Minson Variations – Gen 1/2/3
Recently Jon (UK) and I were discussing variations in the LeRun/Garel skatebikes. Jon is working on an article on those. My experience is with the Minson bikes. There were several changes in the Minson design, I believe for economic reasons (ie make it cheaper to manufacture).
The Minson Users Manual that came with my Minson shows the original Gen 1 version. Gen 1 bikes are the hardest to find.
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- Page 2 in Minson User’s Guide
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- Original Striped Seat
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- Curved Brace
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- Gen 1 Seat Stay
Gen 1
As seen in the gallery above. Curved brace, curved seat stay, extended brake holder and 90o dropout.
Gen 1 skate bikes were the first run. They are not common.
Gen 2
Replace curved brace with straight brace.
This eliminated bending the brace thus reducing cost and the straight brace is stronger. This was a transition phase of using up curved seat stays until gen 3 came out.
Gen 3
Straight seat stay, brake on cross frame brace and new dropout.
Like the The straight seat stay is stronger and cleaner. The small tube to hold the brake is lower cost. The new dropout is probably a stock part from standard bicycle production. Overall the change lowered cost and improved strength. Personally I think it looks nicer.
Advertising
I find it interesting that all of the advertising is with the Gen 3 skatebikes. I can not find any with a 1 or 2.
Branding
The Minson skatebike was branded as the "Minson Skate Bike" except in the UK where it was called the "Minson Roller Shuttle."
In Australia there was the "Twisties edition." You had to collect 10 Twisties packets and then mail in with the money to get one. The Twisties edition came with the rear sticker – life's pretty straight without a Twistie and also the red frame with yellow wheels and tyre (red and yellow Twisties packet colors).