Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Another Holy Grail: The Dukes of Hazzard Sidewalk Bicycle


It's been a good few weeks as far as Holy Grails go.  Here is another super rare Dukes item that I just added to the collection:  The 1982 Dukes of Hazzard Sidewalk Bicycle from Hedstrom. 



The bike shows a little wear, but is generally in great condition.  (It took all I had not to write out -in General Lee condition- there.)  The name Sidewalk Bike means, I guess, that it is meant to be used on the sidewalk, not the road.  It could have had training wheels attached, but they did not come with the bike.


If the 01s didn't give it away, the plate on the front told the world this bike's rider is fan of the Dukes of Hazzard.


The makers of the bikes, trikes, big wheels, and pedal cars just couldn't get the 01s down during the golden era.  On all of these ride-ons, the font is wrong, and the numbers are blue, not black.  Weird.


The General Lee font, on the other hand, is surprisingly close to being correct.  Again, weird.


The plate has the standard WB copyright information on it.  Unlike a majority of the Golden Era merchandise, this item was released in '82, not '81.  I was released in '81.


The bike is made by Hedstrom.  I couldn't find out online if this is the same company that is today called Hedstrom and was founded in 1913 as Eagle  Rubber from Ohio specializing in bouncy balls and such, or if the company is related to the co-founder of Indian Motocycles, whose last name is Hedstrom.  Maybe the company was just named after him.


Movie Bo Duke likes the connection to Indian Motocycles.


Not all the stickers are perfect, but they still look good.


A coaster brake is the name of the type of brake that stops the bicycle by pushing the pedal backwards.


It is a little smaller than the modern Wal-Mart version of the DK General Lee BMX bike.  I like how much bigger the 01s are on the sidewalk bike, but I guess you would need giant plastic plates on the newer one to achieve this, and they would probably get in the way.  These two bikes look great displayed together.  It is really cool that these two items were released thirty years apart.  It's a complete circle of Dukes of Hazzard collecting.

7 comments:

  1. Nice bike!

    I've managed to find out a bit of information on Hedstrom.

    Founded in 1915 to make bicycles.
    Filed for bankruptcy in 2004 with 1,968 employees
    Took out many bicycle patents during the 80s.

    Headquarters address was:
    Hedstrom Corporation
    3436 N. Kennicott Ave.
    Arlington Heights, IL 60004

    Hope that's useful.

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  2. Watch out for hop ons. You're gonna get some hop ons.

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  3. I have one with partial stickers, wonder what it's worth?....

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  4. I had this bike when I was am kid

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  5. Got this bike for Christmas back in the 80's but it broke the day I got it and my parents took it back to the store. :-(

    Bought a Kmart Ross BMX instead. LOL

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