Monark Bicycle Serial Numbers

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A Fat Bike in the 1940’s! I’m a Minnesotan and have competed in winter bike races. I also have a couple of friends that used to do the Alaskan Iditarod bike event back in the early 1990’s. I thought that I had seen, and maybe even ridden, two of the very first bikes designed for riding on snow (that are now referred to as “Fat Bikes”. My friend Mike Madden raced the Iditabike a number of times, and he had a Fat Chance mountain bike fitted with double rims (two regular mountain bike rims, welded together so that a 26 x 2” tire would spread out and provide a bigger footprint in the snow).

All bikes all have unique serial numbers. Most bicycles have their serial number engraved beneath their bottom bracket, but sometimes serial numbers are found. Jul 5, 2015 - Helping out a friend. I had some notes about Monark serial numbers, but I can't find the them. Looking for a year to pinpoint what chainguard is.

It felt slow to me, but on top of hard-packed snow it just cruised. Erik Noren, the gifted artisan behind Peacock Groove custom bicycles once worked at QBP (the bicycle wholesaler behind Surly bikes) in Minneapolis. I had the chance to ride the first snow bike that Erik ever made.

That Peacock Groove bike was a hoot to ride around through the Minneapolis autumn leaves, and I understood what a game changer a bike like that would be for a cyclist who had to endure a midwest winter. Surly and some QBP employees must have come to the same conclusion too, as Surly was pretty blatant in copying many of Erik’s design elements for the first Surly Pugsley. Now I have to admit that neither of these bikes were even close to being the first fat bikes. Check out this photo that Jeff unearthed from the 1940’s. Looks like the rider is headed for the beach, not snow.

1940’s Carbine This Carbine was/is a terrific Australian road racer that handled/handles great and is/was a really comfortable bike to ride. Wondering why we’re calling this thing a road bike when it looks like something made exclusively for the track? It’s because racing bikes in the 1940’s were typically meant for dual duty, and despite the fact that the bike has a fixed gear and doesn’t have brakes, it was ridden on the roads.

Just a judgement call on our part. Now, to start, there were two bicycle brands named Carbine in Australia a hundred years ago. A skinny Mansfield saddle While we don’t really care if a restored bike is “as original” or if someone gives their bike the hot rod treatment (chroming everything, making the bike better than it ever was when new), we do care that the restoration does no harm. In the case of this Carbine, the painter was not up to the task. The horse head badge is almost totally obscured by gobs of paint. The pinstripe details are shaky and the colors are overwrought. Not saying we could personally do better, but if you’re going to “restore” something you need to restore it to how it was originally.

If you want to “hot rod” the appearance of your old bike, just make sure that you and the painter actually enhance how it looks. Schwinn Black Phantom “My new Phantom sure is a beauty — All the fellows say it’s the swellest-looking bike in town.” Sure is the swellest. Built between 1949 and 1959, Schwinn Phantoms were the most bodacious, luxurious, and feature-filled bicycles on the road.

There was the deluxe leather saddle, the patented spring fork, built-in horn, streamlined tank, Schwinn fender lights and an automatic brake light, an integrated lock, kickstand, and a luggage rack. “The most beautiful bike in the world” included whitewall tires, pinstripes and sparkly paint, with chrome all around. Phantom chainguard and paint detail These bikes were so coveted and awe inspiring that no kid would even consider riding the Black Phantom on his newspaper route. The bike was the prize that two years of saved route money bought in the first place!

The Phantom was the ride for sunny days and impressing the other guys in the neighborhood. This wouldn’t end up a “work” bike, that job would still belong to the rusty old Roadmaster in the garage.

Black Phantom bike production was discontinued in 1960. Balloon tire cruisers had lost favor with America’s youth, and the increasing popularity of “English Racers” (the generic term given to any bike that had thin tires and a few different gears) meant that Schwinn’s 67 pound Phantom was too heavy and inefficient for modern tastes. Ted Smith’s Claude Butler Olympic Sprint In the bike shop we sometimes get questions about this old bike racer named Claude Butler who seemed to be so famous in the 1940′s and ’50′s.