That's kind of interesting since Huffy had the best bicycle R&D labratory in the world up until the early 80's. It's was closed for budget reasons, since Huffy gave up all hopes to make high end bikes. The even built many of the frames we're talking about there. I think it's Dave Schwalbe(sp?) who's on the iBOB and Framebuilders list that now has the jig. There were people at Huffy that knew bikes and were some of the best bicycle engineers around. In the late 80's one of the US cycling magazines did a story about the lab and its resources and history. Anyone have any more info since all mine is fromm reading about it and one person who had actually been there.
Weren't there rebadged A-D's marked Sears Free Spirits? enjoy, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives in 72 sunny Santa Barbara, CA
"Nobody can do everything, but if everybody did something everything would get done." Gil Scott-Heron
On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Rich Rose wrote:
> I am going to stick my neck out a little on this one & suggest that
> there was no one at Huffy who would have had any design input beyond
> color & size of HUFFY decal. The framebuilder / framebuiders of choice
> would have had complete control, in my opinion. I worked at Huffy for a
> short time & although there were some great individuals there, none were
> in a position to dictate or influence the kind of product that was
> being produced for these racing efforts. The knowledge base required did
> not exist @ Huffy. It was a marketing thing, period. If it were
> otherwise perhaps some of what was learned from these efforts would have
> found its way to production, but that was never the intent.
> The financial support was there, and for that credit is deserved. But
> those bikes were not Huffy's.
> Richard Rose, where it is finally hot & humid in Toledo, Ohio
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org
> [mailto:classicrendezvous-admin@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Moos, Jerry
> Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 9:04 AM
> To: 'Mark Poore'; Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: RE: [CR]Confente on ebay, and a thought or two about
> same
>
> I guess the only "requirement" I would set
> would be that someone at the company whose name appears on the bike had
> to
> devote some thought to the desired attributes of the bike, or the
> purpose
> for which it was to be used, and communicate this to the framebuilder.
>
> I am assuming someone at Murray and at Huffy gave some
> serious thought to the bikes commissioned for LeMonde, for the 7-11
> team,
> etc. I would think such bikes would be considerably more valuable with
> the
> original decals than with decals of the actual builder. These bikes
> did,
> after all, represent a commendable effort by at least some individuals
> at
> Huffy and Murray to build really high quality bikes, even if the effort
> was
> all too brief.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Poore [mailto:rauler47@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2001 8:44 AM
> To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: [CR]Confente on ebay, and a thought or two about same
>
>
> Huffy? This is why I did say maybe, because I did know that their name
> did
> appear on some Olympic frames. The question is, Are they to really be
> considered Huffys? If Richard built frames for Murray, would they be
> considered Murrys or a Sach? Several years ago there was a fellow that
> came
> to our resort that worked for Huffy out of Ohio. He did have with him a
> Huffy, if you could call it that and he did, road bike. The frame was a
> beautiful piece of work. At this time I forget who built the frame, but
> I
> believe it was a well known American frame builder. The fellow was very
> proud of his Huffy. I saw it as a nice bike with Huffy decals.
>
> The question I have at this time: would the Huffy decals decrease or
> increase or not effect the value of the bike? Any thought on this?
>
> BTW, there was a Columbia bike on ebay just a while ago that went up for
>
> auction twice that couldn't fetch a decent price although the frame was
> built by a respected frame builder. I actually bid on the bike, but held
> my
> bid rather low.
>
> Could you imagine if Confente had built a few bikes under the Sears
> name?