Old Bike Two

Peddle Up!

Yet another piece of old iron from the den of spiders, but a bit more interesting than the last one. I bought this one second hand this for my wife about 25 years ago when we were still in the "let's share our hobbies and interests together phase". :roll:

Anyway, as you can see this is a "ladies cycle" of the old school. It has a label to the effect that it was hand-build by Solec Cycles in Huntingdon (now defunct as far as I can establish) and has the curious features of a derailleur change mounted on the stem and drilled out brake levers.

Any comments, views on its background and potential would be appreciated.

balthazar

Fabulous colour, especially with the gold lettering, and I rather like the unusual mixte curve. It looks like a cheaply made frame to me, though: it's not easy to see without detailed pictures, but the dropouts and seatpost clamp look characteristic of mass-produced bikes.

Regarding your second picture, I think I might start a Flickr pool of "focused pictures of people's back garden walls with blurry bikes in the foreground"! I can't remeber who made those levers- Simplex?- but they were fairly common.

I don't think you have a valuable or high quality bike here, but it's nice looking and interesting enough to keep in use. All the usual issues will apply to modernising it: 27" wheels, brake drop etc, but those are quite solvable.

I hope somebody proves me wrong and instead identifies it as rare and prized!

Peddle Up!

balthazar wrote:

Regarding your second picture, I think I might start a Flickr pool of "focused pictures of people's back garden walls with blurry bikes in the foreground"!

That'll teach me to try and get away with a mobile phone camera instead of getting out the proper kit.

ShutUpLegs

Potentially it wont be moving anywhere as the chain has come off :P

marcusjb

I love that curve - very nice.

I agree with previous posters that I don't think it's anything particularly special I am afraid. But it does look nice and, for someone with the time and money to tidy it up, it would make a lovely ladies bike with a really unique look about it. But it looks like it would need quite a bit of effort to get it looking/running really good again.

Pretty bike.

Peddle Up!

Edited to include a few more detailed photos.