Bike Forums - What were the vintage store brand bikes? Open Road? Anything decent? (2024)

Just wondering what all of the different store brand bikes were called. I know Sears = Free Spirit but what about all of the other department store brands? I saw a white pair of "Open Road" his & her (mixte frame) road bikes at a thrift store this past weekend and I think I recall that name tied to a chain store. Was it JC Penney's, Montgomery Wards or something else? They were rust buckets and weighed 30+ pounds each but it was different seeing a matched pair of bikes.

Did any of the department stores have a decent lightweight road bike or did they just all market to the masses with low end middle of the road stuff?

There were a lot of department store-branded and hardware store-branded bikes made last century. Manufacturers would do a run of re-badged cycles for different companies. Of course, I can think of none right now...

Also, brand names evolved:
Excelsior --> Schwinn
Huffman --> Huffy
Elgin --> Sears --> Free Spirit
Pope --> Columbia

There were a lot of department store-branded and hardware store-branded bikes made last century. Manufacturers would do a run of re-badged cycles for different companies. Of course, I can think of none right now...

Also, brand names evolved:
Excelsior --> Schwinn
Huffman --> Huffy
Elgin --> Sears --> Free Spirit
Pope --> Columbia

That's the example I would have cited, as well.

I'm not sure exactly when, but Sears changed over to Huffy and/or Murray as their bike supplier. Mid 1980s, I think, to try to match the 'mart store prices. One piece crank is a giveaway.

Ine the early 70's the May Company depatment store out in California was selling a French built, Campagnolo equipped bike save for brakes, they were Mafac, touted as the finest bicycle in the world, no idea who built it, it was a special order item, now I would place it as an upper end Follis or Gitane in quality. At the time it was $395., not cheap, if I had not already spent my money on a pro level bike I would have gone back every day waiting for the display bike to go on sale...

Flamboyant green, nice lugwork for French, Campagnolo ends, half chrome forks and stays. The salespeople knew nothing, being only 12, I as not taken seriously.

I think Arctic Cat was Puch. Nice bike for the time...not a dimestore cheapy. Didnt care for the seat a whole lot (solid plastic).

Open Road = Monkey Wards

Had a gold one, 10 speed back in grade school in the 70s.
Still see em all around Chicago.

Fun, inexpensive project for my daughter! was a 10sp, will be a single soon!

There was Iverson of course, super-heavy with 1-pc crankset and steel Suntour Honor derailer.

Sears was really big and swung big deals with the Austrian Steyr factory as was mentioned.

I found this 1968 SEARS "10 SPEED" about four years ago, paid a full $80 and did my usual sporting upgrade (saddle, post, stem, chain and freewheel) on it. I even re-laced the stock wheels with stainless spokes and a replacement Chro-Lux rim after a following rider rear-ended me during an animal-crossing panic stop by the rider in front of me. I cheated with the derailers, of course.:lol:
I really like riding this bike, after I custom re-bent the handlebar flare for it, but hadn't yet noticed that the handlebar had slipped slightly in the stem clamp before snapping this photo.

The bikes branded Steyr instead of Sears were popular in California through the 60's and early 70's, but does anyone know if they were sold at bike shops or department stores or hardware/mower places??? My '72 Steyr is yet another "$80 special", courtesy of Craigslist.

Huffy produced a chromed frame-fork in the late 70's for a model that I have not been able to identify (may even have been a 3-speed(?), and possibly with 26" wheels, but 27's fit normally). It is unusually large with a 24" frame that not-coincidentally has identical angles and dimensions to a same-sized Schwinn Varsity/Continental. I bought it as a stripped frameset that had no decals, and am still anxious to get it built up once I can decide how to outfit it for my own usage. I have to call this one a one of a kind!

https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1588/2...cfe5f57f_c.jpg

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5667/2...003a9be4_z.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8087/8...4e22f069_c.jpg

https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7526/1...d1b8c8a6_c.jpg

I have an LL Bean Cannondale tourer.https://dl.dropbox.com/s/vnlwg9qbe88...08.58.jpg?dl=0

This is my me on my Western Flyer 3 speed in 1966. Western Flyer was the house brand name of Western Auto, but I don't know who made the bikes.

http://res.cloudinary.com/nordo/imag.../CIMG5565a.jpg

AMF (American Machine and Foundry, simply AMF, Inc. after 1970) was an extremely diversified company formed in 1900. Over time they acquired several bicycle lines, built bowling equipment and owned bowling centers, even got into nuclear reactors and became part of the 'industrial-military complex'. All of this really started to drag and the company was the victim of a hostile takeover in 1985, at which time the new owners began selling off the parts of the company.

I don't feel that AMF made low end bikes, they were good bikes at their pricing points. At one point there was a Roadmaster Rollfast model but somehow the Rollfast brand survived to see it's 75th anniversary and slowly faded in the 70s.

Murray built some very good bikes until the 80s or 90s. Their cantilevered frames were excellent and in the early 80s were on par with Schwinn's. I've owned a 60's Western Flyer (the badge said M.O.M. for Murray Ohio Manufacturing), an Open Road that a friend rebuilt with new bearings and it was practically a new bike, with GO-power! I believe Murray also made the skiptooth ladies Higgins project I finally bartered for TV antenna servicing. Murray made a lot of really nice bikes for many stores as well as their own brand. Today they are more known for lawn mowers.

Rollfasts were built by the H. P. Snyder company for D. P. Harris Co. which started making bearings and wheel goods, bicycles and the famous roller skates in 1895. Snyder also built several store brands such as Montgomery Wards' Hawthorne and Gambels' Hiawatha.

Excelsior was but one of many of the badges used by Arnold, Schwinn & Co. Many stores had their own brand attached to Schwinn-built bikes though, Schwinn was apparently happy to do this until they realized they needed to promote their own name as a marque of excellence. The Huffy name evolved postwar with the slogan, "It's a HUFFY!" and Huffman/Huffy also owned the Dayton brand until it's demise in the early 60s.

Sears bikes were branded Elgin prewar and J. C. Higgins postwar when Sears consolidated an entire line of sporting goods under that name, and YES there apparently was a real J. C. Higgins. Later on by the 70s they introduced a line of bikes called Free Spirit but they also badged simply as Sears bikes.

The Pope Manufacturing Co. introduced the first mass produced bicycle line in the world and their brand name was Columbia, which became the company name. They also brought assembly line manufacturing to America over 30 years before Ford and Henry learned what he knew working under Pope. Schwinn wouldn't open for about 18 years.

I know, all of this information is obsolete now.