Ron Cooper Track

Ron Cooper Track 1979

1 Attachment

I'm saying ride it. Actually I can see why your torn here.

Beautiful bicycle there, definately ride it at HHV, then hang it up when you're not using it!

F***ing lovely bike mate.

Btw Snakefist, if you haven't heard it already, Ron Cooper was interviewed by Jack Thurston on his Resonance fm Bike Show, broadcast Oct 2011 I do believe. It's marvellous! You can download if from the bike show website.

Thanks

Ron Cooper Interview - Bike Show: http://thebikeshow.net/ron-cooper-on-ron-cooper/

Lovely bike.

Cannot wait to finally see this at the track!

good job! looks like it has gone to a home that will appreciate and look after it......though it does need to be ridden every once in a while.

Beautiful

Fantastic! Not every day you see a track Ron. In fact the last one I can remember seeing at HH was my brother's, nearly thirty years ago. (Seen here at the back in a madison change with a Roberts that still gets down there occasionally. Excuse the scan quality!)

Looking forward to seeing this down the track soon. If it's a nice day I might ride my Ron roadie down there.

The late Ron Cooper.

^^ that is a fantastic photo

Lovely machine.....I love the history attached too.

Any bike that I acquire, whether its a keeper or not, I try to glean as much info about it ( and the rider/owner) that I can.....ride it and love it!

wow thats really interesting!

That's a great shot PhilPub.

Stunning bike, i'd love something as nice as that. I love these photo's too very interesting. :)

Another of yours I presume? Do you know what happened to the bike?

Yeah, that's my bruv. I'll have to ask him what happened to the bike and get back to you. My best guess is that it was "on loan" from Velo Club de Londres (our club at the time that was running Saturday morning sessions at HH just as they are now) so he probably stopped using it when he went off to uni. We've still got a couple of old RC road bikes between us, mine dating back to '87 but his a fair bit older I think.

Nice. When I picked this up, Colin had another road bike in the shed. I would have bought it but had no extra cash. It was frame number 702 but had been resprayed at a later date.

Any pics of your bike?

frame number 702

Any pics of your bike?

Small world - one of my *other *brothers had his eye on that ebay listing. I remember distinctly because he asked me whether the frame number seemed genuine (which it obviously is!)

I posted my Ron in current projects a while back because I did it up last year as a 25th anniversary present to myself. This is what it looked like in the late '80s, in its glorious '80s two-tone spray job:

Here I am meeting Ron himself early last year - for the first time in over twenty years - when I took it in to Colour Tech for the respray. I'm glad I got to meet him again, lovely bloke.

And here it is now. It's got a SRAM Force groupset, and wheels hand built by Harry Rowland, somewhat apt as Harry used to work in Ron's shop in Honor Oak. (Plus original Cinelli bars and Dura Ace seat post.) It only comes out now when the sun shines!

a lot of beautiful bikes in this thread.

Now that's a lovely bike mate.

Thanks!

I was right about the track bike above being from VCL. Most people were on the standard hire bikes, which were way more bulky than the Fujis they have now, especially the wheels (we used to call them the Herne Hill tanks), but I think this was one of the nicer bikes that the club would lend out to better riders for track champs and "Monday comp" (track league). Quote from big bruv: "It was fun to ride but took a little getting used to. It had been crashed so many times by previous riders that the top tube was slightly bent, and at high speed the rear end had a tendency to kick out a bit as you went around the banking." :-)

No idea where it is now!

This is a golden thread. History, great photos and beautiful bikes.