Dec 65 Heavy Duti

[mcmfw2]

Just picked this up...  A solid Dec 1965 Heavy Duti that spent its life as a work bike in a Flint Michigan GM foundry.... The bonus is that all of the chrome is minty from being indoors & you could eat off the undersides of the fenders... The bike was sold at a Flint Indian dealership and has just turned 300 miles on the speedo...  The original treads are long gone as well as the rear reflector...   Does anyone have a picture or description of the original rear reflector and would it have a chrome bezel ?

Thanks, Mark

[Echo_Delta]

Congrats!!!!  Great find!

[REC]

Mark,
Mine isn't as pretty as yours, but the reflector question is answered.
REC

[Bikes42]

Great score, Mark!

I love the HD in red. I think I have only seen one in person. I would have bought it except that it had a broken weld.

I think that is a sweet bike!

Tad

[bartcycle]

I know that catalog pics are not always correct but they show the 1965 and 1966 Heavy Duty with the fin chainguard  and the 1967 model with the slimline chainguard.  I also notice the Dec 65 has the rear caliper mount and the other one with the fin chainguard only has the fender mount.

[Mooks]

One of the nicest Heavy Duti's I have ever seen. The red is really nice.

[acg_schwinn]

Not to sound skeptical about your seller, but I'm slightly boggled that a bike could have done 300 miles around a GM plant, of all places, and still emerged in such mint condition... or that the factory would have splurged on a speedometer in the first place. Maybe it was maintained privately by a plant exec, someone who needed to get around a lot. Nevertheless, there's no arguing that it's in spectacular condition for its age. Very good find.

[mcmfw2]

Thanks for the reflector info REC  ....  and thanks guys on the find... I have seen alot of early flamboyant red bikes that the paint is just dead ..with no pop... This one has depth to it from more than likely from being out of the sun for so long..   Also according to the guy I purchased this from another employee there found a forgotten black HD from the early 70's wrapped up in garbage bags and hanging from the rafters...   

[REC]

I know that catalog pics are not always correct but they show the 1965 and 1966 Heavy Duty with the fin chainguard  and the 1967 model with the slimline chainguard.  I also notice the Dec 65 has the rear caliper mount and the other one with the fin chainguard only has the fender mount.

The photo I posted is my bike, and it's a King Size HD. The rear bridge is different on the found one, but it may have been different on the standard size model. The production difference is one end of the year to the other. Mine is a Feb serial number (for what it's worth!)

REC

[Mooks]

Not to sound skeptical about your seller, but I'm slightly boggled that a bike could have done 300 miles around a GM plant, of all places, and still emerged in such mint condition... or that the factory would have splurged on a speedometer in the first place. Maybe it was maintained privately by a plant exec, someone who needed to get around a lot. Nevertheless, there's no arguing that it's in spectacular condition for its age. Very good find.

300 miles in a clean plant (no weather) with smooth concrete floors, and no elevation makes it plausible.  At only a quarter mile a day, that would be less than five years of use.  A speedo may have been used to collect data about travel around the plant.  You never know.

[acg_schwinn]

Well, now that you mention it, once you start working the math, I would expect it to rack up more than a quarter mile a day, actually, considering how humongous those places are. I mean, really, golf carts are popular, too, for the same tasks. I toured GM's Framingham (MA) final assembly plant back in 1972, and live just a few miles down the road from Chrysler's Belvedere (IL) assembly plant now, and those places are huge; "sprawling" doesn't begin to describe them.

What I was really getting at was that if it was some kind of general-purpose runabout available to anyone, it would have been beaten to pieces in six months. The fact that it's survived in such pristine condition suggests to me that someone was keeping it to themselves and knew how to take care of it.

[FICHT 150]

I worked at FMC's NOD (northern ordinance division) plant in Fridley, MN in the late 70s and early 80s, and the bikes, all indoors, and with zero elevation, were beat to junk. Most of the bikes were less than a decade old, some far less, and I was amazed at how wrecked they were. MANY of them had welded frames and other barbaric repairs.
The great majority of them were Columbia, Murray, or Huffy 26" single speed men's bikes, but, there was a sprinkling of Heavy-Dutis and Typhoons. There was at least one Columbia Newspaper boys bike, I've never seen another.
All of them were junk. The company got rid of all of them in the mid 1980s, a liability issue I suppose. I do remember a few retirees taking or being awarded their old bikes back in the day at a retirement party, but, I think it was often a joke.
The plant is still there, mostly empty now, but BAE runs what is left and turns out a bit of military hardware.
I think Andy is on the right track, somebody took ownership of that bike right at the beginning.

Ted

[Nick]

I saw a Columbia Newspaper boys bike at the spring Memory Lane
show and it was very nice. The Wasp I bought was laying on the
ground right next to it. First one I ever saw in person.   

[bartcycle]

The Columbia Newsboy Special was built heavier than the standard Columbia. They were not quite as strong as a Schwinn.

[FICHT 150]

http://www.vintagecolumbiabikes.com/id117.html

For a bike model that was in production for almost thirty years, they sure don't turn up very often.

Ted