Harry Nettleton’s 1907 RaCycle Pace Maker

1907 RaCycle

There are a lot of names here so lets see… This is the Pace Maker model RaCycle, and RaCycles were made by the Miami Cycle and Manufacturing company of Middleton, Ohio.

Bikes like this one followed high-wheelers onto the cobbled streets of early 1900’s America. With newly invented roller chain and pneumatic tires, this would have been a luxuriously smooth ride compared to a Penny-Farthing.

One of the selling points of the Pace Maker was the massive front chainring (equivalent to a modern 84-tooth ring) that was meant to attract attention and suggest higher speed (but the big ring was actually offset by a big back cog that ended up producing a comfortable gear ratio).

The new air-filled tires were mounted (using shellac as glue) to wooden rims (maple, I think).

Head badge

Adjustable handlebar

Oversized drivetrain

Fork pegs

42 skip-tooth chainring

A RaSaddle?

The handlebars on the Pace Maker are really cool. They pivot at the stem, and can be adjusted in width and height, depending on a rider’s desire.

Foot pegs on the front fork allowed the rider to enjoy speeding downhill on his fixed-gear bike. Sure, without your feet on the pedals to control the speed there would be no brakes, but brakes are overrated.

Racycle advertisement

Check out the old ad that we found for RaCycle bikes. The copy in old advertising and press releases like this one was so earnest. According to the manufacturer, a 1904 Worlds Fair jury “consisting of the ablest consulting and manufacturing engineers in Europe and America, were unanimous in their decision that the Racycle was the most perfectly constructed, easiest running bicycle in the world.”

However they were judged, early “safety” bicycles like this one really brought inexpensive personal transportation to the masses. They connected people with jobs and schools, connected rural areas of the country with cities, connected extended families (and liberated family members from one another).

This bike was originally owned by Harry Nettleton of Red Wing, Minnesota. Harry raised the original $16.50 purchase price by collecting clam shells from the Minnesota river and selling them to a local button factory.

By the way, if you take a look at the Iver Johnson Truss-bridge bike from the same era, you’ll note that the RaCycle was about a third of the price of the Iver Johnson.

1953 & 1954 Schwinn Panther

1953 & 1954 Schwinn Panthers

1954 Schwinn Panther

1953 Schwinn Panther

These are the bikes that every successful paperboy in the country aspired to own in the mid 1950’s. Schwinn Panthers.

There is a funny story about collecting things that goes along with these bikes. Jeff Groman, who owns these bikes and much of the rest of our museum collection, didn’t realize that he had two Panthers.

Jeff had bought the first bike sometime in the early 1990’s and had it on public display for years. The bike was up on a wall in a Kingston, Washington pizza parlor and Jeff simply forgot about it.

A decade later a lady asked Jeff if he wanted to buy the old bike she had kicking around in her garage, and what do you know? It was a Panther. Another decade goes by, the pizza place remodels (giving Jeff his bike back) and now two nearly identical bikes are hanging from the rafters in Jeff’s barn.

This past December Classic Cycle held a museum night event and we wanted some balloon-tire bikes to show off. Jeff grabs one of the Panthers for us, but a mystery had sprung up. Where did the 2-speed hub come from? The 2-speed was a deluxe option that he was pretty sure he never had!

The steering tube lock made it hard to to steal

Speedometer

Luggage rack

Panther front end

Panther chain guard

2 speeds with this lever

So we check out the serial number. It turns out that the bike in the stand is a model year newer than the placard we had to go with it. What the heck? An extensive search of the storage held the answer: 2 bikes.

The Schwinn Panther was an awesome bike that had it all. Just like Pee-Wee Herman’s big adventure bike, the Panther came with chrome fenders, a luggage rack, springer fork, lntegrated lock, headlight, chainguard and a horn in the “gas” tank. Our 1954 version came with the New Departure 2-speed hub option. This was a smart upgrade that made the 65 pound bike just a little more efficient when toiling up and over neighborhood hills.

By paul|2024-10-08T01:04:21+00:00October 17th, 2014|museum bikes, schwinn|0 Comments