Regarding Tory Werne's enquiry regarding Gen Gear....
The phrase came from an old army saying of Pukka Gen....meaning the "real McCoy"....sometimes it was shortened to Pukka gear and sometimes Gen gear, for instance, I had a pair of Pukka South of France handlebars and also a Gen Brooks saddle...Cycling folks used all kinds of Army slang ( thinking it was very cool),,,and somethings would be Buckshee or free at the end of a race...my old brain can't recall much more...but being a BLRC guy, I always rode Gnutti Cranks, a Pivo stem with the South of France bars ( these were in fact made in England by Strata ) ...for some time I had an Osgear but later switched to Cyclo when they became available...It was almost a lottery when the local bike-shop got some chains in ( Renolds Elite ) and a mini queue would form on a Saturday morning to try and snag a new chain.
As already stated, almost everyone rode a mixture of English and Continental,,,whether League or Union,,,and the animosity was really friendly banter, we were the ones who had our racing caps back to front and wore sunglasses ( A la Coppi ) even in the dismal English weather.
Colin Laing Arizona U S A.