13/06/2024
BIKE OF THE DAY JERRY COLLIERS NON VIKING TANDEM
For me it’s always been about the backstory. There are so many amazing bikes out there and a part of me wants them all while another part of me realizes that at some point the collection is a prison of sorts. An amazing prison filled with wonderful machines but a prison none the less. In the old days in New Jersey , North Jersey or the real jersey Tuesday night was garbage night in the town of Upper Montclair . I would drive from Boonton to upper Montclair and cruise the grid. More times than not there were amazing bikes on the curbside waiting to be picked up by the sanitation trucks in the
A.m. . Balloon tire bikes, Track bikes (Newark And Nutley Velodromes were in the neighborhood) and the picking was good. I’d research the bikes trying to find out if there was a racing history or any history to connect the bike to a rider or family. The cycling community back then was smaller and you could usually find out info and then the bike became not just a Paramount or drysdale or Brennan or boogmans or redcay it became jackie or mike or Bennie’s bike etc etc. It was fun connecting the dots and weaving the tapestry of the cycling brother and sisterhood.
In the early 80s we moved cross country to the NW corner in Washington state. We schlepped a lot of the metal with us and eventually started the shop Sacks Feed and Cycle which as far as I know was the only farm and garden shop that was also a full service bicycle shop and it truly was a wonder.
While most bike shops suffered through long dark and wet winters we were busy selling bales instead of bikes and feed and grain instead of tubes and tires. Actually kept us busy year round.
The store was eclectic and it drew an eclectic clientele from a large area including Seattle. We met a lot of them along with racers like Barb Hinson, Mickey Vergillo, Rebecca Twigg, Jerry Baker, Tim Rutledge, Jimmy Stillmaker
Glen erickson and so many more too many to list. I’m getting to the bike story so bear with me.
At one point I became friends with Bob Freeman one of the founders of Elliott Bay Bicycle and Bill Davidson. Bob was a historian and collected and restored some of the most amazing machines I had ever seen in my life. My collection was mainly racing machines from between the world wars and most were owned and raced by riders I either had met or known of. Occasionally family’s asked me to caretake a bike as they had no interest in them as their moms and dads that raced never really talked about that part of their lives. So we did just that. Bob and I show our bikes together often and it truly is wonderful.
As a result of that community I met so many funny, outrageous, artistic, crazy bike people. One such character was Jerry Collier (RIP) who passed a while ago now. Jerry had relocated to the NW from Southern California where he was in the bike business. His shop was Riverside Cycles in Riverside but before that he had been living in Europe and Britain and worked as a salesman for Jaguar automobiles I think . When he traveled
He would stop in at shops and talk to the owners and buy old parts really wonderful old parts all top of the line French, Italian and British with some Czech stuff on occasion. He also bought bicycles and Frames built by some of the greatest builders while visiting the workshops. If you knew Jerry you knew that if he decided to restore a bike it was not going to be to factory specs it was going to be something to make your jaw drop wether it was a paint scheme or a component choice you knew you would be looking with that WTF look on your face. He also knew a lot of stuff and was a wealth of historical cycling Knowledge. I bought a bike or two from him and they are featured on my former shops museum site along with many more.
Today’s Bike of the Days post is one of Jerry’s that I never knew existed. Jerry either sold it or gave it to someone before I met him. I have no idea who that was . I do know that about 33 years ago it ended up in the boat street shop Recycled Cycles where it was purchased by a local Seattle couple who planned to ride it but never used it very much so it sat warm and dry. Like most of us who collect storage is a problem. Tandem bikes are even more of a problem so I was contacted and asked if I’d be interested in this Viking tandem. I never knew Viking built tandems but I was interested as it’s an amazing machine as you can see in the photos.
My now friend John delivered the bike recently and after looking at it for a couple of days I got to thinking it doesn’t look very Viking-ish. I contacted some folks I thought could help ID it but it had no serial numbers and it looked like it was the work of three or for builders some French some English. A couple of days ago I received an message from local Bike Guru
Mark Bulgier who knew the bike and had worked on building the bike with a couple of frame builders in the Santana workshop in So Cal. Jerry was friends of the owners and a friend of the shop. He was well liked by the crew and when he wanted to design and build an exceptional beautiful non conforming machine everyone pitched in.
The bike is branded Viking but it’s a non Viking by Jerry Collier. In one of his many trips he must have picked up a transfer set and loved the graphics so he used them. The colors he chose were very Viking but the details are very French. The drive train is in the French style with the drive on the pilots bottom bracket not traditional like most on the stoker bottom bracket and the crank has 4 chain rings. The rear derailleur is a modified suntour with custom long cage with a tension spring added like old simplex.
The frame could be 531 but also could be what Santana used . Jerry chose 650b wheels laced into Maxi-Car drum rear, non drum front 40x36 with washers at the spoke heads to relieve stress. Handle bar stems are Singer / Herse style. Jerry built and shaped front fork struts that incorporate a bag platform and handlebar bag bracket. The headset is a beautifully executed bit of work. The rear rack was custom built as well.
Full dynamo lighting and polished aluminum fenders . I figured this was Jerry’s final gift to me after years of camaraderie. It blows my mind that somehow it found its way to me in a convoluted magical way which is so Jerry and those who knew him know what I mean. It’s all about the tapestry.
Letter from Mark with more backstory….another completed circle. I do know that bike. It was Jerry Collier's. The customization, including the fork struts, handlebar stem, quad ring crank and lots more, was done at Santana while I was there. The work was done mostly by one of the journeyman framebuilders there, Ed Philip or Dave Archambault (or both, I don't remember), with me the apprentice looking over their shoulder. They let Jerry do a fair bit of it himself, like cutting and fitting pieces for the FBs to braze. The ideas were all Jerry.
He was a special friend of the shop, not sure if there was any business relationship, I think it was just friendship with McCready, and he became friends with everyone in the shop by being really nice, super knowledgeable and generous.
Please forgive the length of this post but I hope one,or two of you read it if not enjoy the photos. I’ll include Marks letter as well
