The Golden Age

Cycling from the 30s to the 50s. Possibly the Golden Age of British Cycling?
Lots of ladies cyclists, and vegetarian race winners.

All images taken from website of T.J.Cycles, which linked to:
http://classiclightweights.co.uk/gallery.html [edited later]

A shame that these parts in this description, no longer are made:
[B]*[B]Ken is riding an S J Braham with KP rims on Baylis Wiley hubs, Chater cranks, GB brakes,*[/B][/B]

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More images taken from the T.J. Cycles site.

Note how the Brooks hasn't changed at all (except for titanium rails that is). Also, that extra-curvy seat stays or chainstays, or backward curved forks are hardly ever seen now.

This is classic though - (sic) Cycle racing up the A1(?) and overtaking a lorry!

Those magificent men, on their cycling machines, they go up-de-up-up..........

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Nice!

The fourth picture of the first post is good - the chain and seat stays are lovely.

Caption for the sixth one:

This image shows Dave Keeler of the Vegetarian C & AC riding in the 1958 North Road 24-hour time trial event. He is on a Mercian Vincitore equipped with a Paris-Roubaix gear which, although had been used in Italy in the early 50s, was very rare in the time-trialling community in the UK at this time. Dave also used this machine to break the Land's End to John o Groats record in the same year.

Impressive. I wish I was part of a veg team :)

Awesome stuff

The shawl-neck collared jumper with club colours was the must-have item in the 50s

[I][/I]
I bet Rapha will be knocking those out in no time...

eeehhh, picture 4 (1st post) is apparently from the Wembley Cycle Track. I'd never heard of that till now. Looks properly steep too.

Yeah, it does look steep. I never knew there was one in Wembley, either.

What happened to the link to the original web site...? Seems to have gone.

amazing & nice find. I assume you got copyright release to reproduce them here rather than link to their pages?

This is cool

This is cool

That's one of ASM's bikes isn't it ?

an early slingshot type thing?

And with upside-down triathlon style brake levers.

amazing & nice find. I assume you got copyright release to reproduce them here rather than link to their pages?

Who cares... people are just enjoying looking at the images.

has that ^ bike got cables tensioning it? or are they just really thin tubes

They look a bit like rods. As in Brake Rods.

Probably cables though.

cables +1
The connectors are fatter at the ends, and the "downtube" cable splits in 2 at the top. Seat stay also looks to be a cable set up. Toptube looks more like a rod though. Clever engineering.

Looks very inefficient, lot of wasted energy there I bet.

Pifko, you're right, but I'm hypothesising that the slackness of angles and cabling, means it was an attempt at designing a bike with some sort of built-in suspension, a la the Pedersen bike? Maybe the loss of rigidity was an engineering feature.

Of course, it could just be a bad engineering design as well, or maybe a prototype, improved on later by Slingshot (as 31t®um said)

I dread to think of slipping off the pedals and taking a cheesecutter wire to my jewels though.

It seems that some of the experimental cycle design and engineering from those days, either continues, or has been re-born, for a new and modern consumership.

The Baines Flying Gate has given way to the new TJ Cycles Flying Gate;
The Paris Cycles Galibier is reborn as the Condor Paris Galibier;
The Pedersen of Denmark is still the Pedersen, but the Dursley-Pedersen is the in-the-UK maker.

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TJ Cycles said they aren't going to make any more Flying Gates. Shame really. Although I'm sure if you offer them enough cash they would.

I'd love to have a Galibier

eeehhh, picture 4 (1st post) is apparently from the Wembley Cycle Track. I'd never heard of that till now. Looks properly steep too.

looks like that kid is riding a Hetchens... as its got a bent up wobberly rear triangle.

The Biomega Boston has a cable as part of the frame that doubles as a lock.

If the cable is cut, the bike is unrideable.

eeehhh, picture 4 (1st post) is apparently from the Wembley Cycle Track. I'd never heard of that till now. Looks properly steep too.

The Wembley six day track certainly spent some time at Earls Court for exhibition stuff, may have been transported to Southampton after that.

http://www.oxfordcityrc.fsnet.co.uk/training/calshot.htm