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.

1971 Schwinn Paramount

1971 Schwinn Paramount P-13 (in orange)

1971 Schwinn Paramount P-13

We have a few duplicate bikes in the museum.

This is a 1971 Schwinn Paramount just like the chrome beauty that you may have seen elsewhere in this section.

A Paramount was one of the best options available to amateur bike racers in America in the early 1970’s, so there are quite a few of these still rolling around the country.

This particular Paramount, a P-13 variant for the road racer, belongs to our friend Jeff. As you may have guessed upon spotting the Look pedals or the new Continental tires, this one still gets ridden around Bainbridge Island and north Kitsap County on sunny days. Probably days where Jeff is feeling particularly spry, as the Campagnolo Record crankset and Regina freewheel don’t offer much in the way of hill-friendly gear options.

In 1971 it was pretty awesome to have shifting options that went from about 55 gear inches on the low end (44 x 25) to about 100 inches (52 x 13) on the high end. For those of you not familiar with the concept of gear inches this meant slogging-through-wet-cement gears on the low end to washing-machine-spin-cycle cadence on the high end.

Nice chrome lugs

High flange Campy hubs

Brooks saddle

No bottle cages

Nuovo Record

Campy Record brake calipers

Today you can expect a racing bike to have a spread of about 30 gear inches (34 x 28, which is pretty comfortable on most climbs) on the low end to 135 (53 x 11, which brings you over 40 MPH before you spin out) on the high end.

Just like on Pete Brissing’s 1971 Paramount, the owner of this Paramount has shown that he is a slave to bicycle fashion and has declined water bottle cages lest they scratch the Schwinn decals on the downtube.
Probably not much of an issue for our friend Jeff, as he does most of his riding in the early morning hours, riding point to point between coffee shops.

By paul|2024-10-06T16:20:11+00:00August 3rd, 2017|Museum bikes 1966 to 1985, schwinn|Comments Off