
Now they tell me!
werewolf
08-08-09, 02:45 PM
The point of my post was not the price, but the extraordinary amount of info , history etc
Anybody notice?
Yes, of course. It's an extraordinarily interesting bike. It's history is interesting, and it's value is too. There was something about it on the Claasic & Vintage board, I believe, a while back.
badmother
08-08-09, 04:14 PM
The point of my post was not the price, but the extraordinary amount of info , history etc
Anybody notice?
Nope,sorry :D:D
Bikes in war in general is interesting. They used them also in ww1. In the Boer war in SA also, sinche they expected the horses to die since it was tse-tse area. The Boes responded with releasing dogs on the rednecks. They answered back with dogwhips.
In Asia they also tryed mounting brackets to hold the gun so they could shoot while riding. Did not work well. Also a week or two ago somebody posted (I think in the Utlityforums) about longtail bkes being used during the Vietnam war to haul quite heavu artillery trough the bush unnotced.
Around here, when the bike cirkus started it was the sportsmen (who was almost always officers) that bought bikes privately. Then the army payed them to bring the bikes with them, a sum pr day.
Guess I should stop, this is the folder forums.