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The Bicycles:

  Having left the engines for a while, let’s visit the bikes. As I noted earlier, Whizzer produced the engine,... you provide the bike.

  I’ve seen Whizzers on Shelbys,Roadmasters, Monarchs, Hawthornes, Columbias, and of course, Schwinns. You could mount a Whizzer anywhere it would fit, with some creative hammering in some cases, and it would work after a fashion, and so a Whizzer is on whatever you find it on from the 1940’s.

  I can’t say there is a "right" whizzerized bike. Most of the balloon tire bikes would mount a Whizzer kit, and often did.

  Keep in mind that while a lot of Whizzers were built on Schwinns, a lot were not. The bike shown in the early "H" manuals is a Roadmaster. The bikes were primarily assembled by Dealers or by individuals, and may have been built or rebuilt from parts...or parts mixed in from several bikes...and maybe several times. The Roadmaster shown above features a "Huffman" "Glide Ride" fork. Springers were often added, and for a practical reason. A Whizzer without a springer rides like a wheelbarrow, and the jolts are hard on the steering tube and head tube. I've seen Schwinn Springers put on just about everything else, and once in a while a Roadmaster or a Huffman Springer mounted on a Schwinn frame.

  New parts were put on old engines, and engines were cannibalized to fix other engines, and the same with the bikes. Performance or appearance enhancements were added. There are all kinds of combinations out there, and a few of them are strange. A fellow once e- mailed me that he had found a Whizzer, but he couldn't identify the chassis. A photograph revealed it to be a Simplex motorcycle with a "J" Whizzer engine on it.

There was a Monark bike at Portland this year with the Whizzer engine mounted offset to the left. A closer look revealed that it was equipped with a clutch pulley assembly off a Monark motorbike. I didn't notice if the frame was a Monark Motorbike or not.




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