[CR] Mike Rathwell's Unknown Frame

(Example: Racing:Jacques Boyer)

Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:36:52 +0000
From: "Norris Lockley" <nlockley73@googlemail.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR] Mike Rathwell's Unknown Frame


This is a very unusual frame..or at least the lugwork is!

I think it is most certainly of French manufacture...or at least the lugs are...but the brackets threads might mean that the lugs and bracket were shipped abroad for building up to a non-Metric country.

I have never seen these lugs in the UK, though they do look very much like a certain model used by Helyett way back in the 30s.

I could not manage to get all three photos to download, but the last one, that of the head lugs, shouted "CHARLES GARIN" at me. If you manage to find that classic photo of Dutch rider Wim Van Est winning the Bordeaux-Paris in either 1950 or 52,on a GARIN bike, as shown on the front cover of the Miroire de Cyclisme magazine. you will understand my drift.

I have a couple of Garin frames and have tried to get some provenance on them, as it is claimed that sometimes Charles GARIN team riders such as Van Est actually rode frames rebadged as Garins..and there is an article somewhere, accompanied by a photo, that shows that Van Est's frame with its very unusual lugwork, actually had a small circular GARIN badge superimposed over the area where there had been a larger badge. Mike's frame has two rivet holes placed quite a way apart in the vertical plain denoting that a larger badge than the small circular GARIN one had been fitted

The article claimed that Van Est's frames were made by a Dutch manufacturer..and simply rebadged as GARINs. Not having any older Dutch frames in my collection I cannot remember whether BSA/ English threading was used in their bracket shells or the standard metric ones.

Norris Lockley

Settle UK