Gas Pipe Special

[sidevalve]

Does anyone remember the old "gas pipe specials" we used to use as kids ?
[OK anyone under about 40 can move on now]. Heavy steel frames, steel rims, 1 3/8 tyres 3 speed [or 5 if you were lucky, non indexed of course]. Usually been repainted [badly] several times. Yet we went miles on 'em, over ANY ground. roads, cobbles [how many modern racers would cope with cobbled streets ?] towpaths, bridleways anything at all. A bit like the bikes in the 3rd world now really, a bit heavy but tough as hell. Great fun though !
OK OK [put pipe and slippers away] but we had some good rides.

 

[ushills]

Steel rims as well! They hardly stopped.

Think mine had 5 gears, no indexed, downtube shifter.

 

[Accy cyclist]

Yes i had quite a few. I started off with fixed gear ones, then moved onto three speed, then when old enough i got my first ten speed drop handle bar. If you owned one of them around here you were classed as being a bit well off and a target for the local yobbos! All of them were second hand because my dad said that there were good bargains to be picked up, and that we'd only outgrow new ones. We'd spend hours painting them, fitting cow horn handlebars and all sorts of things to make them "look flash"!Most were as heavy as blacksmiths anvils, but they were reliable and the sheer weight must have built up our strength peddling them so they were good for certain things.Like you say, you could hit the cobbles and living in cobbled street Lancashire that was a necessity, so yes we had some great times, and the bikes were never scrapped they were just sold onto the next kid, unlike now when after a few years they're left out for the scrap collectors.

 

[Davidc]

At least non indexed gears were quick and spot on every time without much adjustment!

The nearest I came to one was my original Humber bike. When I first got it aged 7 I used to find it difficult to get up the step into the garage it was so heavy. Single speed, rod brakes, and built like a tank.

 

[Dave7]

My 1st one was old when I got it.......and that was 1955ish. My dad painted it with the only colour he had which was bright yellow. Aged just 8 I couldn't understand why people were laughing.

 

[ACS]

1972 - Single speed, fixed, rod brakes, Wright saddle, hand painted black with hand made mudguards. My dad got it for me from a mate of his who had stored 'the beast' at the back of his boat shed for about '100 years'.

Weighted more than a NHS bedstead and it had a bottom bracket that made some strange sounds when it had been raining, but only when going down hill. Used it to and from work about 5 miles away. A down hill, wind assisted, leg whirrling sprint on the way in. Going home is best described character building.

 

[Globalti]

Mary Chapin Carpenter has it in her song Stones in the Road:

And the stones in the road flew out beneath our bicycle tires
Worlds removed from all those fires as we raced each other home

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Late 1950's a Hurcules single speed with rod brakes, replaced in the early 1960's with a three speed with dynamo lighting and carrier, I can't remember the make, used it too ride 5 miles to school and back all week.
To come more up to date, in the mid 1980's I joined a local touring club and started to ride all day Sunday rides, I had a hand painted ten speed with drop handlebars that weighed a ton, cost me £45, standard 14-24 five speed block on the back, 52/40 on the front, mavic racer centre pull brakes and clips and straps. I would do 100 mile plus all day rides on this on a Sunday and commute all week, about 7 miles a day, on it as well, must have been as strong as an ox.

 

[Peteaud]

!st Real bike was about 1980 ish and was a sun racer with white tape in a metalic copper colour

Cant remember what ever happened to it, love to get one now.

 

[Vapin' Joe]

Does anyone remember the old "gas pipe specials" we used to use as kids ?
[OK anyone under about 40 can move on now]. Heavy steel frames, steel rims, 1 3/8 tyres 3 speed [or 5 if you were lucky, non indexed of course]. Usually been repainted [badly] several times. Yet we went miles on 'em, over ANY ground. roads, cobbles [how many modern racers would cope with cobbled streets ?] towpaths, bridleways anything at all. A bit like the bikes in the 3rd world now really, a bit heavy but tough as hell. Great fun though !
OK OK [put pipe and slippers away] but we had some good rides.

All of them.

Try Paris-Roubaix and countless Belgian races from junior up to professional.

 

[sidevalve]

All of them.

Try Paris-Roubaix and countless Belgian races from junior up to professional.

I presume all the spare wheels carried by the backup crews are decoration then ?

 

[Vapin' Joe]

I presume all the spare wheels carried by the backup crews are decoration then ?

No, they're for when riders puncture. You may find this hard to believe, but the crappy old cheapo tractor tyres fitted to gas pipe specials did puncture too, and I can assure you they punctured far more readily than the ultra light tyres of today.