I've got 40 pages of the ethnography of something or other to read tonight, but I'd rather tell my story. I've turned into a rottener student in my 50's than I was in my 20's. This isn't a great story(and it rambles), just another little chapter in the vintage bike collecting genre, just like any one of us could come up with. About a year ago I was looking for an English frame I could turn into a commuter fixie, something old, reasonably clean, and cheap. I casually mentioned this to an occasional dealer of vintage stuff in England. I won't mention his name. He should contribute to this list, but I don't think he does, and I don't know why, so I'll leave it at that. Anyway, this fella gets back to me a week later and says he has a "ratty" Bates he'll let me have for a tolerable price. Should have said no. Didn't fit my criteria. Didn't want a "classic" per se, just something 20-30 years and beat. But the price was right and I buy English. He said the only problem, besides being "ratty", was that it had parallel tubes, not Cantiflex.That didn't bug me in the least, until I started reading up on Bates. Then I realized something in the puzzle didn't fit. Of course, this was after I agreed to the deal. But I still didn't care, knowing he wouldn't willfully try to cheat me. He thought it was a post-WWII model. I thought that might explain the straight tubes: scarcity of Cantiflex right after the war. A few weeks later I received a straight tubed Bates, and it was "ratty". And it was interesting. Straight tubes, Chater-Lea lugs, diadrant forks, full braze-ons for mudguards, generator, headlamp, clip-style headset. English! The seatstays were bent. It had been crashed. Main frame was OK though. I could see the shadows of the original transfers: the heavy italicized Bates on the downtube, the shield with the Bat and that long 531 sticker on the downtube, the long gone headbadge leaving a lovely deep burgundy exposed as a counterpoint to the oxidized gray and exposed steel, and the remnants of obviously brushed-on box lining on every tube of the bike. It's definitely a Bates. This bike was screaming to tell its story, but she's a mute, and all I could do was dream my own history. I emailed Martin Coopland and gave him the serial number, 9091, with a "C" sitting above it. He placed it as a pre-War, maybe 1940 or so. He thought the "C" may mean custom, possibly explaining the straight tubes. I thought of some young cyclist getting his first custom bike and hitting the club rides and race circuits for a year or so. Getting a name for himself, until the war. Then he hangs up his bike and joins up. Before the year is up, he's left on the beach at Dunkirk. The bike is a family hand-me-down for the next 6 decades till no one remembers whose bike it originally was. An old lady dies, and the bike is found in her basement. Off to the estate sale. On a cue from a CR post, I contact Ray Etherton and explain what I have and ask how such a thing could be. He takes the serial number and asks for more details. Straight tubes? Yes. Diadrant forks? Yes. Rigida bosses? Yes. And there's a "C" prefixing the number? Yep. Is the headbadge long and diamond-shaped? Why, yes. He comes back with: You've got a Bates Club Model son, they were catalogued in the 1938 brochure....pretty rare....it will be the first one I've seen. That's what the "C" means: Club. Well hellfire, if Ray hasn't seen one then there are probably not a lot out there. Thanks Ray and Martin, you guys are alright. So there's my story and here I sit, with a minor mystery semi-solved, a rare artifact from a bygone age, and these feelings of guilt. I straightened the stays and it's pretty well aligned, not perfect. It's gettin' painted. Got the transfers. I'll lug line it myself. But it's not going to get the care and attention to historical detail it may well deserve. It'll be a rider. Sturmey-Archer FM, Stronglight Comp(cottered), B/W front hub, SUN rims, NOS Mafac Racers from Renaissance, B17, Nitto bars and stem. I'll add some more history to it, before it becomes History. I'll ride for that kid on the Dunkirk beach.
Craig "a ruminatin' away" Montgomery in Tucson