Iverson (?) Highspeed muscle bike

[AndyA]

A craigslist find... Check out the interesting chopper fork and double handlebars. I think that it is an Iverson, but can any of you ol' professors confirm and/or add any further info or factoids? Looks like original rims were painted white.
Thanks, Andy

 

[RustySprockets]

ID is spot-on, though I don't know too much about the Iverson nameplate. I'm guessing it's from sometime around 1968. I was able to grab this little history lesson from a member over at The CABE --

"Just to let you know Stelber was started by my father in 1948-9 in Brooklyn. The name comes from the partners jack berkowitz and Phil Steller. Everything was made in Brooklyn. It went public under the name Stelber Industries and the name of the american made bike was changes to Iverson stealing the name a bit from an old company name Iverjohnson(not sure of spelling) They bought factories in the 1970 range in Austria and Portugal and imported those under the name Executive I think or maybe put Iverson on some. The company went out of business around 1980ish My dad had retired before that happened. We sold to mostly east coast chains like Korvettes ect. Our big competitor was Huffy and Murray of Ohio who provided most of Sears bikes"

 

[RustyGold]

I think it is a Columbia...as that is what I most see with those fork/handlebars, and the chainring/guard is Columbia.

Jason

 

[RustyGold]

Other Rusty hit it...there are a lot of similarities, did Columbia make Iversons?

This is the chainguard/ring I was thinking of...

...and this the forks...

...both similar, but obviously different.

Jason

 

[RustySprockets]

Here's a fairly close match. I was a bit taken back because all the examples I found appeared to have springs on the triple-tree. Turns out those "springs" are just a foil sticker...yours have been removed.

A closer look at those phony springs.

 

[AndyA]

Thank you, all you Rusties. It's interesting that Iverson manufactured bikes in Brooklyn. Brooklyn now has lots of bikes ridden by hipsters, delivery guys, and tourists. My son lives a few blocks from the shop in the picture below.

I really like the spring stickers; they would be very useful if one was to encounter pothole stickers.

 

[Dr. Tankenstein]

I really like the spring stickers; they would be very useful if one was to encounter pothole stickers.

Now THAT made me laugh! [emoji38]

 

[Professor72]

It is a Stelber built bike, the iverson version of the roadrunner. I’ve had several of these. My understanding is that Stelber built bikes for different stores under the Iverson brand and entry level bikes for bike stores under the Stelber brand. That being stated, all of their muscle bikes seem to be like Huffy muscle bikes; sort of an anything goes approach with components and wheels. Most of the Stelbers I’ve seen are either no model name or “hi-speeds”

 

[TwentyTwenTwen]

Thank you, all you Rusties. It's interesting that Iverson manufactured bikes in Brooklyn. Brooklyn now has lots of bikes ridden by hipsters, delivery guys, and tourists. My son lives a few blocks from the shop in the picture below.

I really like the spring stickers; they would be very useful if one was to encounter pothole stickers.

View attachment 64439

Pothole stickers. Ha ha!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rustinkerer]

Iversons were mostly built by CBC/Ross, for Stelber. Stelber was primarily an importer/distributor, part of a network of companies. I thought they never manufactured any bikes or parts, but apparently they dabbled in it. But, for the most part, Stelber badged bikes, as well as the '56 JC Higgins, were imported. -Adam

 

[Professor72]

Interesting book from 1983 with bicycle business case.

https://books.google.com/books?id=G...oAQgqMAE#v=onepage&q=stelber bicycles&f=false