vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
This morning, by email, I received a picture of my new bike's frame being assembled in a jig at Woodrup Cycles from Tony Woodrup.
This evening I called in to see if I could sneak a peek and Tony obliged. I was led upstairs to the build room and saw an object of beauty being created by Kevin Sayles, their frame builder.
Kevin's added some neat touches to the frame and forks. The forks have had cable guides added to keep the dynamo to headlight wiring neat. A false lug with a neatly fretted 'V' and four leaf clover has been incorporated into the seat tube which was a lovely surprise.
The next steps in the construction is to have the rear triangle brazed on and the rear drop outs attached.
As always, the conversation with Kevin and Tony is bike centric and I saw an earlier Woodrup frame from their Bantel team frame building days. The frame came from a bike ridden by Sid Barras and was in for refurbishment.
Seeing bike frames taking shape is wonderful. I know they are just bits of metal but there is something special in seeing what a master craftsman can do to incorporate desirability into fillet brazed steel alloy tubes.
It's the perfect motivator to lose weight as its bottom gear is a bit taller than any of my current bikes.
Woo hoo!
This evening I called in to see if I could sneak a peek and Tony obliged. I was led upstairs to the build room and saw an object of beauty being created by Kevin Sayles, their frame builder.
Kevin's added some neat touches to the frame and forks. The forks have had cable guides added to keep the dynamo to headlight wiring neat. A false lug with a neatly fretted 'V' and four leaf clover has been incorporated into the seat tube which was a lovely surprise.
The next steps in the construction is to have the rear triangle brazed on and the rear drop outs attached.
As always, the conversation with Kevin and Tony is bike centric and I saw an earlier Woodrup frame from their Bantel team frame building days. The frame came from a bike ridden by Sid Barras and was in for refurbishment.
Seeing bike frames taking shape is wonderful. I know they are just bits of metal but there is something special in seeing what a master craftsman can do to incorporate desirability into fillet brazed steel alloy tubes.
It's the perfect motivator to lose weight as its bottom gear is a bit taller than any of my current bikes.
Woo hoo!
Or are you stickig to the Desperate Dan Cowpie approach?
