Military surplus is often an endless well of cool and unique stuff. Built with an eye towards efficiency, function and practicality, the designs of military products often end up being more beautiful than their civilian cousins, either in there stark simplicity or their necessary complexity, whichever happened to be called for in that particular instance. The MO-05 Swiss Army Bike embodies this complex beauty.
Starting back in 1905, the Swiss Army maintained a bicycle infantry unit. Actually, they weren’t the only ones but that’s a different story. Bikes were used in the same way horses were, for patrols, etc. The Swiss Army still uses bikes today, although the infantry unit was disbanded in the early 2000’s.
The MO-05 model bike was introduced in 1905 and in use to 1993, when it was replaced with the more modern MO-93. The MO-05 itself was a heavy (50+ lbs!) single speed, and came completely loaded – a built to fit leather briefcase that strapped to the frame for carrying supplies, a toolkit, a headlight, a tire pump, and more. Up until WWII when a more modern hand brake was added on, it used a rear coaster brake and a hand operated spoon brake on the front (imagine a hand brake that links to an inverted shoe horn on the top of the front tire.)
As with most military gear the bikes eventually got decommissioned and sold as surplus, which means us civilian types now get to have a crack at them. Today you’ll find them mostly in Europe (I got introduced to them by a guy in Berlin) where bike culture reigns supreme, but they’re also available on eBay from time to time, usually for somewhere just under $2k. Completely untouched examples are hard to find but they do exist, and once in a while one can find a very nice restoration job. The MO-05 went through very few changes in it’s lifetime, so pretty much any model year you can find will be great. Personally, I like the pre-war models with the rear coaster brake. You have to be a bit patient to find one of those in top condition, but I’m a fan of the more “lived in” examples, as well. Here are some shots of a beautiful example that apparently lives right here in NYC.