Unusual Royal Enfield tricycle folds for storage

Here's something you've never seen: a folding tricycle.

UPDATE: Another folding Royal Enfield tricycle has shown up, this one in 2018 in a CraigsList ad in Wayne, Mich. It's gold. Here is a photo:

But wait: This folding Royal Enfield tricycle showed up in 2018 in Michigan.

This Royal Enfield folding tricycle offered for sale on CraigsList in Louisville, Ky. in 2014 is surprising. I've never seen another like it.

In the 1970s and '80s an American company imported bicycles and tricycles branded as "Royal Enfields" into the United States from Asia.

There was probably little or no relationship to the Royal Enfield bicycles and motorcycles that had been made in England up to 1970. But the G. Joannou Co. of New Jersey was nevertheless proud of its innovative line of push bikes.

The line-up extended from beach cruisers and BMX machines to road bikes and included two very unusual products: the Village-Velo tricycle for senior citizens and the Compact folding bicycle for commuters.

Catalog illustration of the Compact folding bicycle.

These two seemingly very different vehicles featured one interesting similarity: a single long, curving rail connecting the headstock to the pedals and seat. This swan-like tube is their most distinctive feature. The single rail made the Village-Velo a comfy "step-through" for the ladies. A single rail also simplified the Compact's folding mechanism.

It occurred to someone — but who? — that it would be possible to incorporate the folding mechanism of the Compact into the similar frame of the Village-Velo. Ta-dah! A folding three-wheeler!

The folding three-wheeler does not appear in a 1983 Royal Enfield bicycle catalog on found online.

Note folding mechanism on the CraigsList tricycle.

Who thought of this? The factory? The distributor? Some bike shop?

I wrote the seller asking if he has more information. In particular, I'd like to know if the front wheel tucks in nicely behind the rear wheels, or does it just butt up against the back wheel? Asking price for the bike on CraigsList is $300.

This article was originally published on June 20, 2014.

Royal Enfield tricycle is in great shape, seller says

Looking at ads for used Royal Enfields is often challenging.

A Royal Enfild tricycle for sale on CraigsList here in Florida is "in great shape," the seller says but, unfortunately, the photographs make it hard to see the bike.

I've tracked down the origin of Royal Enfield pedal powered tricycles, which often turn up for sale in the U.S.

No doubt they were especially popular in retirement communities like those in Florida. This one is in Altamonte Springs, near Orlando.

Look closely at the photos. It does appear that the tricycle is in like new condition, although it probably has been around since the 1980s.

A U.S. company brought the tricycles to the United States branded as Royal Enfields. They were manufactured in Asia, with no connection to Royal Enfield of England or India.

The white-wall tires on this one are especially attractive.

The asking price seems high: $1,000, about 10 times what we normally see in ads for these tricycles.

Royal Enfield tricycles came to U.S. from Japan

The Made-In-Japan sticker is easy to read on this Royal Enfield tricycle.

Royal Enfield Quality bicycles so often found in the U.S. today were made in Japan, if you believe the silver stickers still found on some of the bicycles.

Now we know the same is true of the tricycles that bear the "Royal Enfield Quality Bicycle" badge on their headstock. The Kansas City, Mo. seller of a Royal Enfield three-wheeler provided a photograph of the "Made In Japan" sticker in his ad.

Obviously, he considered it a selling point.

This same seller asserted that his tricycle was produced by the "same company that made the Royal Enfield motorcycles." That is not true.

Royal Enfield tricycle was built in Japan.

Royal Enfield push bike construction at Redditch, England ended in the late 1960s as did Royal Enfield motorcycle production there. Motorcycle production in Madras (Chennai), India continued after Redditch closed but the Royal Enfield brand name for bicycles traveled to a Birmingham firm and then overseas.

Carine Joannou told us that her family's G. Joannou Cycle Co., based in the U.S., held the trademark for Royal Enfield bicycles from 1975 through 1977 and imported the bicycles and tricycles. Without checking old records it was her recollection (she was a teenager at the time) that they were produced in Taiwan.

