So I was visiting my friend in Philly, and he had just picked up an incredibly strange bicycle from the Bike Church. It was a Huffy "Aerowind" or something like that. I noticed it at first, because the downtube was shaped into a semi-aero oval shape in the middle, and then rounded out to regular circlular tubing at the braze points. I don't think it was lugged... maybe though. It had shimano derailleurs and some bizarre brakes that were similar to the 70's Weinmann center-pulls, but they had a roller that moved the arms (Bad description). The shifters weren't exactly on the stem, they were mounted on the top-tube with some large clamping device. The pedals looked like older Shimano's, but they were of inferior quality.

The wierdest part was the BB and cranks. It was a one-piece sized BB shell with three piece cranks!

Anyways, I was just curious as to what this monstrosity of a bicycle was and what the history is behind it.

A buddy of mine had one. seems it was about 1979? Think they were all a flat looking silver with purple cables if I remember right. I think they were rather expensive for what you got. Seems to me they had some cool looking parts made specifically for them. Looked really high tech to a kid.

I found one at the dump last fall. Heavy bike! At least 35 lbs. I stripped off some of the unusual parts and ended up sending most to a BFer in Canada. I kept the Shimano Uniglide cassette which I have put to good use by customizing it for my Schwinn. I believe the Huffy Areowind bikes where all about looks and nothing about performance.

I think these forgettable department store bikes were a marketing attempt by Huffy to simulate the professional "aero" bikes that were beginning to appear in the olympics and european racing. Huffy actually hired a pro framebuilder - Mike Melton - if my memory is correct and he was building these Huffy labelled aero tubing, tig welded (or filet brazed) time trial bikes for the US team to ride at the Pan Am games and the olympics (can't remember which one). This was around the time the Huffy bought Raleigh so some of the bikes said Raleigh.I think the frames were built somewhere around Springboro Ohio. A few of the guys in the Dayton Cycling club own a couple of these oddities and they're quite specialized so you wouldn't ride one every day. They had sloping top tubes and rear triangles where the wheel fit tightly around the aero seat tube.
As for the Huffy at the department store, I remember thinking to myself, "maybe something good will come of this, maybe cycling will catch on finally".

Yeah, me too. I kept the wheelset and cranks and the neat cable guide/DR mounts and sent the rest home to the landfill.
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