Sportsmen Guide has some Swiss Army Bikes for sale. [View all]

Last edited Tue Apr 5, 2016, 08:37 PM - Edit history (2)

I am on they mailing list so I received their latest catalog of surplus items. In the catalog is listed a "Used Swiss Army Surplus Bicycle".

It is listed at $989.99. The photo appears to be the 1905 Swiss Army Bicycle used till the mid 1990s when it was replaced by a 1995 style bicycle with 1995 components.

Back to the one on sale. It has push rod front brakes and a drum rear brake, high tech in 1905. It has 1 1/2x26 inch wheels, but the add does notvsat if it is ISO 559 or some other 26 inch tire. It is a single speed. It has front snd rear fender and a bottle generator.

From the photo it may have Dunlap values, the long forgotten third option to Schrader and Presta Values. When I get on line I will add the photo but I am using my smart phone and such transfers are difficult with a smart phone.

I check out Sportsmen Guide Website, they also have the 1993 Swiss Army bike for about $1200. It has seven rear speed and tough bike for 1993.

About 1999 the Swiss decided to shut down their bicycle battalions. The reason for this is the Swiss decided an invasion of Switzerland is NOT foreseeable given the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Please note it was NOT because the Swiss had seen the Warsaw Pact as worse threat than NATO, but with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO was on all sides of Switzerland and thus no reason for NATO to invade Switzerland to gain an advantage over the Warsaw Pact. Thus no one had a reason to attack Switzerland.

The Bicycle Troops were "filler" troops. In a typical Division you had three brigades or regiments (names varied between nations and over time within national armies), each having three battalions with the tenth battalion kept in reserve to fill in any gap in the battle line caused by an enemy attack. In most armies these tend to be light wheeled army units, for wheeled units can go thousands of miles on just fuel. Track units need their track replaced after about 2000 miles of usage. Helicopter troops do this function in the US Army, when they are not leading the attack.

In armies with limited access to fuel, filler units tend to be horse mounted or bicycle mounted for both are faster then going by foot. The Germans did this extensively during WWII after 1941 (German source of fuel pre June 1941 was the Soviet Union, thus if the Nazis did not take Moscow by December they had no fuel to fight after 1942, main lesson of WWII do NOT attack your source of fuel unless you can take those oilfields quickly).

Post 1941 the Germans used bicycle troops as their filler troops got their had no other option. The Swiss, Swedes and Finns also opted for Bicycle troops as Filler troops during WWII (many had them before WWII but the success of the Germans with Bicycles during WWII shown them the advantage of such troops).

The Swiss held onto the concept of bicycle troops longer then other European Nations, more do to fears that while when a war began they would have adequate fuel, but by the time such a war would affect Switzerland, that fuel supply would be in short supply and some sort of filler troops would be needed. The Swiss only dehorsed their cavalry in 1971 for the same reason. The de-horsing was opposed but the Swiss determined what the horse could do, so could the bicycle and as less and less Swiss lived in rural areas the bicycle was a better fit for their urban population (please note rural farmers in Switzerland were given allowances to keep horses as farming animals till at least the 1990s, and may still be getting that allowance I have NOT kept up on it since the 1990s, the rationale for such allowances was to compensate farmers for the additional costs of keeping horses over tractors, the Swiss Army wanted the horses as a reserve to act as pact animals during any fighting if anyone invaded Switzerland).

My net is still down thus no photos.