Is it worthwhile repairing old components?

One of the fundamental problems in restoring old bikes is trying to source the period correct components to go on your frame. As the years slip by with ever increasing speed, the availability of the components you seek, seems to diminish. Occasionally, you may find the part you are looking for may turn up, but damaged. I have a frame belonging to a clubmate, that I know from over forty years ago. It lay rusting in the clubroom, having been used as a complete bike for riding rollers. Sweat had taken it’s toll on the paintwork, the frame had been stripped of all of it’s original components, but I had the frame refinished in original colour with original pattern transfers/decals reinstated. The restoration became moribund, because of the difficulty in trying to source period correct parts. It is my intention to build the bike up with parts sold by the late Ron Kitchin. The original owner was a big user of parts from ‘Everything Cycling’.

I had a large flange Normandy front hub from the 1950s/1960s, with the round holes in flanges, but I only had a damaged suitable rear hub. The flange was bent inwards from having the chain derail off the largest sprocket and wedging between the freewheel block and the flange. The flange was also heavily pitted from the incident. I have searched in vain for more than five years to find a better example without success. The one thing in favour of the damaged example, was the bearing cups in the hub are perfect. I asked a friend back in 2019 if he could repair the hub. The reply came back in the affirmative.

Now in fairness, it has taken a while, but my friend had just moved house and has been fully occupied renovating the property, back into a home for him and his family, in addition to all the other work, he has had on his plate. A recent visit, resulted in him showing me the tooling he had made to repair the hub. My friend explained that he had mulled over the problem of repair, analysing how best to tackle the repair, resulting in the best chance of success. Any way, I called with him a few weeks later and was presented with the repaired hub. The damaged right hand flange has been straightened, and the damage aluminium has been welded and ground back. Although some evidence of the repair is visible, it will not be visible, once the hub has been built into a wheel and a freewheel block fitted. Importantly the repair will not be visible from the usual viewing position at the back of the flange. One caveat. I don’t know how durable this repair would be for everyday, frequent use. However, for use on a vintage bike, probably doing no more than thirty miles on a vintage run, it should be more than adequate. The satisfaction is that this had made a damaged part useable once more, as well as a problem overcome in the journey to putting an old frame back on the road.

1992 Trevor Jarvis Flying Gate

 

 

The history of the Flying Gate frame goes back to the Baines Brothers from Yorkshire in the 1930s. They came up with a frame design which shortened the bicycle wheelbase, but did not have the more usual problem of toe overlap on the pedals/cranks. This was because the more accepted practice to shorten the wheelbase, was to shorten the fork rake and steepen the frame head angle which did indeed shorten the bicycle wheelbase, but created toe overlap. Why do I say more usual practice? Well track bikes for racing on a banked track were built this way, where large steering movements were unlikely to happen and be affected by toe overlap. By steepening the frame head angle, also made the bike much more responsive. Fine on a relatively smooth cycle track, but not great on unmetalled or rough road surfaces. 

 

 

Another advantage of the Baines Brothers unique frame design was that the National Cyclists’ Union, which regulated cycle racing in the UK in the 1930s had a very strict amateur policy. No advertising, no sponsorship, and riding grass track events, which were largely part of local community events and therefore unregulated by the NCU, offered prizes of goods or cash, which if the NCU found out would have the rider declared a ‘Professional’, i.e. riding for financial reward and lose their amateur status. The majority of riders rode these events under false names, as the events were reported on in the press. This ban on advertising even extended to coverage in the cycling press. H H England who was the editor of the ‘Cycling’ magazine at the time, was an ardent supporter of this policy, so even photographs published of riders competing in events, did not easily show the make of bicycle they were riding. 

 

 

By developing a unique frame design, the ban was circumvented, because everyone could easily see what the machine was. It also stimulated demand for these machines from other cyclists who wanted to ride what the top time triallists of the day were riding. The British Best All Rounder competition was started by ‘Cycling’ in the early 1930s, in which riders had to try and get the fastest times in open time trials over various distances. ‘Cycling’ magazine got competition from a new publication in the late 1930s, ‘The Bicycle’, which also featured coverage of continental road racing, massed start road racing being very much frowned upon by H H England and the NCU. This difference of opinion was ultimately to lead to the formation of the ‘break away’ BLRC and mass start road races promoted by Percy Stallard, a situation not resolved until the two organizations merged to form the British Cycling Federation, now British Cycling.

 

 

The Baines Brothers eventually went out of business and Flying Gate frames stopped being made. In 1979, engineer, Trevor Jarvis bought the rights to manufacture Flying Gate frames from Baines Brothers and started to build the Flying Gate frames again. Trevor initially built the frames in Burton on Trent, but later moved to Tenbury Wells. Each frame Trevor built is unique, as the frame lugs are all hand cut, each set differing slightly. Trevor trained others, Firstly Jeremy Cartwright and then Liz Colebrook, with a view to have them take the business forward, but due to circumstances beyond his control, his plans to retire were frustrated. I understand that position is now changing. I know that Trevor regarded Liz Colebrook very highly and she built some very nice Flying Gate frames. Liz built a pair of forks for me for another bike and she is a very good framebuilder and skilled artisan.

 

 

The Flying Gate in the Springhill Cycle Collection was purchased from the estate of the original owner over 15 years ago. It was returned to Trevor for some minor work and re-enamelled. The parts fitted are largely what came on the bike, but the handlebars, stem and saddle were changed from the 1950s components to more contemporary components to the age of the frame. The original wheels had Argentinian Savedra hubs (Campagnolo copies) laced into Wolber Model 58 rims. The rear axle is bent and there is a lot of wear to the cones. As the thread is unique, (a bit like Zeus), standard Campagnolo cones will not fit and are not deep enough if they did fit. I will have to get new cones made and use a 10mm x 1 metric cro-mo rear axle to cut the costs down. It is my intention to eventually refit the original wheels to the bike, once the problem is sorted. The current wheels were built by me, using 1990s threaded hubs, stainless steel spokes and Chrina rims. It is a lovely bike to ride and a fantastic addition to the collection.

 

 

Original parts

Shimano 105 headset

Shimano 105 rear derailleur

Shimano 105 front derailleur with fixing bracket

Shimano 105 brake callipers

Shimano ‘Golden Arrow’ downtube levers

Stronglight 100LX chainset 48/34T

Sachs-Maillard 7 spd block 12 – 28T (12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 28T)

Sachs chain

SR pedals/red resin toeclips

Black/Orange mudguards

Gearing in inches

	34	38	48
12	74.9	83.9	105.8
14	64.3	71.7	90.7
16	56.4	62.9	79.4
18	50	55.8	70.6
20	45	50.3	63.5
23	39.2	43.6	55.3
28	30	35.9	45.2