In the 70s (I was still in university) I spent my holidays hitchhiking across Europe, usually in search of the sun, but also through England. One of these trips, my (twin)brother, a real Anglophile, was in England too. He already had taken up cycling before me, and was riding across the south of England with his Allin bike, saddlebag, handlebar bag etc. We both usually stayed in youth hostels. In one of those hostels a guy came up to me, and said with surprise on his face: hey, you're back! Where's your bike? It appeared my brother had been there a couple of days before ... remember, no mobile phones those days!
We met each other in Wales, and agreed to meet again in the Cotswolds. So there we were in Stow-on-the Wold. Next day we had this nice bike trip in the country side: my brother on his Allin, me on a rented folding bike, and a quite heavyset American guy on a Peugeot lightweight. He kept breaking spokes cause of his weight. He was quite handy in replacing them btw, had a whole bunch of spare ones with him. Kept complaining about not losing weight, cause of all the holdups, cause of his weight .. This day trip convinced me I had to get a nice bike too, so on the way back i bought a bike in London somewhere. A Dawes ...
Main tubes plain gauge 531, Suntour gears, Sugino Maxy chainset ... Back in Holland I rode it a lot, although at that time I thought cycling shorts and jerseys were over the top, so cut-off jeans and t-shirts it was. The Dawes was build on a Monday I think: rear triangle was a bit crooked, bb axle was very tight, and when taken out you were greeted by a mass of paint chips. This bike must have been put together in great haste .. It angered me quite a bit, and reminded me of the Morris 1100 my dad owned in the mid-60s. What a terrible car that was, spent more time in the garage than on the road. Quality control ... sigh ...
The Dutch distributor took care of a new frame for me though, so that was good. By that time I had contracted the virus and ordered a Mercian Routier (off the shelf, but still Ok I hope, hey Barrie?) from one of those London shops, and picked it up the next summer. The Dawes went to a basketball friend; he is a quite well-known architect now, and the Dawes has gone to his daughter, so all is well!
Freek Faro Rotterdam Netherlands
2010/2/7 Hilary Stone <hilary.stone@blueyonder.co.uk>
> Claud Butler still built great frames up until their bankruptcy in
> 1957/8... Bill Gray was their chief foreman framebuilder for most of the
> post-war years and is one of the largely unsung greats of post-war British
> framebulding. Afterwards Holdsworth used the name for their more budget
> priced frames.
> However Raleigh did build the frames that Ray Booty and Reg Harris used -
> they were of course not off-the-shelf RRA frames but how many Team/sponsored
> rider frames are? RRA frames were very highly thought of by serious cyclists
> - not so much TTers or massed start riders but by CTC members who were
> equally serious riders but in a different way... Of course Lenton's were a
> budget frame but were certainly a cut above basic sports frames from Raleigh
> or any other of the large builders - of course the market for Lentons was
> not racers but for riders who were on a tight budget and would have often
> been the less affluent CTC members.
>
> Hilary Stone, Bristol, British Isles
>
>
> barrie carter wrote:
>
>> Hi Niell, sorry you are wrong. Firstly, lug patterns meant little, the
>> builder and his pro of independants successes did. Firms that made pretty
>> lugs only appealed to the better off riders, and they were seldom the race
>> winners. Your average club rider would buy what he could afford, but would
>> NEVER buy a Raliegh et al. It was well known who the builders of these
>> frames were ,and it was only the Name that was real. Im sure you must know
>> that. Can you immagine Ray Booty riding a Record Ace straight from the shop
>> for his RRA and other records. I dont think so.
>> Another make that annoys me when mentioned is that of Claud Butler. Before
>> the war he was respected. His frames were built by Holdsworths at the anerly
>> factory after and who knows wsho built the rubbish, though Bill Hurlow, an
>> old work mate at Condors and still a friend, built the odd ones.
>> Whenever you say you are a bike rider, bet your life some hopefully
>> impressive liar says"I had a Claud Butler " as if its the Open Sesame to the
>> bike world. Its the open sesame to the junk yard and a great big zero in the
>> impression stakes. You are right though, our TTs were far from flat and at
>> 14 I was riding 25 miles to a 25 aand 25 home again, all on a bowl of corn
>> flakes and on a fixed wheel. I cant even remember the name of the frame, but
>> it wasnt a Raleigh, a Dawes, a C. Butler, a.............Barrie Carter, in a
>> vanishing world and frightened of current accepted history, in a 299 year
>> old house, in Roundham, Somerset Uk, Home of Stan Pike
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Neil Foddering <neilfoddering@hotmail.com>
>> To: barriemgracer@yahoo.co.uk; Rendezvous Classic <
>> classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
>> Sent: Sun, 7 February, 2010 16:35:50
>> Subject: RE: [CR] TTs and Dawes.
