As a child, I lived 4 miles from Remagen, where Schauff was located (as Toni says, between Cologne and Koblenz). In fact, I went to middle school with Axel Schauff, the son of the maker/industrialist, and we became friends. We rode to school together every day, played tennis together, etc.
Schauff bikes were the best-selling brand in the region, because you could get them factory-direct at a big discount. And they were considered garbage. There were all kinds of joking rhymes like: "Hast Du ein Rad von Schauff, schmeiß es weg und lauf!" (If you own a Schauff bike, throw it away and walk instead.) Schauff also made bikes under other brand-names that were sold in discount department stores, etc., according the Axel.
Axel Schauff had two custom Reynolds 531, Campy NR or SR-equipped Schauffs that were made in their pro shop. The impression given was that they had their own pro shop making a few top-end bikes. I didn't visit the pro shop, so I don't know whether it really existed, or whether the bikes were farmed out. Rudi Altig, one of the better professionals of the 1960s, was working with them. There was a line of silver bikes labeled "Rudi Altig," which were a little better and a little more expensive than the standard Schauffs. The kids speculated that the frames were made from aluminum. (They rusted like all the other Schauff bikes... so they weren't made from aluminum after all.) I never met Altig, though.
All this was in the late 1970s, before the e-bay bike was built.
How times have changed: The Schauffs were considered incredibly rich because they had a large, newly built house (well, not by current U.S. standards) and had two cars: an older Mercedes and a Jaguar. Their kids rode their bikes everywhere and went to public school.
Later, while studying in Bonn, I saw a guy ride a similar Schauff top-level bike. There were a few of those around.
However, when I passed the Remagen factory in the early 1990s, the large workshops had been torn down to make space for a container unloading facility. Clearly, the bikes now were made in Asia, and only distributed from here.
So Schauff, like so many European makers, specialized in cheap, mass-produced bikes, but also offered some top-of-the-line racing bikes.
Jan Heine Editor/Publisher Vintage Bicycle Quarterly c/o Il Vecchio Bicycles 140 Lakeside Ave, Ste. C Seattle WA 98122 http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com
At 11:59 AM +0200 6/8/06, Toni.Theilmeier@t-online.de wrote:
>Mark, and the others,first, Schauff ist deutsch, not Dutch. German
>marque, although I doubt that the frame is German built as most Schauffs
>were cheapish.If you take the train down the Rhine valley,
>Loreley and all of that, you´ll pass Schauff premises between Cologne
>and Coblentz.Bottom Bracket: I´ve seen it done before. Not
>illogical, if you think of it.If anyone wants the thing,
>I´ll be glad to assist in shipping, if necessary.Regards,
>
>Toni Theilmeier, Belm, Germany, where the weather is at long last
>picking up.