Catalog Bikes

Catalog Bikes

DESPITE WHAT SOME PEOPLE THINK, THE Middle of Nowhere still exists. It's extremely difficult to find these days, what with GPS and Palm Pilots and cell phones and such, but it's out there. It wasn't so long ago, however, that The Middle of Nowhere truly was. Being so far flung, Nowhere-ville's main conduit to the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the retail world, was the mail-order catalog.

There were several such vending publications, but the biggies-the ones we're interested in-were Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. Because in these catalogs, sharing page space with ironing boards and children's toys and titil lating lingerie (well, on a pre-Victoria's Secret scale), were honest-to-Oshkosh motorcycles. -

"Sears and Wards sold everything," enthuses Charles Falco, a University of Arizona professor and one of two individuals who selected the motorcycles for the Guggenheim Museum's "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit. "You could buy tractors and buggies, almost anything, from them. If you think back to that time, and if you lived in a small town, there were no malls. The catalogs had every thing. And they would deliver right to your door."

Before mega-malls, retail operations hawked their wares through catalogs so comprehensive that even full-size motorcycles could be had through the mail

WENDY F. BLACK

Mopeds, scooters and full-size motorcycles were available from both companies during the late 1950s and into the 1960s. Each imported European two-wheelers, rebadged the machines and sold them as their own. From Sears, you ordered an Allstate. From Wards, a Riverside. But lurking beneath those marques' seemingly American exteriors were motorcycles manufactured by Austria's Puch, and Italy's Gilera or Benelli.

"Sears started selling Cushman scooters in 1951," explains avid collector and catalog-bike enthusiast John Pfingstag. After tasting two-wheeled success with the American-built motorbikes, Sears began selling Allstate-badged Puchs in 1954 and then Gileras in late `65. "During the years 1954-69, almost everything that Puch sold through its dealers was also sold in the catalogs as a Sears or an Allstate."

The upshot is that Sears offered a variety of Alistates that ranged in displacement, style and price. Early exper imentation with the Euro bikes resulted in four motorcycles being adver tised on the pages of the Sears catalog: the Allstate 125, 175 and 175 DeLuxe, and the 250.

With bare-bones styling that makes today's naked bikes look overdressed, they were powered by either single-cylinder or split Single two-stroke engines. The latter, called "Twingles," consisted of one combustion chamber with small-bore cylin ders located one in front of the other. Inside, the two pis tons-attached to a single, articulated, Y-type connecting rod-fired together. Suspension consisted of a telescopic fork and swingarm-mounted dual shocks. Nary a disc to be found, braking was via drums front and rear.

Costing less than $300, the 125 was said to make 5.5 horsepower, but the $479 250 reportedly made a whopping 16.5 horses. Touting the bike’s heritage, Sears claimed it was, “Bigger, more powerful...BEST we’ve ever offered! Engineered and specially built in Austria for Sears...imported for you to ride!”

Sears continued to offer variations of these same bikes, including the 1959 Allstate Scrambler, complete with knobby tires. At $689 (or just $69 down and $58 per month, thanks to Sears’ convenient payment plan), the 250 was said to be, “A proven champion.. .won four trophies at Laconia in June, 1958...For scrambles, enduros, climbs...for highway driving too!”

Sears added the Gilera-built 106 Super Sport and SR 124 models in the late ’60s. Again, Sears took advantage of its new marque’s ancestry: “You’ll like everything about this sporty cycle... from its superb combination of Italian engineering skill and craftsmanship to the high-performance four-stroke engine. This one won’t play second-fiddle to anything else in its class, as one quick ride will easily and convincingly tell you.”

Unlike the Puchs, the racy 106 Super Sport was pow ered by a 160cc four-stroke Single and was said to make 9 horsepower at 7500 rpm. No bike to be trifled with, this $389 SS, said to have a top speed of 60 mph. Sears was especially proud of the bike's "lustrous hand-rubbed gas tank finish."