>>
>> Hang on a minute, Barry, if you're going to write off all these marques as
>> complete rubbish, then you might as well do the same with cars, and say that
>> verything except a racing car is complete rubbish. I suggest that it was
>> more a case of "horses for courses", plus a large dose of snobbery,
>> ignorance and fashion. I say ignorance, because I suspect that many clubmen
>> of the day wouldn't have been able to recognise a well-built machine, but
>> went for what everyone else did, the flashier the better, and the fancier
>> lugs, the better. (And as to the anonymous grey porridge which was churned
>> out using Nervex lugs over a couple of decades, try to identify who built a
>> frame if the transfers and headbadge are missing).
>>
>> The Raleigh Record Ace built just post war until about 1954 is a quality
>> machine, better-built than some machines I've seen from smaller makers which
>> would have been deemed acceptable to clubmen, and this model was good enough
>> for Reg Harrris and the great Ray Booty, although the ordinary clubman might
>> well have been nervous of what his clubmates would say if he turned up on
>> one, and would have taken the path of least resistance.
>>
>> I stand to be corrected, but I don't believe that this level of snobbery
>> regarding different makes of lightweight existed to the same extent before
>> the war; I say "lightweight", because there certainly seemed to be a divide
>> between the clubmen and the utility riders, whom they affected to despise.
>> Again, citing the Raleigh Record Ace and its predecessors, there seems to
>> have been no shame in using one of these well-built machines for club and
>> racing purposes, and top riders of the day, including Jack Rossiter, Sid
>> Ferris, Bert James and Charles Holland used them for successful record
>> attempts.
>>
>> As to flat TTs: I'm reading (for the second time) "A Wheel in Two Worlds"
>> by Ron Kitching, and any notions of all Time Trial courses being flat will
>> be quickly dispelled when you read what some of the Yorkshire courses were
>> like.
>>
>> Neil Foddering
>> Weymouth, Dorset, England
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 14:40:41 +0000
>>> From: barriemgracer@yahoo.co.uk
>>> To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>>> Subject: [CR] TTs and Dawes.
>>>
>>> who told you all this rubbish about Flat Time Trials? The mere meaning of
>>> the words TIMED TRIAL, should tell you that it was a TEST over an out and
>>> home equidistant measured distance. I only en
>>> ver saw a flat one. round the reservoirs at Thames Ditton and that had
>>> more corners than a maze. All the time trials I road ,and that was many,
>>> were hilly, but most people rode fixed gear bikes in TTs and it wasnt until
>>> the late 50s that guys started to use gears. The fixie craze now on was the
>>> norm in the pre and post years.
>>> As for front changers, you dont seem to understand that these great lumps
>>> of iron you call lightweight, Dawes, Phillips, Raleigh, etc were complete
>>> rubbish and no club member would be seen dead on them. They never had front
>>> changers because most of them had 3 gears not 5 with great chunks of steel
>>> williams, phillips or Raliegh chainsets. If you wanted front changers, you
>>> were a club rider and had a lightweight that was hand made. The Dayton was
>>> another piece of junk that people rave about. None4 of these bikes were ever
>>> used by club riders .
>>> Dont also forget that just after the warf, we had a poor economy m most
>>> people had a bike, few had cars, we had petrol rationing too and cars were
>>> not made available to \joe Public until the mid 50s, so you rodce
>>> everywhere. Hence the suedo racer, Dawes, Dayton, NEVER Raleigh, or Hercules
>>> unless you were the local vicar, posty or copper, bikes like the Phillips
>>> Kingfisher, sold for 9 guineas[not your sort!] and was usually bought on
>>> finance. These old horses were sold with 3 gears and front changers were
>>> only fitted to lightweight european steeds.
>>> Dont EVER think that we only raod flat TTs. The UK may not be the Alps,
>>> but little of it is flat, and the organisers of such were sadists.
>>> Sorry for the lesson Barrie Carter Roundham in hilly somerset. UK
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now
>>
>> _______________________________________________