autopeduffe

Hi

I just bought a bicycle with a brand name totaly new for me, "Coast by Huffy". It's a 12-speed shimano with road bike looks and it seems like the model name is "America"
For me, living in Sweden, i had never heard about neither Huffy nor Coast by Huffy before and thew simplicity of the frame got me curious. Seems like the rear dropouts are just inserted to the chainstays and pressed.
The serial number on the bottom bracket reads "80548HUFFY87948"
I would love to have attached some images to this thread, but there is a limitation of 10 posts before allowed to do so.

So, do anyone have any idea on what this bike is and the history of where it was sold and what year it might be from?

cb400bill

Pic Assist - https://www.bikeforums.net/g/album/21070473

autopeduffe

Thanks for helping with the images!

Charliekeet

Not much to say- similar to many entry-level, department-store road bikes a lot of us American kids started out on.

It’s likely mid 90s based on the Shimano Exage Motion group. It’s a basic, heavy carbon steel frame with stamped dropouts & a heavy one-piece crank, maybe nutted brakes. Maybe later than I thought cause it looks like they tried to use a bit of dropped seatstay geometry there like the early Giant TCR of that time??

I would re-do those cables and also watch out for that stem- looks too high to me. Check that minimum height marking.

repechage

Remove the stem- unwind the bolt 3-4 turns tap to loosen and extract, give a bit of grease.
make sure upon reassembly that it has 2-2 1/2” inserted in the steerer- there should alternately be a minimum insertion mark.

it just looks very high in the images.

Doug Fattic 

Huffy is a brand of bicycles that were made originally near Dayton, Ohio. They were the cheapest kind of bicycles and sold through big box or megastores like K-Mart or Walmart. They were not sold by normal bike stores because they were so cheaply made. I read once that this kind of bike averaged about 75 miles (120 km) for its enter life. Around the yaar 2000 they could no longer compete with Chinese made bicycles and they stopped manufacturing them in the US. I think they went bankrupt and the name was bought out and the brand still exists. Walmart helped with their demise. Walmart's buying strategy was to order huge numbers and then demand steep discounts - which Huffy couldn't match with American labor costs. I remember them costing about $100 right after the American bike boom in 1970 and the price never seemed to change much until they went bankrupt.

They name Huffy became synonymous with calling any bicycle "cheap". Not every Huffy was terrible but they probably contributed to many Americans not liking to cycle because they were never properly set up or adjusted by the minimum wage workers at the discount store where they were sold. Someone might like to try bicycling so of course looks for the least expensive ones to buy. The customer would't know that their position was all wrong, just that pedaling them wasn't much fun because they were uncomfortable. They would then take up space in a garage or basement until given or thrown away.

bikemig 

Love the tubing sticker: guaranteed built with duralite high strength steel. Yeah it not light and it's not durable but it is a Huffy.

Pompiere

I grew up in Ohio, and it seemed that every kid had a Huffy at some point. Maybe it's because Ohio is where Huffy bikes were made until 1998. Generally, they made one frame size in both men's and women's styles. They made various models by painting them different colors and giving them catchy names. The lowest models would have steel, 26x1 3/8 inch wheels and steel components. A top model would have 27 inch wheels and alloy components. I had a Techtra model that was nearly identical to your bike, except for the color. I'm guessing the America name was used for export models to emphasize that it was made in USA.


late 1980's Huffy Tectra

Hummer

Coast to Coast was an American hardware store chain. The bicycles they sold were sometimes called Coast King.

The 80548 from the bottom bracket can be used to determine the date of frame manufacture.
"054" is the day of the year and the remaining "8" and "8" are for the year 1988.

Huffy stopped manufacturing in the USA in 1998.