1930's Bates Grangewood tandem. Reynolds 531 Cantiflex

Beautiful work and a gem of a frame. Might be tempted myself if I hadn't recently bought a 1953 Jack Taylor tandem frame (which I won't be using - but that's another story.... )

Thanks, it is definitely much nicer than my pictures suggest.
Price drop.

Price drop. Bump.

want this so much it hurts.
sold a van recently for about 2.5k less than i bought it for so still under super solvent
gonna try and think of what other bikes I can sell to up the funds. tl:dr
theres still interest

have a bump. Stunning

Incredible.

Thanks everyone.

Lovely job. Makes me think with longing of the USWB Claud Butler tandem I owned briefly many years ago...fixed wheel with 1"-pitch chain, on sprints and tubs...radial-spoked front wheel. Chap who sold it to me said he did Bath Road 50-mile TTs on it. Did not fit well with life in town however.

This beautiful machine is similar to a Selbach tandem I owned about 25 years ago.

The Selbach also had Chater chainsets, Resilion cantilevers and was almost the same colour. It had a cyclo standard three speed which worked well but didn't really have a low enough bottom gear for my purposes - carrying a child whose power to weight ratio wasn't all that impressive.

This machine was unrestored and had clearly seen quite a bit of use,but I got it into near perfect mechanical condition although it would have looked very shabby alongside this Bates.

I used it a fair amount with two of my children. I took my son on a Hounslow club run (Staines to Amersham and back), partly because I wanted him to experience The Broadway Cafe while it was still going. This was a greasy spoon establishment in a very attractive late medieval timber framed building - the cafe proprietor had no idea at all what the building was or that anyone might be interested in it and he had covered some of the internal framing with formica, presumably to make it look more 'with it'. In winter there would be an open coal fire going.

The ride was pretty hard going for me but I felt it would be worth it to give the boy a memorable experience which would be unrepeatable by the time he was a few years older. It all worked - we got there and back, the fire was lovely to sit by after the cold drizzle we'd had on the way - what could possibly go wrong? What went wrong was that he didn't remember anything about - a few years later when I referred to that day he couldn't remember it at all, a complete blank.

More relevant to this column is that when the time came to sell, although the Selbach was often the centre of attention when in use, it proved difficult to find a buyer. I can't remember exactly how long it took but I do remember I was beginning to give up hope. Eventually some one gave me £200 for it (not really so very far off the price here, allowing for inflation and the cost of getting this one into its present condition). The money went on a discounted East German Alto Sax for my daughter.

Finally, I feel obliged to mention that I did have one potentially dangerous problem: I fitted a newly made rear brake cable made up by an old established London bike shop. It broke, suddenly and unexpectedly. It failed on the soldered joint where the single cable from the brake lever splits into two. Luckily no harm was done but I don't feel happy when I think what might have happened.

Hi,
Thanks for sharing, nice story.
I am glad nothing bad happened with the failed brake cable!
I agree that they are difficult to sell as they take space, you need to convince somebody else to join you, and I know I will not get back the amount of money I've put into restoring it to this stage but I've enjoyed the whole process.

Price drop

Help - please someone buy this - I’m passing through Shrewsbury en route to mid-Wales at Easter and the temptation is killing me as it totally matches my Bates road/path in colour/chrome - great price too
Bump.....

Something beautiful to look at indeed, I wish I was a centipede

Fab. Deserves some love.

Price drop.
Bump

ElGato, aren't tandems a wind-up? When made only the most skilled artisans in the shop were usually used. The resulting frames were almost always exquisite quality. And remain so today, some 70 odd years later. And l'd be sure your Grangewood comes in this catagory. So given it's rarity (l believe only 50 cantiflex/diadrant tandems were ever made), you'd expect every collector or enthusiast to come flocking.
But no.
Tandems are a forgotten corner of cycling, and vintage ones a forgotton corner of that. The world of two wheels ignores them. And so, in turn, they just do not command even slightly realistic prices when being sold. If you are buying, it's great, with ridiculous bargains. But not if you're selling.
So l have this absurdly large collection of machines such as yours just for the pleasure of ownership, and occaisional use. But l'm under no delusion that they're going to make me rich. You might get lucky and find someone who will pay what you hope, but from observing the market for many years, the only vintage tandems tbat get into four figures are Hetchins. It's not how it should be, but it is how it is.

Hi, thanks for your input, I couldn't agree more.
It's not how it should be, but it is how it is.

Thats a work of art

Eroica people would be drooling, surely they have a forum, with no aero routed cables etc...

Thanks for all the comments.
No longer for sale here. Listed elsewhere.