Junk shop find

[ren531]

Found this at the local house clearance /second hand shop for £10 very light 11.4 kilo ,fancy cut out lugs ,nurvex bottom bracket casting ,Brooks professional saddle , flip/flop fixed wheel ,very thin pencil stays ,bluemells mudguards but no readable frame no just a jumble of numbers stamped across each other been resprayed and no head badge or transfers of any kind , been going to this place for decades with my elderly mother and never seen anything other than the odd cheap rubbish bike parts, so this is interesting indeed .

 

[midlife]

Classy frame way before my time with the grease nipples and QR seat stay braze ons. Look like Chater Lea dropouts? The way the rear brake bridge wraps around the frame really rings a bell but can't put my finger on it.

 

[biggs682]

@ren531 nice find and like @midlife says that wrap around brake bridge is unusual for sure
So big question is what are you going to do with it ?

 

[midlife]

Looks like even the pedals are top notch...

http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/components/lyotard.html

 

[midlife]

Mind keeps coming back to a Hill Special ........ Not sure why

 

[Cycleops]

Interesting bike, certainly be worth fixing up.

I remember saving up for a pair of Lyotard platforms when I was a teenager.

 

[midlife]

Brake bridge at the bottom of the page


http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/hillspecial.html

 

[midlife]

1951 Road Path

http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/bikes/hillspecial-edwards-rb.html

 

[ren531]

Having studied the photos my bike seems identical to the Road Path ,it also has 2 grease nipples on the BB shell also under the re paint job it has what I thought was maybe a galvanized layer or even had the look of aluminium tried a magnet on it and it is steel , perhaps more likely it would be chrome , the head set looks the same too the top cup has no nut flats and would be adjusted by hand ,the rear drop outs do appear to be Chater Lea same as the photos in the link . It would be fantastic to put a name to it your information has be amazing ,before having a close look I was going to use it for parts but not any more its a definite keeper I will add it to my list of bikes to restore .

 

[midlife]

Nice one keeping it yep, as far as I can see it's a Hill Special. I worked in a bike shop in the 70's and remember some of the details, the rear brake bridge is the killer ID for me as I can't remember any other builder that used the design, plus everything else matches, even down to the pencil stays and modified Legere lugs.

Headset might be a Brompton?

I can see some red paint on the front brake so likely a rattle can respray. Just need to remove some to look for some decals. Very fine wet and dry or acetone might give a clue used on the areas where decals would have been. Even in that condition its worth a few hundred quid...

I wonder if the chainset is original? Looks like a Williams which should have a date stamp.

Can you feel the twinge of jealousy from Cumbria lol

 

[midlife]

Nope, it's a red anodised brake caliper and not overspray lol. Brake levers look like GB Super hood with those wheel adjusters.

 

[Drago]

Get that frame chromed!

 

[stalagmike]

Awesome find for a tenner!

 

[raleighnut]

Very nice

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Awesome find for a tenner!

I agree, that's the sort of secondhand bargain I like!

Given that the weight is fairly light, is there likely to be any 531 in the frame? I can't see a small-volume builder making fairly expensive machines out of hi-tensile, it wouldn't be such a strong selling point as the customers for these would not be utility riders/commuters.