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Can't help with the youngs bit and I can't say I have seen anything on the lee high road but I love the story of you and your dad going around france on it. Shame it has been bent:(
R.E bike jumbles. Go to one most of the stuff is older, prices are cheap to fair, plenty of crap and plenty of good stuff. Arrive early.
Nice old stem. put some bars init and try using the extra leverage to get them out with a bit of 2x4 jammed up the top of the fork crown to stop the forks from spinning. There is a thread about stuck stem on here so search for that, loads of tips for you.
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I had a Young's track frame that had previously been owned by Matt Seaton (in fact mentioned in his book)...and rode on it as a courier for a couple of years...it looked like it was already at least twenty years old....I had to change the forks coz the track-specific forks it came with just looked impossibly thin and the previous owner said you could feel them flexing when applying the brake!.....beyond that a lovely ride that served me well until one day the top-tube cracked ans completely split right acrosss near the saddle.....happened whilst riding through Covent Garden Piazza.....obviously didn't like the vibration....has since found the back of a skip....pity really, might've got a few quid for it on here, what with the provenance and all!
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My great uncle (quite a decent roleur on all accounts) had a Youngs tourer. My dad inheirited it, took it back to them and asked if it was worth salvaging. They creamed themselves over it - did pretty extensive work on the seat tube (to free seatpost), beautiful repair job on the jug work and a very good respray. This was about 15 years ago tho. It cost about c.£50 (prob about the same as today given inflation).
I'd say that based on my gt uncle's general enthusiasm for cycling (decent level club rider but not made of money) it'd be a pretty good frame (his was 531 if that's anything to go by).
My story has a sad ending, since when I went to get the bike from my dad's garage, he'd given it away to the jumble some years ago without asking me if I had a use for it :o(
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Cheers wolflore, I'll give both places a call tomorrow. It's be nice if I could get some suitable decals.
I guess you're right about fixing it due to sentimental value. It'd be good to get it shiny and fresh again. I reckon it'd make the old man smile too. Do you reckon Bob would be able to match the style of the stay? I don't want it to be an obvious bodge...
hmmm... Projects... :-)
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Cool to read that people have ridden these frames. Pap says the frame cost him £300 back in the day, which suggests that it was considered a good enough make in its time (what's £300 with inflation added?).
dogsballs if you were to go slowly, using a block of wood, that bend could hammer out. worth a try, can't get worse.
I was tempted by this idea, but I don't know enough about steel to know if it'd be okay or not. I guess my logic is that if i'm going to respray it, I might as well fork out the extra to get it profesionally sorted. I'd also like to get someone to have a check all around - my eye isn't keen enough yet to tell if any other parts are wonky...
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Alot, you are in a months wages type figures for many in the 70's
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ok stop now, put the blow tourch and the hammer, and wood down.
1 when you heat steel not high enough to heat treat it you weaken it.
2 it has allredy been bent past its tinsel strength, and thefore weakened
3 it has been bent like that for a long time and due to steels memory you will have to bend it back way past its tinsel strength again, weakening it further.
take it to some one with the proper tools, removing and replaceing a seat stay is not that labor intensive, though it may be a bit ore difficult on a brazed frame, as i have only done welded ones
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you fool, you rost alluminum, and fry steel.... has iron chef tought you nothing
i bet you forgot to boil your carbon fiber didn't you
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non non non!
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chris crash ok stop now, put the blow tourch and the hammer, and wood down.
1 when you heat steel not high enough to heat treat it you weaken it.
2 it has allredy been bent past its tinsel strength, and thefore weakened
3 it has been bent like that for a long time and due to steels memory you will have to bend it back way past its tinsel strength again, weakening it further.
take it to some one with the proper tools, removing and replaceing a seat stay is not that labor intensive, though it may be a bit ore difficult on a brazed frame, as i have only done welded ones
you took the words right out of my mouth
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When I moved to Lewisham in 1991 the bike shop on lee high road was still called Youngs although I assume the current shop may well have no connection apart from being on same site. I was speaking to barry witcomb the other week and he was saying Youngs did used to build their own frames back in the day. not sure when they stopped though.
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yes heat wrong.
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On a more serious note.
As it was bent slowly and smoothly - somewhat akin to the sort of bend you'd get from a pipe bender - you may well be ok taking her back the other way. Only as long as you get her up to a good temp - we're talking nigh on cherry here!. You need to anneal the metal and then then take it back the other way - then anneal it again. All in all though it would be easier to replace the piece that is bent ;-) -
wolflore On a more serious note.
As it was bent slowly and smoothly - somewhat akin to the sort of bend you'd get from a pipe bender - you may well be ok taking her back the other way. Only as long as you get her up to a good temp - we're talking nigh on cherry here!. You need to anneal the metal and then then take it back the other way - then anneal it again. All in all though it would be easier to replace the piece that is bent ;-)chris crash ok stop now, put the blow tourch and the hammer, and wood down.
1 when you heat steel not high enough to heat treat it you weaken it.
2 it has allredy been bent past its tinsel strength, and thefore weakened
3 it has been bent like that for a long time and due to steels memory you will have to bend it back way past its tinsel strength again, weakening it further.
take it to some one with the proper tools, removing and replaceing a seat stay is not that labor intensive, though it may be a bit ore difficult on a brazed frame, as i have only done welded ones
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Anyone Heard of Youngs?
Posted by
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 :-) )