Tricycle bears the Royal Enfield Quality Bicycle badge.

The stickers say Japan. Close enough.

This blog is proud of having pursued this minor historical point endlessly, wrestled it to the ground and crushed every last drop of interest from it. My apologies for boring readers with this. Just wanted to set the record straight.

Custom Royal Enfield tricycle stretches the imagination

You have to admire the imagination that went into this tricycle.

Royal Enfield pedal tricycles are a common sight in for-sale ads in the United States, but here is a customized tricycle that may leave you gasping.

It's for sale on CraigsList in Louisville, Ky. Its owner wants $1,000 for it but it costs nothing to look and appreciate the imagination and handiwork that went into it.

This pedal powered trike is quite a stretch.

The pictures speak for themselves but let me point out a couple things:

The trike began life as a "Royal Enfield Quality Bicycle," one of the many models imported into the U.S. from Asian factories by the G. Joannou Cycle Co. in the 1970s.

Fenders give the rear real substance.

What originally would have been transportation around a senior citizen complex is now a racy looking low rider, with full fenders and a faux springer front end that doesn't spring.

All fenders are deeply valanced.

With no motor, you won't need any gas in the dummy fuel tank.

Badge marks this as a product of Asia, not Great Britain.

Surprisingly, this isn't the only outrageous customizing job we've seen performed on a Royal Enfield tricycle. Remember the rainbow maker?

1970s Royal Enfield bicycles were sold by U.S. company

Why are so many Royal Enfield bicycles available for sale in the United States, I asked — especially bikes that look too new to have been built in Britain before Royal Enfield stopped making them in Redditch at the end of the 1960s?

Robert Stack restores and sells bicycles though Zoshe, his one-man operation in New Jersey. He told me that the Royal Enfield bicycle he has up for sale looked to him to date from the 1970s and perhaps was made in Taiwan.

Robert was kind enough to check trademark records, and determined that the G. Joannou Cycle Co. held the trademark for Royal Enfield bicycles in the 1970s. The G. Joannou Cycle Co. has been around since 1937.

Since 1990, GJC has been the parent company of Jamis Bicycles, a New Jersey firm that builds a wide variety of high quality bikes for serious riders. We're talking categories like full suspension mountain bikes;  road-triathlon; street-commuting; fitness-touring; and cross training.

There are also "comfort" bikes (my speed) and you can even get a cute little pink "Ladybug" with training wheels for you daughter.

They know bicycles. I promised to let readers know what I learned from Jamis.

The answer came from Katie Mulvey, in administration at Jamis Bicycles, Northvale, N.J. She gathered the information from Carine Joannou, president and CEO, who took over leadership of GJC from her father in 1981.

"This is the most information she can gather without digging deeper in old files, which are difficult to locate," Katie wrote.

Here's what Carine said:

1. G. Joannou Cycle had the Royal Enfield trademark from 1975 through 1977.
2. Bikes that were manufactured at the time were as follows: three-speed bicycles (touring style); 10-speed bicycles (drop bar); 20-inch BMX style bicycles, boys and girls.
3. Bikes were manufactured in Taiwan and imported into the USA
4. Royal Enfield three-wheeler bicycles were manufactured as well, so those bikes were in fact manufactured during that time.
5. The metal head-badge was in fact from us, as was the later versions of the decal RE badge that was used for BMX bicycles.

"I hope this is helpful," Katie concluded. "Carine was a teenager when her father had the RE trademark so this is what she could forward offhand."

It is helpful. I think it explains where at least the majority of these bicycles came from and why they are available in such variety.

Royal Enfield bicycles of the 1970s  for sale on eBay and Craigslist
with a package of Royal Enfield parts from  G. Joannou Cycle Co.

My back hurts; should I take to a trike?

Here's a look at Harley-Davidson's $31,000 trike.

Both my wife Bonnie and daughter Anna sent me the recent New York Times article about aging baby boomers giving up their two-wheelers to ride trikes.

