Hey,any of you guys out there know about Dyno bikes.Just curious about their history and when they went out if they did.I see alot of their parts used on customs.
Dyno Bike History?
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they were made by gt and the dyno roadster was first made around 1997. as far as i know they still make them. gt went bankrupt about the same time schwinn did. they were bought out by the pacific bike company. they make all the cheap bikes you see in toys r us and walmart. I think the best dynos were made before 2001.
Thanks guys do appreciate the info.
Thats a really nice collection, thanks for the eye candy.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, the Dyno Roadster is no longer being made and has'nt now for at least a couple of years. If you really want one I'm pretty sure there may be some N.O.S. ones out there, and theres always Craigs List! I have seen many nice ones for $200.00 and less.
Here's my version.
Slick Rick said:
Yeah...you gotta go with the Kustom Kruiser now days. It's a Dyno with a name change but, still considered a Dyno by most of the Slown-Lo Pedal Scraper guys. When you get into the Micargi Mustang, 8Ball Limousine or Fayaa4You then, you are talking fakes.
The guy -- or maybe one of the guys -- who designed the Dyno Roadster at GT now works for Felt designing bikes.
Here's a letter that is posted ont eh Slown-Lo forum about the Dyno Roadster:
QUOTE
dd. 23-01-2007
Hi,
I was just forwarded your website about the Dyno Roadster. It is great to see an appreciation for this bike after all of these years. Let me introduce myself, my name is Jeff Soucek and I actually designed that frame while working for GT bicycles between the years 1992 and 1998. I thought I could share a little incite to the project and how it became.
The idea of this Roadster frame actually was conceived after Sean Flickinger (one of the other GT Industrial Designers) designed the standard Dyno cruiser frame. I was responsible for the geometry of that bike, and at the time we wanted a standard cruiser that would simply blow away the old Schwinn cruises that were so popular at that time. We kept kicking the geometry back and slacking out the frame until it had –what we called at the time “6 pack geometry” This meant you could be half lit and still ride it to the liquor store and them back with one hand on the bar and a six pack of beer in the other.
The next part of the story goes like this. Bill Duehring (Director of R&D at GT, and now President of Felt Bicycles) knew we had just designed a great cruiser, and wanted to create something to stir up the excitement of this new “standard” cruiser. We really wanted to highlight the new “six pack” geometry of the new bike. There was a small custom builder in the Huntington Beach California area where our office was, called HB CRUISERS. This guy had made some super stretched out cruisers that we had seen the locals riding down at the beach. This gave us the idea to take our standard cruiser design and “six pack” geometry and stretch it out to the Roadster length, creating a “show bike” for the Interbike release that year in Aneheim California. This would be such an obviously different bike that it would help draw attention to the “standard” cruiser line.
So I went to work hand building the first prototype of this Roadster with the help of Dan McGrew (master frame builder in the GT tooling room). We hand formed, bent, flared and machined everything from scratch. Next we had the front half of the frame chrome plated and painted it custom with classic chrome darts, electric blue pinstripes, and black from there back. Even the front fender and chainguard were half chromed and painted. It was a beautiful job done by the Custom GT paintshop in Colorado responsible for all of the Custom frames made by GT at the time. All of the other bits were triple chrome plated to car show quality, down to the 12 gage spokes and nipples. It even had an internal generator front hub with a headlight and internal wiring.
Once the bike was complete, everybody was freaking out about how cool it was, so it was time to show it to the boss Richard Long (owner and president of GT) We approached him with the bike the day of the yearly sales meeting where all of the sales reps from the entire country were in the building. We brought it up to the meeting and called Richard into the hallway were we had the bike sitting to surprise him, and as him for permission to show it to the Sales reps. I still remember his words when he came out and saw it “Are you serious, you actually think you can sell those”. We said “let us bring it in and show the sales reps and see what they say”. He reluctantly agreed, and we left the meeting with the Reps cheering. The bike was now set to be shown at the Interbike in Aneheim. Needless to say the bike caused quite a stir at the show. When we noticed the big guys from most of competition was in our booth checking it out, Richard had us pull the bike from the show after the first day and gave us the go-ahead to make a production bike. The rest is history with this bike surprising all with the numbers sold over the few years it was in production.
Pretty interesting side note: Bill Duehring the director of GT R&D during this time is now the President of Felt Bicycles. Some of the same guys who worked on these bikes at GT now work with Bill once again for Felt. It is cool to see that the Felt Forks/Bars, Tires, cranks and other misc. parts you put on your custom cruiser are actually designed all by the same people. It is almost like a continuation or evolution of the bike.
Thanks for keeping it alive and we would love to see more of your work. Let me know if you have any questions.
