Early Emory?

[MONARKofSoCal]

Bought this Emory of a guy near my work who turns out to be a part of the cyclone coaster group in long beach
He said he got it from an assembly plant in Oklahoma
It has the earlier badge that says hand made and the welds on the frame it are really rough
but whats really weird and the reason i got it was it doesn't have the straight bars in the middle of the frame not even an indication they where once there then removed
has anyone ever seen am emory like this
paint seems to be original with the original stickers (whats left anyways)
although the front wheel is not original (rear might not be as well) so i plan to swap on some heavy duty wheels that i have as well as some new tires and call it done

 

[kingfish254]

That definitely follows the lines of an Emory. Never seen a "Hand Made" without the twin mid bars. Pretty cool find.
That name plate is pretty cool too.

 

[SCHWINNRAY69]

Nice find! I like the lines of that frame.

 

[MONARKofSoCal]

Nice find! I like the lines of that frame.

SCHWINNRAY69,

Apparently the frame design is actually an H.P Snyder Rollfast

see link for emory bicycle history as well as the new cruisers they still sell
http://www.aerofast.com/aerofast/history.html

 

[Green Dragon]

Now that you mention it , it does look Rollfast-ey. never seen a Rollfast with single top bar though, either the three bar style, or the girls ones with single top bar match that Emory in the back, where the seat stays go to the seat tube. hmm... I have a RF girl frame in the pile.....

 

[kingfish254]

Apparently the frame design is actually an H.P Snyder Rollfast

see link for emory bicycle history as well as the new cruisers they still sell
http://www.aerofast.com/aerofast/history.html

Yeah, Emory bought out a lot of the Snyder tooling. For the longest time they were "Hand Made", then later the badge was modified to state "Made by Robot". FATMAN was down at their location last year and they told him that they were going to be coming out with a new Hand Made bike sometime soon. We'll see.

Even if they are Made By Robot, at least they are still Made in the USA. Great bikes!

 

[Boss]

Yeah, Emory bought out a lot of the Snyder tooling. For the longest time they were "Hand Made", then later the badge was modified to state "Made by Robot". FATMAN was down at their location last year and they told him that they were going to be coming out with a new Hand Made bike sometime soon. We'll see.

Even if they are Made By Robot, at least they are still Made in the USA. Great bikes!

I have a similar robot emory with a webco stamping.

 

[Onewheelsqueel]

Dropouts are a dead giveaway

 

[Bicycle808]

I have a similar robot emory with a webco stamping.

The Webco Emory frames that I've seen all had straight downtubes....
http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/emory/75667

I've never seen a handmade Emory without midtubes before, but it seems like there were plenty of weird, one-off Emory frames over the years. I always laugh at the weird "first manufacturer of cruisers" claim in their history, but it's all Scot Breithaupt's fault.... here he is astride a hand-made Emory, running it in what was apparently the first BMX cruiser-class competition. So, Emory frames were used as the first BMX cruiser, but they weren't designed with that purpose in mind. And, obviously, "cruisers" in the more generic sense of the term existed for decades before Emory was even founded....

 

[Boss]

I think we are all missing Emory's actual claim. They do not claim to have invented the beach cruiser. Only to have made them commercially available. In 1976 Emory started making "beach cruisers" available for sale. Other bikes of the time were bikes able to be riden on the beach,yes.

 

[Bicycle808]

I think we are all missing Emory's actual claim. They do not claim to have invented the beach cruiser. Only to have made them commercially available. In 1976 Emory started making "beach cruisers" available for sale. Other bikes of the time were bikes able to be riden on the beach,yes.

From the Aerofast website:

The cruiser concept started in California using old Schwinn frames, but the first manufacturer of cruisers in the United States was Emory.

Hmmmm. Yeah, they don't mention beach cruisers specifically. They say "cruiser", but even if they did specifically claim beach cruiser,
that'd still be spurious, as cruiser rentals at the shore existed long before '76. And, really, what set the Emory "beach" cruisers apart from other balloon bikes, to make them beach-specific? The only valid claim they may have is to being the first production frame used in cruiser-class BMX competition. But they certainly weren't the first US manufacturer of cruisers, as the website claims, nor were they the first to manufacture so-called beach cruisers. Some say they were the first to put the word "beach" in front of "cruiser" in ad copy, but I've not yet seen any evidence of this....

 

[Mark Sr.]

Bought this Emory of a guy near my work who turns out to be a part of the cyclone coaster group in long beach
He said he got it from an assembly plant in Oklahoma
It has the earlier badge that says hand made and the welds on the frame it are really rough
but whats really weird and the reason i got it was it doesn't have the straight bars in the middle of the frame not even an indication they where once there then removed
has anyone ever seen am emory like this
paint seems to be original with the original stickers (whats left anyways)
although the front wheel is not original (rear might not be as well) so i plan to swap on some heavy duty wheels that i have as well as some new tires and call it done

Did you ever do anything with this one? I just came across the same bike, but in worse shape.
Thanks,
-Mark

 

[Flying Zombie]

Boy, Id sure like to see yours, Mark~

 

[Boss]

Yes here is a picture of it as I ride it.

 

[FATMAN]

I do love the Emory's

 

[Mark Sr.]

Yes here is a picture of it as I ride it.

Very nice! I like that you kept the plate. I just picked up the same F/F. Broke it down tonight and I really like the frame. Considering stripping and powdering it.

 

[Wildcat]

The serial number is most times on the side of the head tube, vertically. I was told by Clayton himself years ago that they didn't have any sequence, but the 5 or 6 Emorys I had matched up to the same year as the first 2 digits of the number. A couple has SA 3 speeds that matched the year on the serial number. The early ones had Ashtabula forks, whereas these shown have the later forks, made by Emory. I'd guess it's a late 70's-early 80's bike.

 

[Mark Sr.]

The serial number is most times on the side of the head tube, vertically. I was told by Clayton himself years ago that they didn't have any sequence, but the 5 or 6 Emorys I had matched up to the same year as the first 2 digits of the number. A couple has SA 3 speeds that matched the year on the serial number. The early ones had Ashtabula forks, whereas these shown have the later forks, made by Emory. I'd guess it's a late 70's-early 80's bike.

Interesting, this bike the first numbers are 74. Sadly it's missing the headbadge. The forks are the tube BMX style. Upon disassembly, found both the frame & forks were the same original color.

 

[Bicycle808]

My robot-built Emory has "75" as the first few numbers; i'm not sure when they started with the robot-built frames, but that may be a clue as to how accurate that whole method of dating is. I'll have to check out my hand-built frame next time i'm in the garage....

 

[Wildcat]

So, my theory may not be workable for dating by the serial number. I've pulled the cranks but they never had anything stamped on them. The rims sometimes had a date on them, on the chrome that was next to the name in small digits.
I can tell they are Emory made forks, the tube ends are open and it seems like the front axle needs to be an inch forward for the correct geometry. When ever I rode one of those, it seemed like the forks were bent back slightly.