Militarvelos

I have found a company in Arkansas that imports surplus military vehicles from Switzerland - wonderfully boxy Pinzgauers and Unimogs, exactly the sort of trucks I remember from the beach scene of Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go". That was a great book.

In any case, I found this company while looking for sources of surplus Swiss Militarvelos, or army bicycles. I'm not looking for the version made after 1995, but rather the old single-speed bikes. The design is more-or-less unchanged since 1901, when "safety" bicycles were a relatively recent innovation. The front brake is a block of rubber pressed down onto the tire by a lever, the saddle is highly sprung leather, and the unladen bicycle approaches fifty pounds. Oh yea.