Baby boomers suffering from bad knees, bad backs and big butts "have abandoned their traditional two-wheel motorcycles in favor of three-wheelers, the super-steady and seemingly safer machines commonly known as trikes," Jesse McKinley wrote in The Times.

My first reaction: What are my wife and daughter trying to tell me?

My second reaction: Gee, those things are ugly.

1959 Royal Enfield based Indian Patrol Car looked tidy.

Naturally, I exempt all things Royal Enfield from this description. I happen to think that the Royal Enfield based Pashley tricycle is a handsome machine, looking like a Bullet up front and an Indian Patrol Car in the back. It somehow extracts a reverse gear from the traditional Albion transmission!

But those vintage tricycles are rare (from the 1950s), slow (the 350cc single) and, I suspect, poorly sprung.

Not the things to cushion a bad back. Which — suddenly — I have.

I was in the garage Sept. 15 adding air to tires with a bicycle pump when the first stroke produced a stabbing pain in my back. I could barely stand. I could hardly walk into the house. The tire pump is still on the floor of the garage where I dropped it.

I'd been planning to take a ride on my Bullet past the community free mulch pile to check if there are any nice looking wood chips I could load into my car for the garden.

I now can not imagine riding the Bullet or even jack knifing my body into the car for a ride to the Emergency Room.

If this pain doesn't depart, I realize, I am facing a life in which I may never load mulch again.

It may be an over reaction but, suddenly, those trikes don't seem so awful looking anymore. Nor am I going to ever again ridicule the possible comforts of the back rest I spotted fitted to a Bullet.

Back rest might be comfy but could I swing my leg over it?

This is a Royal pain.

Royal Enfield tricycle is still making rainbows

Royal Enfield tricycle has water barrel and spray nozzle.

A Royal Enfield tricycle that generates rainbows caught my attention when it was offered for sale on eBay.

It didn't sell, but its creator, Matt Rink, spotted the item I wrote and contacted me with more information about his intriguing creation.

Attention museums and discovery centers: Matt is now willing to accept offers substantially below his original asking price just to see it find a good home. I think children in particular would be delighted and inspired by this clever piece of functional art. Contact him at  mattrinksculpture@gmail.com His website is www.mattrinksculpture.com

"Just to give you a little background, I found this trike at the Pickens County flea market in South Carolina back in the fall of 2009 when I was pursuing my masters in art at Clemson University," Matt wrote.

Royal Enfield badge was standard; fender ornament wasn't.

"Picked it up in pretty rough shape for about 30 bucks. Only knowing of Royal Enfield by their motorcycle heritage, I was equally baffled and found inconclusive information online about their origin. Judging by the mechanicals, I figured the bike was from the '60s or '70s, probably not too much earlier.

"There are no markings indicating a country of origin... It appeared to originally be a three speed, but with a roached derailleur and no shifter, I opted for a new single-speed chain and tensioned the chain by pulling back on the rear part of the frame.

"I stripped the bike down, bead-blasted the frame and all small parts. Swapped the bent front fork for another newer one that I had on hand and replaced the seized-up front brake with a newer model cantilever. Did some welding on the rims to fix the tire bead, which was corroding, and picked up some new white wall tires. As part of my thesis (don't laugh because this is actually what we can get away with in the art world) I set up a rainbow making mechanism to create impromptu visual absurdity around Clemson.

See the rainbow? Now you can make your own!

"It was a blast to ride around and definitely got a lot of attention.

"The tear-drop trailer, which I fabricated from scratch, held a gas generator and powered the fan, which actually inflated some parachute sculptures. All in good fun!

Fan mounted on trailer inflates balloon sculptures. Of course!

"I just moved to a new apartment in New Fairfield, Conn., where I'm sharing a 4,000 square-foot fabrication studio complete with all sorts of fun equipment for metal and wood-working. During my days I work as a carpenter and nights, weekends and all other time is spent applying for public art sculpture commissions, building furniture and working on bikes, jeeps and whatever else I can get my hands on. I also like to ride them whenever I can!"

