I picked this up in Penn. at the national last weekend.

Bicycle Corp. America

It has a lot of decals on it one says factory team?

Any info on this strange frame?

It looks like a ROSS ??

The chainguard tabs and the kickstand mount give the biggest clues. Dept. Store Junk.

they also made the mossberg bikes and stuff, I think they made some of the western flyers,kind of a murray manufacturing co

They were also sold in the bike shops-- we had a beach cruiser style made by BCA at my dads shop in the '80's. they were on the lower end of the spectrum of quality. Still a cool find no the less...

Hey Ed give me a call

Ryan

best left where it was

Hope ya didn't pay alot ! It's circa '82 give or take a year. I picked up the same year Ross from a thrift store for $8. Fortunately it had pat pend. Z-rims !

I have a complete BCA that was found in a box in a storage facility a few years ago.

BCA was a bike manufacturing company in Allentown PA and had some affiliation with the Ross bicycle company.

Ross had some high-end bikes at one point which included an all-chromoly race bike called the "MX-Time" and then changed over to the "Pirahna" name a year later.

BCA stuff was mostly department store style bikes nothing that great but better than Columbia's offering of the same era.

Put it up on ebay.Someone might pay big bucks for it.

thanks guys all the info helps

i gave 20 bucks for it you never know?

Check this out, I found it on a web discussion site here: http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-39115-p-2.html


andyross
Hi, my name is Andrew Ross and I am the grandson of the founder of Ross Bicycles, Albert Ross. The company was statred in 1940 as the Ross Galvanizing Works. It was located in Brooklyn, New York near the Brooklyn Navy Yards. During WWII the company had extensive contracts with the U.S. Government to coat (galvanize) the bottom of ships. When the war ended, at the suggestion of my Dad, Sherwood (Jerry), and his brother in-law Sam Wilkens, the company switched to the manufacturing of wheeled goods including bicycles, tricycles, wheel chairs, lawn mowers and roller skates.

The company moved its manufacturing plant to Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York in the 1950's and by the late 50's solely manufacured bikes and trikes and was the 3rd largest domestic producer of bicycles after Scwinn and Huffy. The compnay moved again in the early 70's to a new facility in Allentown, PA. During the two oil crises of the 1970's (1973 & 1979) the company worked around the clock in three shifts and turned out over 1 million bicycles in each of those years.


Upon my granfather's retirement in 1969 the ownership of the company was turned over in equal shares to my Dad and his sister Teddy. In 1980 my Dad bought out his sister and remained the sole owner until the company went bankrupt in 1989. The company was unable to compete with imports from the Far East made with very cheap labor. The company tried to stay afloat by shifting it's bicycle manufacturing to leased factories in Taiwan and use the Allentown facility to fulfill government contracts that it had sucessfully bidded on. Due to my Dad's lavish lifestlye he was unable to "buckle the belt" sufficiently to save the company.

The name ROSS was purchased out of Bankruptcy Court by Rand Cycle, Farmingdale, NY. My dad worked for Rand for 5 years as a consultant as part of the name deal. Rand never sunk enough money into marketing the ROSS name and although they still own it, they are not actively pursuing ROSS sales. However, they do have about 300 ROSS, Mt. Washington mountain bikes, both mens and ladies in a warehouse in New York. I purchased a few of them last year and the're dynamite low end units. Anyone interested in purchasing any or all of this inventory can contact Rand at 800-883-7677, ask for Alan Goldmeir. I can be contacted at 888-575-4433. Just as a closing note, my Dad who was for many years the President of the Bicycle Manufacturers of America (BMA) is alive and well at 85 living in South Florida and is working part-time as the pre-eminent expert witness in bicycle product liability litigation.