Bikes of America (and Canada!)

Raleigh America 1984 funny bike for the LA Olympics
One of the cool little features, look at how the shift lever is twisted to reduce the frontal area a little.

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The above pic also shows the wacky front brake, assembled backwards to put the spring on the back, with welding.
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Check out how they made the front hub narrower, by just cutting a Campy and epoxying the pieces back together:

front hub.webp

This last little detail probably didn't make the bike much faster, but it's definitely trick:

R. der. cable routing.webp
See how the cable housing emerges from where the adjuster screw normally goes in the dropout? Show-off!
 
One of the cool little features, look at how the shift lever is twisted to reduce the frontal area a little.

View attachment 927323
The above pic also shows the wacky front brake, assembled backwards to put the spring on the back, with welding.
.
Check out how they made the front hub narrower, by just cutting a Campy and epoxying the pieces back together:

View attachment 927324

This last little detail probably didn't make the bike much faster, but it's definitely trick:

View attachment 927333
See how the cable housing emerges from where the adjuster screw normally goes in the dropout? Show-off!
That cable exit is definitely the bomb 💣!
 
1968 Schwinn Lemon Peeler
 

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This is the yellow bike in Schwinn’s Krate series of Sting Ray kids bikes. If you were eleven years old in 1968, you were probably more willing to sell your little brother at a garage sale before you were going to let anyone buy your Lemon Peeler.

The design is everything here. Since these bicycles were mimicking trends happening with sports cars at the time, Schwinn naturally asked: What is the next step after racing a stock muscle car? Why, racing a dragster, of course. As you can see from the catalogue page, Schwinn took their Sting Ray “Muscle Bike” idea and went from stock
 
1976 FMF Team Replica
 

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This bike is a FMF Team Replica, a collaboration project between FMF and pioneering BMX company Race Inc. Like a lot of great BMX innovations, this bike came from the brain of Race Inc. (and later SE Racing’s) Scot Breithaup.

In 1976 Race Inc. released the RA-7 model which was the first mass-produced aluminum BMX bike.
 
The bike originated in 1979 as the STR-1 for star BMX’er Stu Thompson. Stu and his SE were on countless magazine covers and at the front of many races.

Actually made from Reynolds tubing

This particular bike is from 1983, featuring all of the best components from the day. Profile cranks, Tuff Wheel mags, Kashimax saddle, and a Dia-Compe brake. It was actually made out of Reynolds 531 tubing, and the TIG welds look great.
 
Another 1978 Exxon Graftek
 

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