A little bit of Rambler bikes history

Rambler which was originally an American brand, imported by Albert Öhman AB in Stockholm. But soon swedes realized that it was economically more sensible to produce the bike yourself, rather than importing, it started with their own production – Nymans in Uppsala.

Here’s how it started. The English inventor Thomas B. Jeffrey started in 1878 together with a companion Gormully & Jeffery in Chicago, for manufacturing Rambler-bikes. The factory quickly became large and well known, when they made them with high quality. They used early lugs, on the steering head, which in Sweden became common only in the 1930s.

It also had its own type of tire and rim own systems. But the 1897 they invested in another company that eventually came to build Rambler cars.

The Swedish brand Rambler disappeared probably sometime in the 1960s. On some bikes are a tiger on the front screen.

My Rambler

I I found this Rambler at a “cyckel loppis”, that is a bicycle flee market, for 500 SEK (that’s 55 Eur at the time of writing). The saddle is (most probably) nor original, but I will look for a saddle to match the age of the bike.

Back in the days they used to make really nice chainguards on the bikes. The bike was utilitary object, but also had to be a beautiful objkect. This chainguard definitely needs some cleaning. But I did absolutely nothing to the bike yet. Just inflated the tires to check, if the tubes are OK or I need to buy new ones (they are OK, still lasting after two days).

Rambler bike chainguard

Identification

When I try to “guesstimate” the age of a vintage bike I always start with the wheels’ hubs. Most of them have the week and year printed on them. In this case, the rear hub is the famed Torpedo System Sachs, with a coaster brake.

According to this very good website, there is a number indicating the year on the hub, starting with A for 1958. Therefore, the C of this one should be 1960. This is confirmed by this website, showing the image of the 1960 hub, exactly like the one on my Rambler.

Also the coaster brake arm can help identification the text “Made in Germany” was not present on the brake arm after 1965.

The components definitely need a cleaning, and restauring the entire bike this is a future project for me. For now I was just interesting in identifying the period.

Beauty things

I like the painting of the crank arm, the exact model that is on the bike, of course. Reproducing the 3 Rambler Rs.

Remember, no restauration work was done on the Rambler yet. Once I start working on it I will come back with pictures.