After discussing German bikes on another forum, it occurred to me that there is very little info in english about German bikes exported to other countries.

We're probably all familiar with Puch (which is Austrian though) but most of the time when a re-brand shows up nobody has the faintest idea what company actually made it.

What little I've looked into so far seems to suggest that Kalkhoff was one of the bigger suppliers to the U.S. from Germany, they were also one of the few German companies to sell bikes in the U.S. under their own brand name instead of under house brands.

Additionally would anybody like to share pics of their German bicycle?

I've got an '81 Austro-Daimler Olympian that's still in project mode, as I am conflicted over putting a Shimano Arabesque group on it; Sachs/Huret seems a better choice. But the only German bike I've had pass through my garage was a cheapie - Mundo Cycles built in W. Germany. It had several stickers informing the rider that it was built to strict international standards that would comply with American requirements. It had a significantly damaged seatstay, I harvested a few parts and donated it to become a white "ghost" bike.

Not Much... You?

Nice Durkopp on ebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Durk...ht_2329wt_1161

Oh. And Rickert, I heard, made a fine bike.

He did.

This e.g. is a 1973 Rickert painted in the colours of the former German racing team "Rokado".

There have been a few other related threads in the past:

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...-German-brands

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...erman-Bicycles

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...8-German-Bikes

There's also the Germany page on the Classic Rendezvous site:
https://www.classicrendezvous.com/Germany/Germany.htm

I don't know about kalkhoff in the past but today they're at a somewhat lower level than the other German brands Cube, Focus, et. al.

Well since they are not really sold in the US and haven't been except for Puchs most of which weren't made in Germany. I will confess almost nothing. Of the several thousand bikes I have worked on only a couple where actually German.

Actually, "Dürkopp" is Plattdeutsch, an ancient German dialect. It translates to

"Dürr" = "teuer" -> expensive
and
"kopp" = "kaufen" -> buy.

During the 40's to 70's at least, there was a huge bicycle manufacturing industry in Germany, with brands ranging from Adler to Bauer, Bismarck, Dürkopp, Göricke, Miele, NSU, Rabeneick, Stricker, and Westerheide, to mention just a few.

However, at least after ww2 most of these brands restricted themselves to manufacturing touring bikes alone, for this was the type of bike most needed and sought after at that time. Whilst in the 50's most people in Germany did not have the noney to buy a car, even bicyles proofed to be a very expensive good to them. Therefore, racing bikes were considered pure luxury and demand was probably rather low. Some of the bigger brands that manufactured racing bikes at that time were Adler (which stopped its whole bicycle production in 1954), Bauer (till about 1968), Express (stopped production in 1959) and Rabeneick (went out of Business in the mid-60s).

However, as far as I know most of them did not export bicycles, at least not to the US. For the reasons I can only speculate. One of them surely was the high demand within Germany itself, which at that time did not necessitate exports to keep sales high. Other reasons might have been that countries like France and Italy had strong and famous bicycle industries themselves, which would have made these markets very difficult to penetrate. Or, that the German touring bikes - according to customer's demands back then - were built to be reliable and long-living, but not very spectacular.

Apart from that, racing bikes were mainly produced by custom builders. Some of the most famous ones in Germany were Rickert, Fauss, Schumacher, Köthke, Lauer and Lüders. But there were many others, too.

However, for these custom builders there was also no need to export bicycles, mainly because production was rather low. Hugo Rickert e.g. built all the frames by himself, whilst his wife did some of the paintwork and took care of their bike shop.

Speaking of Rickert, I'm currently rebuilding this nice racing bike from about 1970. Frame and fork are Reynolds 531.

The Eastt German Diamant custom shop produced some very nice road bikes. Many for the DDR National team. Ed

Photos as purchased about 8 years ago. First thing I did was replace the stem. Heavy steel, lower end but rides nice with comfortable gearing. Stainless wheels and fenders. I've used it many times as a boardwalk bike.

Nice colour, but I am afraid the bike is no genuine Rabeneick. - Your bike was probably build in the late 70's or early 80's.

The Rabeneick factory already closed down in the mid-60s. Some time later the brand name "Rabeneick" was bought by a different company which continued to sell low-quality roadbikes by that name.

Why bring up Puch? They're not German.

It depends how you want to spin the history coin, Puch had a long and not so nice history with Germany.

https://www.company7.com/bosendorfer/...cle.html#early

Scott

I stand by my statement. It's an Austrian company.

Biria!