Zhongguo! Out of the Box.

One of the great things about unpacking is you get to see things you haven't seen in a while. One of those things is this Zhongguo brand side stand. Zhongguo (meaning China) brand is from the south of China. Guangzhou in fact. But I picked this one up on my last day weekend in Beijing.

The Zhongguo brand is still something of a mystery to me. On the headbadge below it says it is a product of the "Cotton Tree Factory". 

 

I have been told that this brand and factory is a predecessor or Five Rams. Perhaps, Five Rams bought them out at some point. This was the fate of many smaller factories in the 1980s.

As a complete aside, the bike above is something of an anomally in China. Most Chinese double bars  that I have seen have only two lugs on the head stock. The top one for the top bar and the lower one lugging onto both the front down tube and the lower top bar. This bike has three lugs instead, which places the lower top bar a little bit closer to the top one.

Now back to Zhongguo Brand. Of course this is not the first Zhongguo side stand I have seen. One of the first old bikes I came across in Beijing was "The Zhongguo Bike" which really wasn't a Zhongguo, or even Chinese, but had the sidestand put on for good measure. There have been others:

 

Both my example and the example above have the pivoting logo on the sidestand. What does it say? I don't know. It certainly doesn't say "China" 中, "Cotton Tree Factory" 广州红棉厂,or Guangzhou" 国.

Nonetheless this pretty baby is destined for a future project. Now, the question is to chrome, or NOT to chrome. Your thoughts?

 

 

 

Comments

[Larry "Boneman" Bone]

Hmmmm..... if it's just mild steel, then yeah... chrome or even nickel plating would be a good idea. No... I've been insanely busy and I've not yet mounted up the sidestand I procured from yourself, sir... cuz I also have 28" S.S. wheels with Dynohub, etc. to mount up as well... and yeah... the seats.....

TIME. An utterly non-renewable resource. ;-)

Later!

Larry "Boneman" Bone
Dingmans Ferry, PA, USA

[Kapok Kid]

Looks something like "jia ta de". Pinyin for sure.