William A. Smith (Senior Advisor) The Huffy Corporation is a supplier of bicycles with headquarters in Dayton, Ohio, United States.

[1][5] In 1949, Huffman developed the Huffy Convertible, which was a children's bicycle with rear training wheels and foot steps.

In 1962, Peter Mole of the John T. Bill & Co contacted Huffman with a concept for producing a bicycle based on a motorcycle, which he called the High Rise.

Mole developed the bike based on heavily modified children's bicycles that were becoming popular with pre-teens in Southern California, and which mimicked the appearance of customized "chopper" motorcycles.

Tall "stick-shift" derailleur gear shift levers mounted on the frame top-tube imitated the gearshift levers of popular muscle cars of the day, while many banana-seat cycles were fitted with tall chromed sissy bar passenger backrests at the rear of the seat.

In mid-1968, Huffman released the Flaming Stack chain guard, which was designed to look like the distinctive side exhaust pipe covers on the Corvette sports car.

These designs continued in production until 1971 when new safety and manufacturing restrictions from the BMA (Bicycle Manufacturers Association), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other U.S. federal agencies forced the discontinuance of the Wheel, the top-tube mounted "stick-shift", the "sissy bar", and many other stylized features of children's bicycle designs.

Other divisions were purchased and added to the Huffman stable of companies, including Gerry Baby Products (Denver), Washington Inventory Service (San Diego), Raleigh Bicycle USA (Kent, Washington), and True Temper Garden Products (Pennsylvania).

A technical development center housed in the Huffy Corporate Offices in Dayton, Ohio was formed to research and create next-generation carbon fiber road and time trial bicycles.

Even with Huffy's other non-unionized manufacturing plants, it could not make a profit selling bicycles at the prices Walmart, its biggest customer, was willing to pay.

After requesting and getting a pay cut for its unionized workforce in Ohio, Huffy returned to profitability for two years only to again crumple under the pricing pressure applied by Walmart.

Even after subcontracting production to China, where plant workers earned only 25 to 41 cents per hour, it remained unable to operate at a profit.

After years of struggling against the cut-rate Chinese bicycles that set the price target guiding Walmart, Huffy essentially had become a Chinese-owned company.

[18] The design, product development and marketing (majority of all business functions) for Huffy is based in Dayton, Ohio.

Manufacturing is based outside of the U.S.[19] Crown Equipment Corporation now uses the former Huffy U.S. bicycle factory in Celina, Ohio, to produce forklifts.