Footboard extensions

[38 el]

Faber Cycle owns CMS, Chicago Motor Cycle Supply.
Sell original CMS parts, grips, Kick pedals, and (I think ) the above mentioned floorboard extensions.

[exeric]

A. Bernhardt, Wow, thanks for that incredibly informative overview. Lots of things I had never heard, and wasn't aware of. You clarified things I had heard from Jimmy Metiff, but Jimmy was one helluv'a character himself and you never knew what was b.s., fact, or an irrational rant. Speaking of Jimmy, where did he fit into all this? I recall him talking about Triangle and disparagingly about a drunk that owned it (obviously) Marsh. Jimmy had tons of good Excelsior, and Henderson stuff, as well as lots of H-D, and Indian. Jimmy was an Outlaw so I can see the gang bike connection to a parts business like Triangle. Tom Faber has talked about the Triangle stuff, and his associations with Easy Russ, and Jimmy. These are the kinds of stories that make this crazy motorcycle hobby so fantastic

[bernhardt]

Eric,

The text above is part of an article written by John Gerber and published originally in 2001. It can be found here in it's entirety:

http://www.heinkeltourist.com/heinkelUSAhistory.htm

[RichO]

Eric, I wrote a small article about Ballack for the AMCA magazine quite a few years back but can't seem to find my copy now. It was basically about the companies history and a picture or two. Dave L_ _ _ something was the gentleman who bought some of the important stuff from the Schwinn auction. I know Dale Walksler probally got some of his Excelsior paper work from that gentleman as well. When I visited the archives in '92 there were wooden cases of linen blue prints of Henderson, Excelsior, and Super X that had been moved from the factory on Cortland along with loads of parts books and manuals. A lot of them were in German. Also the original contracts from the sales of Henderson and Excelsior to Ingnaz. Very cool!

[exeric]

I remember that article, Rich. I recall you had a good picture of the Ballak building in St. Louis, and I could only imagine how amazing a tour of Ballak's inventory would have been. As fantastic as that would be today; I have to believe that old man Ballak sat in that building and said to himself, "How am I ever going to get rid of all this junk?"

[fabercycle]

I havent written on this forum in several years,....lost my login password, and guess I was too busy in the shop. Had to chime in on this though. The story posted on the Hienkel scooter site is pretty accurate, with a couple exceptions. Chicago Motorcycle Supply was born as Chicago Cycle Supply company. They specialized in bicycle parts sold to dealers, such as Corbin hubs, spokes, rims tubes tires etc. The earliest literature I have from 1929, they also sold Motorcycle Accessories. I expect they were probably around since the early 1900s. I asked Harry Denune, who was born in the 1920s, and owned Dixie Distributing, about what he knew of Chicago Motorcycle supply, and he told me that it was owned by Joe Weidemann, and in the 1950s he took on Pete Zelney (Triangle MC) as a partner because his health was failing. He passed in the 1950s, and the brand became Triangles'. fast forward to 1983. Jimmy Miteff from Detroit ran "west side Cycle" as a side business while he worked in tool & die at Ford motor co. Jimmy got some kind of monetary settlement from Ford, and used the money to buy out Marsh Zelney, just months before Marsh got killed. Jimmy hoarded most of it in buildings and semi trailers...and sold very little, but he DID like to brag about it. fast forward again to 1999, when Jimmy Miteff passed away, his widow Helen was selling almost exclusively all his motorcycle parts to Easyruss, because she didnt trust anyone else. It got to the point where Russ didnt want everything, so he brought me into the deal. I found the injection mold inserts for the CMS grips and pedals, and a crapload of grips and pedals and gasket kits and made a deal with Helen to buy everything Chicago Motorcycle Supply she had. Well....I bit off a bit more than I thought cuz she had 20 fifty five gallon drums full of parts. We soon after started a Michigan corporation re establishing the Chicago Motorcycle Supply name, then had it trademarked. We've been selling nos inventory now for 20 years, and put the mold inserts back in modern dies, that are running new parts off the old tools. We still have a couple thousand original NOS parts we still sell.

And we DO also make the Ballack floorboard extentions which were designed to fit both HD and Indian floorboards.

Triangle/CMS had alot of Ballack, Beck, National cycle, Story's Twin stacks pipes, Bates, and other period accessories that they sold out of their catalog.

I met Jimmy in about 1990, while we were both waiting for Russ at his junkyard. Jimmy acted like he was a little "nuts", but it was just an act. He had about 5 businesses that he ran to make extra money. One was "Zip Seat" a chopper seat company (you can find them advertised in old magazines), West side cycle, he also had a printing shop, a t-shirt silkscreening shop, and a Good humor ice cream franchise.

I hope that fills in the gaps....

[motor-officer]

Thank you for the info. I do have an old winged pin that is embossed BALLACK & CO., St. Louis. So are the footboard extensions I have pictured like the BALLACK floorboard extensions you still produce? Thank you.