Here's a Surprise

It turns out that the Phillips was originally a deep red, not black like I had assumed. The fork steerer tube gives a pretty clear indication that this was the original color. It seems, in fact, that the base coat was black with the red on top, which creates a rather striking and rich red. This could mean that the bike is not pre-war, since most specimens from the 1920s and 1930s seem to have been black. However, at least one pre-war Phillips that I know of had a rather more striking original color scheme. In other words, the color doesn't do much to help date the bike, but it certainly did come as a surprise to me.

Also, I've managed to scrape the yellow paint off the head badge. This will be black, red, and gold when finished, like this one.

The Runwell Head Badge Revealed

I've been trying to determine exactly what my faded and worn head badge used to look like on the Runwell. I knew there was an image of a boy or man running, but many of the details were lost. Without an example of the company logo to go on, I was pretty much out of luck. Fortunately, someone doing research on the company at the University of Warwick offered to look for an example of the logo for me. They were able to get me a scan, which was still a bit blurry, which I then cleaned up, traced, and colored to get close to what was originally on my bike. Given my utter lack of artistic ability, I think it turned out okay. So, here's what I ended up with:

The head badge on the bike:
The scan of the logo:
And my ham-fisted rendering (with full, pouty lips):

Upon closer inspection, it looks like the words have a slight shadow outline, so I'll have to go back and work on that. It feels good to resurrect a nearly-lost piece of bicycle history.

Oh, and I added a basket. More on that later.

Huffy/Raleigh Paint Finished

Well, I got my wish, and the humidity came down a bit today so I could do the clear coat. It's dry to the touch now, so I gathered up all (or most, anyway) of the parts and arranged them for the first of a series of reassembly photos that I'll put together into a slide show at the end of the process. I've included a couple of other shots to show the dramatic results of the painting. Hopefully, I'll get started on the reassembly tomorrow, although I've still got some last parts on order, so I won't be fully finished for a little while.

Here are the fenders, before photo here.

And the head badge/head tube, before photo here.

More Old Bikes in Chicago

I saw a ton of great old bikes on my trip, and here are a few of the most interesting, although not always the most-loved.

This lovely Manufrance Hirondelle mixte (no date obvious) was one that I really wanted to rescue. Check out the original white tires! The entire bike just screams quality, but the bars struck me as especially cool. Unfortunately, it's just rusting away, locked up, but apparently unattended.

A lovely Dunelt, which has unfortunately seen better days. This was another one that I really wanted to rescue. I forgot to check the year.

A beautiful, well-loved and definitely actively-used Triumph. Sorry, no year on this one either, it was raining and I wanted to get inside.

One of the most interesting, because I had never heard of it before, was this Phillips-made and Chicago-branded "Ranger." This one I actually remembered to check the date on the hub -- 1966.