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.

1977 Windsor Professional Track Bike

1977 Windsor Professional Track

1977 Windsor Professional (Track)

In the 1970’s every bike nerd in America coveted the marquee Italian brands like Colnago, Masi and Cinelli. They saw the bikes in the windows of fancier bike shops and in pictures of famous racers in the imported cycling magazines. Italian craftsmanship had mystical qualities, they were beautiful and they just had to be faster somehow.

Sometime in the middle of the decade while paging through those British and French cycling magazines we started to see adverts for a bike line known as Windsor, and the coveted Italian labels had competition for the American bike lover’s attention.

Windsors were imported on the east coast by a guy named Sid Star, and if we remember correctly his company was called Alpha Cycle. Sid was also the importer of the wonderful Lotus line of bicycles. Anyway, Windsors were dead ringers for Italian Cinelli or Colnago, but at about half the price as they were made in Mexico by the Acer-Mex company.

Great lines

Seat lug detail

Campy track dropouts

Windsor head on

On display at the Harbour Pub

Windsors were affordable to wannabe track and road riders. Jeff remembers how much he wanted a Windsor when they were first available and even began gathering the parts for the day the frame came home from the bike shop…. But it didn’t happen.

Fast-forward to the late 1980’s when Jeff was working at Saks Feed and Cycle in Kingston. Jeff had just loaded a ton of hay onto a truck when a local landscaper came in and asked if Jeff was interested in buying a frameset he had bought in Southern California about 15 years previous. The frame had never been assembled and it was a Windsor, in Molteni Team orange. Needless to say, Jeff bought it. The parts that he had collected all of those years previous? They were perfect for the bike.

If you’d like to admire this old Windsor, it is currently on display in The Harbour Public House (The Pub) on Bainbridge Island.

By paul|2024-10-07T03:17:34+00:00May 11th, 2016|Museum bikes 1966 to 1985|Comments Off