Royal Enfield tricycle has three speeds, all slow

Red rims and chrome fender add distinction.

This blog about Royal Enfield motorcycles clearly has no business writing about three-wheeled push bikes — especially since the "Royal Enfield" brand on these trikes has no known connection to the Royal Enfield that makes the motorcycles.

I can't help it. These goofy looking tricycles fascinate me for two reasons. First: their origin is a mystery (at least to me) and, second, they come in a curious variety of designs.

Here's one offered for sale on CraigsList in Portsmouth, R.I. The red rims are unusual looking and there is one of my favorite accessories: a bulb horn. The front handbrake operates a drum brake.

Idler wheels suggest a derailleur, but no!

Most of these tricycles appear to have a single speed. But not all. Here the chain runs from the front sprocket through an arrangement of idler wheels into a three-speed rear hub powering another chain to the rear axle.

The seller thoughtfully provides a close-up look at the gear shift, a Sturmey-Archer three-speed thumb switch.

Sturmey-Archer thumb shift.

Someone somewhere put a lot of thought into trying to make this machine workable. Even so, I'd dread the weight and wince at the prospect of trying to propel it any distance. No wonder some of these trikes come with a motor.

If you want to give this one a try, the seller is asking $138.

Cute, but what must this thing weigh?

Electric motor powers Royal Enfield adult tricycle

Royal Enfield tricycle with electric motor.

UPDATE: It's sold!

A Royal Enfield adult tricycle with an electric motor powering the front wheel is for sale on CraigsList in Danielsville, Pa.

Although I've written about these Royal Enfield branded pedal-powered trikes before — some of them with gasoline engines — this is the first I've seen with electric power.

The seller, "Terry," writes:

"I purchased this item from a guy at work. He bought it at a yard sale. We aren't sure if the motor is original to the bike. It runs off a riding mower battery which sits in front of the basket on the back. It drives like a normal bike. You can push the one hand control and the battery moves the bike, the other hand control stops the bike.

Electric motor powers front wheel. Pedals power the rear.

"It has drum brakes on the front wheel. Basket on the back. It has a 12-volt Pedal Motor on front. Manufactured by General Engines Co. Sewell N.J. Can be pedaled like a normal bike or use the motor. This is a bike that will need tires as they are worn. Motor does work. Asking price $200."

This electric version is yet another variation in these machines, which come in many colors, with single and multiple-speed gearing and front drum or caliper brake.

Common to all of them is the Royal Enfield name, although they were not built by Royal Enfield in Redditch, England or Chennai, India. Some are labelled "Made in Japan."

Who builds these Royal Enfield tricycles?

Common, too, is the curved, step-through frame, which must be immensely strong since it is unbraced. All seem to have the high-rise "ape hangar" handlebars and single solo seats.

They come up for sale often on CraigsList in the U.S. There must be many of them out there. I'd like to know more about them and so would Terry, who says he welcomes input from anyone who knows more about his trike.

Royal Enfield bicycle sports "England" badge

Royal Enfield bicycle for sale in Spring Hill, Fla.

Royal Enfield was famous in England for its bicycles before it built motorcycles. But when the British company encountered hard times in the 1960s, the name Royal Enfield was sold off to other bicycle makers.

In the United States, most of the "Royal Enfield" bicycles and tricycles we see are likely made in Japan.

But here is a Royal Enfield lightweight sports bicycle for sale on CraigsList labelled "England" and advertised as "made in England." The seller, in Spring Hill, Fla., says it's in good condition, right down to its Sturmey-Archer transmission. Asking price is $325.

England!

I'm tempted, not because I need another bicycle, but just to own the "Royal Enfield England" badge, with its signature cannon.

This bicycle really does appear to be "Made Like a Gun."

In contrast, Royal Enfield bicycles from Asia do seem "counterfeit," as Jorge Pullin referred to them in his My Royal Enfields blog.

