Artist Patricia Villanueva of Lima, Peru has a connoisseur's eye for the fine and unusual.
"That's what drew me to this bike. It seems like such a classic. But beyond that I have a special affiliation with it. My grandmother use to call me "Farfalle", which is Butterfly in Italian. I also have a large butterfly tattoo on my arm. So when I saw this Hudie brand bicycle with it Butterfly logo, I knew it was meant for me."
"This type of bike is often used by professional gardener's here in Lima. They need something sturdy, of course to transport their tools and my bike had an extra top-bar welded in. Gardeners have girlfriends as well as tools and maybe this is how they got around. But apparently they needed a speedier mode of transport and he sold it in order to buy a motorcycle."
"Looking over the bike I knew I would have to cut that away that top bar and get the bike back to it's original style. Yes, a full restoration was in order."
So where did the Hudie come from? As in previous posts we have seen how other emerging markets have been important export markets for Chinese and India bicycle manufactures. And "Hudie" is indeed Mandarin for "butterfly". So it is Chinese, but from where in China?
More clues can be found on the well-worn decals of the bike.
As is customary among Chinese bikes, the name of the factory is given on the downpost. In this case it is given both in Chinese and in English: "Handan Bicycle Factory". A short search reveals that Handan is a "Village" in Hebei province...actually not too far from Beijing. Of course, in China "Village" translates as a town of over a million people!!!
A further search trying to identify the factory proves fruitless...almost. While bicycle parts are still made in Handan, entire bicycles apparently are not. It's unclear when bicycles first will built in Handan. One dubious photo found on the web purportedly shows Mao inspecting the Hudie assembly line..which means bike manufacture could go back to the 1970's. But it is quite unclear.
What is clear is that by the time of the Chinese bike boom in the 1980's, the town of Handan was willing to pump 2.82million RMB into making a bicycle factory. It would produce only 26" models and the thought was to compete on the basis of quality. By 1981 they were producing 100,000 units annually and exporting to other provinces and apparently Peru! While this may seem like a lot of bikes by western standards, one must consider at the same time Flying Pigeon was making about 3 Million units a year.
So it was that by 1986, the competition was proving too much for the Handan Bicycle Factory. On December 9th of that year, Zhang Ju, the plant director handed over the keys to Shanghai Phoenix who was looking for more production capacity for different bike variants. The Hudie Brand was no longer used and all bikes would be labeled as "Handan Phoenix"
But this was only a temporary condition. By the 1990's, Chinese were starting to give up bicycles for cars and the bike boom turned to a bust. On Oct 1, 1993 (National Day!) the Handan plant was shuttered forever.
From this brief history we can determine that Patricia's Hudie is indeed a classic predating the 1986 sale to Phoenix. And this particularly butterfly has has emerged from it's restorative cocoon wearing bright red livery. An artists dash of color adds another layer on top of an already well travelled and historic machine.
There are some other more practical modifications as well. Notably the welded-in top bar is gone and a comfortable seat has been added. New handlebars were also part of the plan and a metal basket will make the bike much more useful for Patricia's daily use..
Rightfully so, Patricia is quite proud of her Hudie.
With this pretty and practical classic now cruising the roads of Lima again, is there anything that remained the same?
"The bell! With it's butterfly logo, I knew I wanted to keep it just as it is."
Special thanks to Patricia for the photos and the great story!
Jeff, you rock!
:-D
Posted by: Patricia Villanueva | March 22, 2010 at 03:24 AM