I thought some of the regulars to this board would find this interesting. While on a trip to Cochrane, Ontario we checked out the polar bear habitat display. Not sure why, however with the price of admission you could also go through this attached museum that this guy built from scratch. Apparently he's been collecting stuff for many years and decided to create this museum. Anyhow, to make a long story short, he had this bike hanging from the ceiling. It turns out that it's never been used. He bought it off a guy who had it in his store for years. It must have been put away in storage. As you can see it's absolutely in mint condition c/w the excess rubber on the tires. What I found interesting is that it had a key (2nd picture) to lock the handle bars. I didn't find out the year it was built. Any ideas?

By the looks of it I think it is one of the reproductions that were made a few years ago. I has been riden some because the tank is bent from the fork hitting it. You can tell by the green paint smear and the dent. Roger

Yep, that's one of the repros. The seat color is off, and there's WAY too much padding on it, lol. I have an original, and it's like a springboard seat on a horse drawn wagon. The paint is also way too nice, as the original paint would be duller even in pristine condition. They're a pretty true repro though, the seat and paint are the main things that give it away. The Schwinn Phantoms, and a few other bikes had the locking forks. That was back in the 1930's to 1950's, when that might have actually deterred a thief, hehe.,,,,BD

Not sure of the year they were reproducing, maybe 48? Here's my 55 for reference.

Late (?) '80s Western Flyer repop by Columbia. Same thing, different badge, cheaper chainguard.



-Kurt

It's almost true to form though. Cleveland Welding built MANY of the bikes back then. It's pretty odd seeing a Columbia dropout on a WF though, haha.,,,,BD

What gave it away to me was the presence of the safety tabs on the washers for the front hubs.

That early front suspension is wild. I've often wondered if bikes like that and the Schwinn Phantom were used as early mountain bikes before companies like Gary Fisher and Specialized started making commercial mountain bikes.

Wonder no more, that's exactly what they used before purpose building started. Very much like what happened with BMX and the banana seat bikes(Stingrays etc) There were conversion parts available before
the whole industry got going.,,,,BD

https://www.firstflightbikes.com/vintage.htm

Dammit, now I want to build one, lol. Well, I kind of already did... 3 in back, and I think a 52(3) in front.
Hmm. I have enough triples laying around.

Thanks for the info guys. I would never have figured out it was a repro. The guy who owns the museum should change his story a bit. He made it sound like it was 50+ years old. Maybe he doesn't know???