The National Cycle Museum in the UK suggested to him that Asian bicycle manufacturers utilized by Royal Enfield to supply components and even complete bicycles in its last days may have carried on with production on their own.

It would be interesting to know the source of these "Royal Enfield Quality Bicycle" machines, as some are badged. Are they still in production? And do they have any, even tenuous connection to Royal Enfield England?

Royal Enfield tricycle generates rainbows; and smiles

Pedal powered Royal Enfield tricycle and trailer.

Royal Enfield motorcycles carry you through time as well as distance. They transport you back to, oh, say, 1951, when traffic moved slower and a single-cylinder 500cc  motorcycle gave you freedom to roam.

But here's a pedal-powered Royal Enfield tricycle, for sale on eBay, that offers to take you back to a time before internal combustion. This trike and its whimsical tear-drop trailer are completely impractical for travel anywhere — not least because their purpose is to generate a rainbow as they go.

Pump geared to rear wheel, spray nozzle.

That's right. A pump geared to the left rear wheel of the tricycle is supposed to shoot water from a tank between the rear wheels into a breeze generated by a fan on the front of the trailer. A generator inside the trailer powers the fan. "Under the right conditions" a rainbow is created and, presumably, the rider gets soaked.

Like something out of Willie Wonka, this silly yet very clever machine evokes the "steampunk" movement. Steampunk. I had to Google it. It is H.G. Wells style fiction, complete with steam powered dirigibles and computers powered by clockwork springs. Practitioners dream of an alternative reality, when Victorian England set the rules of behavior and steam power set the pace of progress.

Workmanship from a previous century.

 In such a time, what could be better than a mobile rainbow generator? This one, for sale in Redding, Conn., was originally part of a public art performance, the seller writes. Still rideable, it is finished to 19th-Century standards, with leather wrapped grips and pedals and leather belts holding the water tank in place.

Tricycle sports a Royal Enfield badge and a fender ornament.

 For the original artist, the fact that this is a Royal Enfield tricycle must have had a special appeal. Never mind that these Royal Enfield tricycles are made not in Redditch but somewhere in Asia, perhaps Japan. For use on pedal powered machines, the name "Royal Enfield" was sold on long ago, and has no relation to the motorcycles now made in Chennai, India and, before that, in England.

eBay's Buy It Now price is $2,200. The seller crassly suggests that you replace the tank with a beer cooler and go to tail-gate events. What, and destroy a timeless piece of history?

Generator powers the fan, not the vehicle.

 The world has many SUV tail gates to choose from; it is seriously short of rainbow generators.

I am indebted to Emile Lapointe of Toronto, Canada, who pointed out the eBay ad on the Royal Enfield Bulletech message group.

Yes, it works! See the rainbow?

Royal Enfield tricycle sports a motor

Royal Enfield built bicycles before it built motorcycles and bicycle manufacture in England apparently continued throughout its history. There were standard bicycles and bicycles Americans would call "racers," with drop handlebars.

When Royal Enfield went out of business in Redditch, England, in 1967 the name was sold to a bicycle maker in Birmingham. This probably explains why many Royal Enfield bicycles seen in the U.S. appear to be newer than 1967.

One Royal Enfield pedal pusher seen in America is not a bicycle at all. It's a tricycle. Apparently well made, they typically outlast the legs of the senior citizens who buy them for neighborhood grocery shopping. They often come up for sale.

I couldn't resist showing you pictures of this one, which makes it into this motorcycle blog on the strength of having a motor. The side-mounted accessory drives the front wheel. Together with the ape hanger handlebars and slender single tube, step-through frame, the off-center motor gives the trike a delicate, ungainly look.

Nevertheless, it works, the seller says, and the big basket on the back looks as though it would hold a lot of groceries. The adult tricycle is for sale on CraigsList in Port Huron, Mich. for $250. Just needs a good cleaning, the seller says.

"I can't ride it, so I'm selling it," he adds.