The similarly styled but snappier SR 124 was a two-stroke making 12 horsepower at 9000 rpm. Billed as having “even more power, more speed and more features than the 106 SS," the pricier $479 machine was claimed to get 100 mpg and have a top speed of 70 mph.

The type of motorcycles offered by rival "Monkey Wards" were similar to those from Sears. The bikes them selves were built by Italian manufacturer Benelli, and were called Riversides. Says Pfingstag, "Montgomery Ward sold scooters and motorcycles between 1959 and early 1969. They parked their Benellis alongside the lawn mowers."

Among the available Riversides were both twoand four stroke models. The two-strokes ranged in displacement from 50 to 175cc, and came in street and dirt flavors. The larger machines, in 250, 350 and 360cc versions, were available in roadster and scrambler form, and were powered by four stroke engines.

"Think young! Think modern! Put zing into your life! Zip to office, shop, campus," cried out the back cover of a 1967 Wards catalog, advertising the $369 candy-apple red Riverside 125. Potential owners' bragging rights included 6.5 horses, speeds of up to 68 mph and an eco nomical 119 mpg.

In 1968, Cycle magazine took catalog in hand and sent off for a Riverside 360 Touring, also known as the Mojave, for a road test. The staff bought it for $849, and the bike arrived in a crate. "Assembled, and ready to run, Ward's Riverside 360 is quite a nice looking bike," opined erstwhile editors. "Its design and styling are very much in the Rickman Metisse mold, and while this does not make the bike very original, it does give it a built-in appeal."

Riding impressions revealed an easy-steering motorcycle powered by a "long-stroke, mildly tuned engine that thud thud-thuds comfortably along without creating a big halo of vibration and noise, and it will thud-thud-thud the bike through places where a duffer rider would bury some snap pish high-flyer."

Gripes included an inconveniently placed shifter, overly sprung suspension front and rear, and clutch springs that "transmit a wagon-spring stiffness up to the lever."

Despite its Popeye clutch pull, the Mojave and other department-store bikes are now becoming popular with some collectors. "I guess it's the history," explains Pfingstag. "I grew up in a small town drooling over catalogs. This is like going back to your roots."

He's not alone. Today, Wards and Sears connois seurs have a slew of web sites, newsletters, owners groups and clubs to choose from.

"I'm working on getting one of everything," says Pfingstag, a card-carrying member of the Sears Allstate Motorcycle Club, approximately 200 strong. "In 1965 or `66, I got into catalog bikes because I lived in a town with no motorcycle shops."

Back then he got a Wards 450SS (a.k.a. the Benelli Fireball 50), on sale for $179. "My dad and I put it togeth er," he continues, "which consisted of putting on the front wheel, handlebars, taillight and hooking up a couple of cables. We mixed up some premix, poured it in the tank, and it started first kick."

According to 49-year-old Pfingstag, all this occurred during the Christmas of 1966 when he'd just turned 15. A few years later, alas, both Montgomery Ward and Sears stopped selling motorcycles through their catalogs. "Almost all the catalog bikes disappeared in 1969, proba bly due to government regulations," he hypothesizes, though the continued "Honda-ization" of America proba bly had more to do with it.

In fact, the catalog industry itself began to falter at this time. "The whole catalog business went downhill," explains Falco. "If you lived in a small town you probably owned a car by then, and the roads were better so you drove to the next big town to do your shopping. Thanks to the increasing wealth in the U.S., shopping changed."

And so an era passed, though it's by no means forgotten. Perhaps what's most comforting about the Wards Riversides and the Sears Alistates is their nod to those less hectic times. These days, the world moves pretty fast and it's easy to get all tangled up in the high-speed details. Collecting and restoring these little motorcycles is sort of like being granted a respite from technology and progress. They're reminders that, every once in a while, it's a good thing to spend some quality time in The Middle of Nowhere.