Description

1990 Bob Barrett Sociable

Purchased from Mel Short November 2025

Robert C. Barrett invented the modern version of a sociable bicycle in 1979 and sold the patent, where it was manufactured in the 80s and branded under the name ‘Bike Buddy.’

Bob Barrett was an engineer or designer for Fisher Price. After attending several bicycle meets and seeing the sociable bicycles from the 1800s, he thought that he could build a modern day version. Not many of these were built by Bob Barrett. Mel Short did meet Bob at a bicycle event and asked Bob to built him one of his sociable bikes which Bob did. Mel Short owned this bike since the 1990s until he sold it to Harry in November 2025.


From The Cabe - In 1976-77 American inventor Robert C. Barrett of Berkeley California and Angola New York designed and patented a side-by-side with fourteen distinct improvements over previous designs. Features of the Barrett design include a cantilevered chainset which operates on a single bottom bracket assembly. seating for the two riders can be staggered slightly so that they can ride a bit closer together, somewhat reducing the width of the vehicle. steering is accomplished via a chain drive. Everything bolts/clamps to a standard road single frameset without modification. early production examples employed a frameset from Takara. Mr. Barrett produced by hand fourteen different one-off examples of his design as he refined it. these included collapsibles, planetary drive examples, derailleur drive examples, cantilever frame examples, etc.

In the 1970s, American hobby tinker Bob Barrett tested various wheel designs - his test rides in the mountains of California were legendary. Bob patented his version of the Sociables in 1977 in the US under the name 'Barrett Side by Sides' ( US Patent 4178008 ). He built them in the East Bay, usually on Schwinn Paramount single frames. In the 1980s, a company called 'BuddyBike' acquired the patent from Bob Barrett and produced the sociables under the name Buddybike.