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| Industry | Manufacturing |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
Norman Cycles was a British bicycle, autocycle, moped, and motorcycle manufacturer in Ashford, Kent, England.
The company and its products are remembered today by the Norman Cycles Club [1] at Willesborough Windmill, in Willesborough, Ashford. The Norman museum is in the Windmill's barn and displays some of the company's mopeds and bicycles.
The company was founded shortly after World War I as the Kent Plating & Enamelling Co by brothers Charles and Fred Norman, making frames in a garden shed off Jemmett Road, Ashford. In the 1920s they moved to larger premises in Victoria Road, Ashford, and progressed to producing cycles.
In 1935, they had a factory built in Beaver Road, Ashford, and the company was renamed Norman Cycles Limited. In 1938, it produced an autocycle (a heavier-duty bicycle with a small engine - later commonly known as a moped). In addition to cycles the company went on to produce mopeds and light motorbikes (with motors supplied by manufacturers including Villiers, British Anzani; Sachs engines were used for the Norman Nippy moped).
The company produced many thousands of cycles and motorbikes. Weekly production was said to peak at 5,000 bikes, 600 mopeds and 120 motorbikes. It exported to Commonwealth countries using the Rambler trademark. The company had sporting success. By 1950, Norman Cycles had been acquired by Tube Investments, which used the Raleigh name for cycles.
The Ashford factory closed in 1961. Although products bearing the Norman name continued to be made (Nottingham for cycles and Smethwick for mopeds and motorbikes), the heyday had passed and the name ceased in sales literature after 1963. In tribute, a road close to the site of the 1935 factory is named Norman Road.
Norman Cycles does not have any connection to Norman Engineering Co of Leamington Spa and Warwick, makers of industrial engines.
A moped is a type of small motorcycle, generally having a less stringent licensing requirement than full motorcycles or automobiles. The term used to mean a similar vehicle except with both bicycle pedals and a motorcycle engine. Mopeds typically travel only a bit faster than bicycles on public roads. Mopeds are distinguished from motor scooters in that the latter tend to be more powerful and subject to more regulation.
Willesborough is a village, now in effect a residential suburb, on the eastern side of Ashford, Kent, England.
The six main types of motorcycles are generally recognized as standard, cruiser, touring, sports, off-road, and dual-purpose. Sport touring is sometimes recognized as a seventh category or integrated with the touring category.
A motorized bicycle is a bicycle with an attached motor or engine and transmission used either to power the vehicle unassisted, or to assist with pedalling. Since it sometimes retains both pedals and a discrete connected drive for rider-powered propulsion, the motorized bicycle is in technical terms a true bicycle, albeit a power-assisted one. Typically they are incapable of speeds above 52 km/h (32 mph).
This timeline of motorized bicycle history is a summary of the major events in the development and use of motorized bicycles and tricycles, which are defined as pedal cycles with motor assistance but which can be powered by pedals alone.
Simson was a German company which produced firearms, automobiles, bicycles and motorcycles, and mopeds. Under the Third Reich, the factory was taken from the Jewish Simson family, and was renamed several times under Nazi and later Communist control. The Simson name was reintroduced as a brand name for mopeds produced at the factory in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Simson mopeds were then produced in Suhl (Germany) until 2002.
MEBEA was an important Greek vehicle manufacturer, producer of light trucks, passenger automobiles, motorcycles, motorbike engines, agricultural machinery and bicycles.
New Mill is a Grade II* listed smock mill in Hythe Road, Willesborough, Ashford, Kent. It stands just west of junction 10 of the M20 motorway. It was built in 1869 and is now a museum open to the public.
The James Cycle Co Ltd., Greet, Birmingham, England, was one of many British cycle and motorcycle makers based in the English Midlands, particularly Birmingham. Most of their light motorcycles, often with the characteristic maroon finish, used Villiers and, later, AMC two-stroke engines.
Villiers Engineering was a manufacturer of motorcycles and cycle parts, and an engineering company based in Villiers Street, Wolverhampton, England.
Sparta B.V. is a Dutch bicycle manufacturer based in Apeldoorn that also produced motorcycles and Mopeds. It is the largest electrical bike manufacturer in Europe.
Sachs Bikes International Company Limited is a German-based motorcycle manufacturer, founded in 1886 in Schweinfurt as Schweinfurter Präzisions-Kugellagerwerke Fichtel & Sachs, formerly known as Fichtel & Sachs, Mannesmann Sachs and later just Sachs.
Norton Villiers Triumph (NVT) was a British motorcycle manufacturer, formed by the British government to continue the UK motorcycling industry, until the company's ultimate demise.
Batavus BV is a Dutch bicycle manufacturer, owned by the Accell Group European Cycle conglomerate. Batavus Intercycle Corporation was the leading manufacturer of bicycles and mopeds in the Netherlands during the 1970s. During its most productive years, the company’s 350,000 sq ft (33,000 m2). Heerenveen plant employed 700 to produce 70,000 Batavus mopeds and 250,000 bicycles a year. During this time, Batavus was exporting 55 percent of its production with the remainder going to the Netherlands, which had more than two million mopeds in 1977.
The history of the motorcycle begins in the second half of the 19th century. Motorcycles are descended from the "safety bicycle," a bicycle with front and rear wheels of the same size and a pedal crank mechanism to drive the rear wheel. Despite some early landmarks in its development, the motorcycle lacks a rigid pedigree that can be traced back to a single idea or machine. Instead, the idea seems to have occurred to numerous engineers and inventors around Europe at around the same time.
Dunelt Motorcycles was a British motorcycle and bicycle manufacturer. Based in Sheffield, the business was founded by two steel makers and engineers, Dunford and Elliott of Sheffield in 1919. Their first motorcycle was an innovative supercharged 499 cc two-stroke single. The company specialised in good quality sidecars from 1926 and a Dunelt motorcycle was first to cross the desert from Cairo to Siwa and back in 1924. Dunelt also enjoyed racing success and won the Double Twelve Hour World Record at Brooklands with a Model K in 1928. Dunelt moved into commercial three-wheeled cars but these were not a success. A Dunelt moped was exhibited at the Earls Court show in 1956 but the company diversified into other areas of engineering in 1957.
Di Blasi Industriale is an Italian manufacturer of folding bicycles, tricycles, mopeds and scooter based in Vizzini, Sicily. The company's products are suitable for being transported by car, boat, or airplane, and are designed and manufactured entirely in-house.
The Aberdale Cycle Company was founded in 1919. The company concentrated on high volume, popular bicycles. In the mid-1930s the company moved to a modern factory in London and also acquired the Bown Manufacturing Company. Bown brought experience of building motorcycles and with rising demand for motorised transport after 1945, the company began producing mopeds and light-weight motorcycles at their London plant and in Wales. In 1958 Aberdale were acquired by the British Cycle Corporation while the Aberdale management went on to found Trusty Manufacturing Co Ltd.
Rixe was a German bicycle, moped, and small motorcycle factory in Brake, Bielefeld.
BSA motorcycles were made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA), which was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process.
Coordinates: 51°8′9″N0°52′4″E / 51.13583°N 0.86778°E <-- estimate, please check -->