Rambler was an American bicycle brand manufactured by the Gormully & Jeffery Manufacturing Company (G&J) in Chicago from 1878 to 1900 and subsequently by the

American Bicycle Company American Bicycle Company (1899-1903) was an American bicycle company (Trust) led by Albert Augustus Pope. The company was formed to consolidate the manufacturers of bicycles and bicycle parts. In the 1890s the advancements in bicycle design led ...

History

The Rambler brand was created in 1878 by

Thomas B. Jeffery Thomas Buckland Jeffery (5 February 1845 – 2 April 1910) was a British emigrant to the United states who co-founded the Gormully & Jeffery company which made the Rambler bicycle. He invented the "clincher" rim which was widely used to fit tires ...

, who co-founded G&J in Chicago with R. Philip Gormully. At the time, low prices often took precedence over quality but in manufacturing the Rambler, G&J used several more costly techniques, such as using

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...

brazed Brazing is a metal-joining process in which two or more metal items are joined together by melting and flowing a filler metal into the joint, with the filler metal having a lower melting point than the adjoining metal. Brazing differs from we ...

joints instead of more common non-brazed welds, which improved the quality of the bicycle. In 1897 Jeffery built his first Rambler automobile, a simple

single cylinder A single-cylinder engine, sometimes called a thumper, is a piston engine with one cylinder. This engine is often used for motorcycles, motor scooters, go-karts, all-terrain vehicles, radio-controlled vehicles, portable tools and garden machinery ...

car with bicycle wheels and a forerunner of the 1901 Rambler Model A. Jeffery sold his stake in the successful bicycle company in 1900 to the American Bicycle Company to focus on automobiles after favorable responses to his exhibition of a $900 runabout at auto shows. At the time, G&J was the second-largest bicycle manufacturer in the US.

Manufacturing

The Rambler's body featured flared metal tubing for extra strength at the joints, which were

by immersion in molten brass. These techniques continued even after Gormully & Jeffery and Rambler became brands of the

References

American Motors Cycle manufacturers of the United States History of Chicago 1878 introductions {{Cycle-manufacturer-stub