Royce Union Folder

[franconuevo]

This is a cool story. I always wanted to mess with one of these folding bikes, but the only ones that I've seen here on Clist are some Dahons that are rusted solid, and always asking 100 dollars.
I saw this little Royce Union , made in Germany at my local Thrift about a week ago...looked pretty nice, but it had a big SOLD tag on it...Oh well.
I stopped in there again today...and there it was. Maybe the original buyer backed out or never showed...who knows?
Grab it. Here it is, just as found. Picked it up for equal to the price of 1 tire at Walwart.
It rides nice, without even touching it yet. Magneto light works, front and rear...and I especially like that it has the chrome that shines right up instead of flaking off. Should be fun to work on.
I'm supposing it's early 70s, but haven't really researched it that much, don't know that much about these
...any info appreciated folks.

franco

 

[rickpaulos]

One of hundreds of brand names on the same basic bike. One story I read was the inventor/designer didn't patent it so countless companies have made their own versions. Most are made in Italy and Germany but I've seen Asian versions too. I owned a bright orange one but with no labels other than "Bianchi" stamped on the stem and "inox" (stainless) on the fender. They are popular at big swap meets as they are easy to ride on grass & gravel and are usually geared pretty low. When you look at a number of them, you will see some variation in the rear stay/rack tubing.

rick

 

[franconuevo]

thanks Rick...it's true, I started looking around on the web...and they're all basically the same bike... I'm just happy I found one that will clean up like you read about.
swap meets...hmmm..that reminds me, I gotta find one around here..