[CR]An extension on Viking .

(Example: Component Manufacturers:Ideale)

From: "Doug Smith" <doug@Kingsweir.plus.com>
To: <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 22:32:28 -0000
Subject: [CR]An extension on Viking .

Joe King wrote

Most of us used one of the alloy brackets like Constrictor or Ashby. It is not quite true that we were an impoverished race back then most of us still had two or three bikes. I would dearly like to know where these assumptions start that we were all to poor and only had one bike. Joe signature at bottom of the page.

I have to disagree with Joe King and point many of the young cyclists including myself could not afford more than one bike . I and many like me were indentured apprentices to the many different trades mostly lasting five years. The wages we earned did not give us the opportunity to have more than one bike and this meant sacrificing many of the other social activities other teenagers enjoyed. As I have pointed out many times before my first lightweight bike was used for work and active club riding and racing. Many of us did'nt have a chance to better ourselves financially when our apprenticeship did end due to the next two years of National Service where the pay was much lower than the building trade I was employed in. I did'nt consider myself or my mates poor but only in the position where we could not afford to manage more than one machine that did everything.

As for the lamp bracket comments from the members for and against , my own personal opinion is they were the normal part and parcel of any road frame of the period and far from being unsightly . To have a bike without this attachment was never seen or heard of because of the law where a front and rear lamp was required after lighting up time. I pose the question, if the were such an eyesore how is it they were manufactured in their millions with leading companies supplying the trade with their own particular design. Like so many attachments for example , mudguards and bells they were all part of the bicycle , until perhaps two decades ago when things appear to be on the change.

Doug Smith
North Dorset
UK