A.S. Gillott owners & appreciation club

Yes badge is going back on, TA chain set going back on, I have loads of chainrings for that, Mafac brakes, GB bars and levers, original saddle.
Wheels are difficult, ideally 27 1/4 but 700c is much more convenient :)

Of course photos will follow :D

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143966918020

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Wheels are difficult, ideally 27 1/4 but 700c is much more convenient :)

I'm well known as a stick in the mud dinosaur, but I don't think 27's are ideal for anything - I should go for the convenience (and speed) of the 700's.

Good luck with the build - I hope you get plenty of enjoyable miles with it.

Re 700s ... I am increasingly on board with this. I think I’ve got one set of 26s in me, but that’s just for the larfs.

Re that 1959 Gillott, at £295 that makes me happy about mine at £300 with bits. I’ve made back £150 selling stuff so far but I guess the replacement top tube pretty much cancels that out. Need to get the Campag hi-lo on Ebay 😢

Hi @Fixedwheelnut.
Im trying to source an axle for my Stronglight 49D cranks, can you tell me the brand of the BB you are using with your cranks please. It may help me, it may not.

BB axle is huge

Here's something that may be of interest here:

20.75" Gillott road frame, no forks, may need other repairs and certainly needs a respray.
Second post to follow after the (rather poor) photo.

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I wanted to make sure the pic would load before I did a lot of typing.

This frame was built for Johnny Pound (JP) who is the seller. Although JP was a leading roadman in the fifties there's surprisingly little about him on the internet. He served an 'apprenticeship' in Belgium in the early fifties, rode the Peace Race in 1955 (British team) and came third in the National Road Championship in 1959, but I know he had a lot of RR victories, probably some on this frame - the net knows nothing of these.

JP is more interesting as a person than his bike frame. You've probably worked out that he's not young - I'm not sure of his exact age, but he can't be far short of ninety, so you're probably assuming that at best he's reduced to an electric bike - not at all! In fact this frame has turned up because he's acquired another Gillot and wanted to use the handlebar stem that was in this one on his next project. Apparently JP did some design work for Gerry Burgess (GB Components) and I believe this stem was a prototype of his design. The stem was jammed and the forks, which were not original and got destroyed in the removal process.

I rode with JP once or twice about six years ago and I can certainly say he was going very well then. On one occasion I felt I was on a good day and tried to ride him off my wheel - when I pulled into the Pub car park confident I was on my own I looked round and there he was, smiling in a way that rather implied he was too polite to outsprint me!

The frame is in Chobham, Surrey and will have to be collected. I think it will have to wait until all the old codgers concerned have had their vaccine booster. I should add this is not really an attempt to make money, more an effort to keep this old frame in use for sentimental reasons.

Before you get too enthusiastic, remember this frame has had a hard life and you will probably need to get new forks made for it.

That story put a smile on my face! If I didn’t have the obligatory “bike for my partner (even though they couldn’t give a ####)” build underway already, it would make a good mate for my Gillott.

Lovely story!

Do you know the frame number? Or when was it made ? It is an interesting Gillott frame

I believe the frame number is 59306, so it's a 1959 frame - probably the one on which he got that third place in the championsip RR.

I’m not sure about that eBay Gillott.

Re 700s ... I am increasingly on board with this

I’m planning building up a set of double fixed Airlites (if I can get the rear hub fixed) with a pair of 40/32 700 MA2s I have - ‘they’ll look just like sprints’
Ahem.

Nest. Somehow I thought it'd be older

The eBay Gillott, what’s the score with the big Gillott lettering on the downtube? About 10 years ago I missed out on a tatty yellow and white one with that lettering, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen another one until now. At the time I assumed it must have been a racing thing to make the name more obvious in a race. Apart from that one, I think I’ve only ever seen the signature style Gillott script.

what’s the score with the big Gillott lettering on the downtube?

According to Mark Stevens the block lettering was introduced in 1955 - there were different versions of it.
Grainy screenshot of one MS was selling (I guess he took an offer the actual listing photos are gone ) a late 50s Ghent model apparently.

The red eBay one: the top eyes look wrong - all the Gillotts I’ve seen have long elegant ones and fork crown seems odd too.

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From memory, it was a yellow frame with white bars on the main tubes. Forward-facing dropouts. I think it had solid black Gillott lettering on the top tube and downtube. If you’re on here I still think about you every day.

Missed Connections

There’s a Curve tube Jack Taylor I missed out on about 15 years ago that I feel that way about.

I think generic/standard colours are the way to go.
I should probably limit myself to RAL rather than Pantone.

Using a Pantone - CMYK conversion is what you’ll need for getting vinyls how you want em, acc to OH. Are you matching with something you have as a reference?

Correction, transfers, and assuming they’re made from a four-colour printing process

assuming they’re made from a four-colour printing process

I’ve asked Steve (the New Nick) at HLloyd’s what printing process they use.
Grapho Darren was filling me in the other night about possible processes but we were both drunk so I’ve retained none of it.
🙄

I think I’ll match to the existing red on my original transfer- it’s a richer blood red than some of the repros I’ve seen, it’s really weathered though so who knows what’s ‘correct’.

Latest version: I discovered after printing onto tracing paper and comparing with the original that the roundel wasn’t round so D stretched it at the bottom and repositioned the lettering (this screen shot shows old positioning as well).
It just needs a bit of clean up and colour now.

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Nest. Somehow I thought it'd be older

Nest? Could you explain?

The eBay Gillott, what’s the score with the big Gillott lettering on the downtube?

Here's my take on block lettering as opposed to signature style transfers.

I'm sure we all know that in the past the cycling authorities were often very strict with amateur rules - Marcel Planes* was effectively banned for life for accepting a few shillings from Hutchinson tyres for a testimonial he gave them. There was a longstanding rule that published photographs of amateurs must not show a legible frame maker's name - hence the desire by makers to show their name by other means, e.g. Bates Diadrent forks. Signature style transfers were acceptable.

This all began to break down from the fifties onwards, although it was a long drawn out process - I seem to remember even into the seventies there were some people who were obliged to tape over trade names on clothing. How does this affect block letter transfers? Well I suppose if you were an aspiring amateur buying a new frame you had a choice between wanting to look as if you were a sufficiently notable amateur to get your picture in Cycling, or cutting straight to the chase and trying to look like a pro from day one.

So the style of lettering may not tell you much about the age of the frame, but more about the attitude of the person who specified it.

• If you don't know about Marcel, google him.
  

Really interesting @clubman I knew about the Amateur ban on advertising and the effect that had on frame design etc but I hadn’t thought about the block lettering being more ‘pro’, nor about the aspirational choices when ordering a frame - or getting it refinished.
I suppose I thought the move to block lettering at Gillotts was a fashion/stylistic decision.

fyi I'm sure I read in the write-up that Ghent model was refinished, so may not even be a good reference point, although if done by the man himself I suspect a decent one :)