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@.ptn.
Hi. First post. Nice to meet you etc.
So, yeah. Has anyone heard of 'Youngs of Lewisham'?
I ask because...
I have a bike i inherited from my dad. He bought it hand-made from Youngs back in his youth (in the 70s i think) and has had it since then. He used to ride it fixed around london, has ridden around France on it, took me around Normandy on the back of it as a toddler, etc.
He upgraded to a Terry Dolan with abnormally high handlebars and stuff (old back) a few years ago and it's not done much in the garage. He decided he could bear to part with it about a year ago and I inherited it:
I like it. It's quite pretty, seems to be well built and has a lot of sentimental value.
Problem is, my cousin borrowed it for a summer a while back and my uncle managed to back his car into a wall with the bike racked onto the back of it. The seat stay got bent awkward:
Dad asked in the LBS about getting it rebent, but was advised this would just weaken the steel. So it stayed like that. I rode it for a while like that and it seemed fine, though it the rear wheel wasn't great-straight and it didn't feel brilliantly ballanced...
The plan was that I'd slowly accumulate the parts (and money) to get another bike while I got the Youngs fixed and looking shinysmart again (it's not been resprayed since before I was born - I'm 24). This idea went pretty slow due to my crappy debt and low income. This came to a head when some fcker decided to to pull a Uey in the road without indicating. No bad crash, but the quill ended up bent and, as it's glued itself in, I couldn't fix it.
So I bought a couple of parts when I could afford (whilst getting thoroughly pssd off with public transport) and I've finally got a working bike to keep me on the road, the mighty SUN GT. Behold!
It's ugg and crap, but it's better than buses. I'm enjoying SSing it at the moment and am working up to going fixed (I've been off the bike for over 2 months from the accident and saving up). My plan is to accumulate nicer parts (starting with the frame: £5 ebay gas piping doesn't ride well) and get a reasonable ride working.
But I don't know what to do with the Youngs frame. As I said, it holds a lot of sentimental value, so it would be nice to get it on the road again, but looking at Bob's website (BJ are the closest framebuilders to me - I'm in MCR), it's gonna cost at least £110 to do. I'd also need to get the quill melted out and I'd want to get the frame integrity checked, I dunno if they charge exta for that...
So I'm not sure if it's worth it to get the frame back to its former glory. I'm not really sure how to tell if it's a good quality frame that's worth the extra money and effort to restore, or whether it's just a well-loved lump of metal (the owner of the Sun GT loved it to bits, had taken the kids around France on it etc. Doesn't mean it's not crap...)
Which is why I ask if any of you know or have heard of Youngs. The badge says they were based in Lewisham, but I can't find any mention of them on the interwebs. Here's their badge:
Does anyone live near/in Lewisham? Cycle past there? Remember the name? If not, how would you go about figuring whether or not it's worth getting back on the road?
Also, there's a bike jumble being held at MCR velodrome in March (Info here) and I was thinkign I'd head down to try to pick up some nice stuff. I've never been to a bike jumble before and just wanted to check there'll be a good range of differently-priced stuff. There's no point in poor-student-me heading down if it's all high-end gear...
What you think?
(Sorry for the essay of a first post! Glad to be on the boards :-) )