Best Regards. Jeff
UNQUOTE
Probably more than you wanted.....guess I am too verbose tonight. Later..........Psycle Harry
SMUT PEDDLER said:
The Roadster was indeed produced since 1997 but in 1995 and 1996 there already was the Coaster. In gloss black, kandy/metallic red and in 1996/1997(I'm not sure on the exact model year) gloss red.
I've got a gloss black one from 1995: number 27 :mrgreen:
This is a kandy red one I was talking about. It's Guy's (Dude, are you on RatRodBikes too?):
In 1997 there was the first Roadster which mainly was a Coaster with al the original Coaster parts but bearing the name Roadster. I have seen them in the same gloss black color as the Coasters but there were also kandy/metallic blue ones sold. These Coasters-with-an-identity-crisis-Roadsters were sold for just one model year (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone) There was also a metallic blue one which I've never seen in real life before. Here's a picture:
I found this picture on the web and if I'm not mistaking is this one of DesignIt's bikes. Yo DesignIt, is that true?
What happened from 1998 until 2000/2001 I'm not sure of but from that year on there was the Roadster with the 'Cherry Black' paint (again, correct me if I'm wrong with the year).
My best guess is that in that period Dyno produced the black Roadsters with the white decals (not to be mistaken with the Coaster and the first Roadster which had white decals too) that you guys in the States have. We've never seen those in stores on this side of the pont. I mean the ones like DesignIt's Roadster, except his has red wheels instead of the original chrome ones:
The first Roadsters in European stores (officially imported) were the 'Cherry Black' ones with Red decals somewhere between 2001 and 2003. If someone is wondering what kind of color 'cherry black' is: If you put the bike in direct sunlight you'll see a dark reddish color in the black paint. A picture:
Also a nice piece of Dyno history is the story about the Dyno-Matic prototype.
This original prototype of the Coaster/Roadster has been found last year by R1/2 (FBI_HQ) after being undercover since 1995. Maybe you can tell the story yourself, R1/2? I know you're cruising the RatRodBikes forum sometimes :wink:
Although I've got a few of them I'm not very much into the history of the Glide cruisers so If anyone wants to kick in???
Yeah - I bought my Dyno Coaster in early '96.
It's gone now, but if anybody needs a chainguard, I've still got it.
It's gone now, but if anybody needs a chainguard, I've still got it.
Dyno was bought by Schwinn, who was bought by Pacific Cycle around 2001, so they now own both as well as Mongoose. Pacific was then bought out by Dorel Industries in 2005, and that's when everything started going downhill. They now help supply crappy bikes to Wal-Mart and such and all their brands now use cheap parts and construction from China and Korea. Too bad really because the almighty Schwinn brand doesn't pull any weight among bike enthusiasts anymore and Dyno no long exists.
Dyno cruisers were pretty cool up until around 2005, but the original designer left after the Dorel buyout and the style of the bikes started to go downhill. Now they don't make Dyno bikes anymore, they call them Kustom Kruiser. You can tell which bike you have by the stamp on the rear of the top tube just behind the seat. If it says 'D' then it's a Dyno, 'KK' means Kustom Kruiser. The first couple of years of the KK line were good but now Kustom Kruisers are hideous, awkward beasts.
Aaron Bethlenfalvy was the original designer of most Dyno cruisers. Here's a link to his home page which has some cool concept drawings and useful info.
http://bikerodnkustom3.homestead.com/aaronb2A.html
Dyno cruisers were pretty cool up until around 2005, but the original designer left after the Dorel buyout and the style of the bikes started to go downhill. Now they don't make Dyno bikes anymore, they call them Kustom Kruiser. You can tell which bike you have by the stamp on the rear of the top tube just behind the seat. If it says 'D' then it's a Dyno, 'KK' means Kustom Kruiser. The first couple of years of the KK line were good but now Kustom Kruisers are hideous, awkward beasts.
Aaron Bethlenfalvy was the original designer of most Dyno cruisers. Here's a link to his home page which has some cool concept drawings and useful info.
http://bikerodnkustom3.homestead.com/aaronb2A.html
MaXXXwell, I missed this thread the first time around. Yes, you are correct. The blue Roadster is my wife's (converted to a Shimano 7-speed hub) and the black one is mine (still single speed). We still have both of them, but we've retired them from the MS150 rides. They are now neighborhood cruisers as Dyno intended them. 
BTW, the red rims were factory original on the black Roadster back in March of '99 when I bought our bikes. The blue Roadster came with chrome rims.
BTW, the red rims were factory original on the black Roadster back in March of '99 when I bought our bikes. The blue Roadster came with chrome rims.
"I've got a gloss black one from 1995: number 27 :mrgreen:"
I just got one cheap. Can you date it by the serial number or do you go by the characteristics??
I just got one cheap. Can you date it by the serial number or do you go by the characteristics??
