A restored 1977 English built frame

 
I recently received a email with pictures from Rod Taylor, who lives in England. Rod is the original owner of a frame I built for him in 1977. In his message he wrote:

“Out of all my bikes, road, track, audax, touring, roadster, cyclo-cross, hybrid, mountain, my 1960 Dave Davey and 1977 Dave Moulton stand out as my favorites.

Last year I gave the frames to Dave Yates for renovation, the Dave Davey as a track bike was simpler to restore, but I took the decision to equip the Dave Moulton with the newer Campag gear.

The rear ends were increased to 130mm and new gear brazings fitted. Although I was using the latest components to rebuild it, I didn't choose carbon parts as I believed Campagnolo Mirage alloy would be more in keeping.

The finishing touches were added by employing a company in Cambridge to copy the transfers / decals, and the original orange Unica saddle has been retained. I am extremely pleased with the results of both machines, I love steel frames”

Thirty-one years old, in dog years that would be 217. I’m not sure what the ratio is for old bicycle frames. Maybe 2-1, sixty-two would be a reasonable guess.

I whole-heartedly approve of Rod’s decision to build this bike up with modern equipment and keep riding it. Rather than keep it as a museum piece.

The interesting thing I notice is that the bike does not look odd, with the old frame and modern components. I have seen several Fuso bikes re-built this way.

I think the reason is, by the mid 1970s I had established my own frame design, which at the time was out of sync with what other builders were doing.

However, I stuck with what I believed in, and this would become the standard design I would use on my American built frames of the 1980s. (John Howard, Fuso, and Recherché.)


An interesting footnote. Rod still has the original brochure from 1977 when he ordered the frame, he sent me a photocopy.

Click on the picture to view a larger image. Look at item 2: Shot-in seatstays. This is what is referred to in the US as “Fast Back” seatstays. Of course, they are no faster; it is just another way to attach seatstays.

The Dave Davy track frame (Mentioned above.) that Rod had restored along with the ‘dave moulton,’ can be viewed here. Scroll down the page to see pictures of this frame in white, along with photos of Rod Taylor riding the same bike in 1966 time-trials.

This is on the Classic Lightweights UK site; an interesting source for pictures and info on vintage British lightweights.

Tagged once more

I’ve been tagged again, this time by Ron over at Cozy Beehive. The idea is to write six random, unknown things about me. Then tag six other people to do the same.

Here is my six:

1.) As a child during the 1940s I lived in a house in England with no electricity and no water piped into the house. Water was brought in by bucket from a communal well outside. Lighting was by oil lamp and candles. My mother cooked with a coal fired range and baked wonderful pies and cakes. She did so without a thermometer on the oven.

She ironed with a flat iron also heated on the stovetop. She would spit on the iron to test the temperature; the spit would boil and run off immediately if it was hot enough. She had a pair of flat irons; one would be heating while she ironed with the other for a minute or so before it cooled.

2.) As an eighteen year old in the mid 1950s, an older drunk man, probably in his forties, picked a fight with me. I hit him and he fell backward through the plate glass window of a television shop. It was the early hours of Sunday morning and the noise was deafening. The last I saw of the drunk, he was lying on his back amongst the TV sets, with his legs in the air.

I took off running, and was chased by two American Military Police, in a Jeep. They pulled along side me, and when they saw I was not an American Serviceman, they stopped and gave up the chase. I made it home without further incident. Later the local newspaper told the story of a broken store window mystery, and that nothing was stolen. There was no mention of the drunk guy; I guess he was not seriously hurt, and had left the scene.

There was a large American Air Force Base, near where I lived and the Military Police would patrol the streets, but had no jurisdiction over the civilian populous. We called them "Snow Drops" because they wore white helmets, reminding us of a British wild flower that has white bell shaped petals and is called a Snow Drop.

3.) When I built frames in Worcester, England, in the 1970s; I shared the business premises with a car body repair man named Roger Brown. Roger had lost an arm (Above the elbow.) as a child after falling from a tree.

He would replace his prosthetic arm with a hook when he worked and there was not much that he couldn't do while working on cars, in spite of his handicap. However, he couldn't do some simple tasks, and would come to me, to roll up his shirt sleeve on his good arm, or to tie his shoe lace. We take for granted the simple every-day tasks that require two hands.

4.) In 1980 while working for Paris Sport in New Jersey I had a job interview with Trek; they flew me out to their factory in Wisconsin. I didn't get the job, which turned out okay because later that same year I landed a job with Masi, in Southern California. I have nothing against Wisconsin, but I dislike very cold winters, and later when I started my own business, one of the reasons it was successful was because of my location in So. Cal.

5.) In the late 1980s I was approached by Fila, the sports clothing company. They where interested in a line of bicycles with the Fila name on them. Two people from the company came to my shop to look at my operation, and we talked about my building these frames. They must have dropped the idea, I never heard back, and I don't recall anyone else making a Fila bike.

6.) When I left the bike business in 1993 I took a job with a company that made bowling equipment. I designed metal furniture for bowling centers, also ball racks, and a ball return machine. I oversaw the manufacture of these and other equipment.

There’s my six. It was extremely tough for me to come up with six stories that I had not previously written about. I was first tagged in December of 2006 and then again just a year ago in July of 2007. In addition, I have written about many of my life’s experiences elsewhere in this blog. Still others became part of my novel Prodigal Child.

If I am tagged again I may have no choice but to decline, as much as I would hate to do that. I am simply running out of stories. I am going to tag six people who have been kind enough to link to my blog and are listed on the side bar here.

Biking Brit
Cycling Addict
Dano
Movit Fred
Something Maybe
Ultra Rob

An old friend comes home

In 1982, soon after I started building my own custom frames, I built a 58cm. frame that was somewhat of a showpiece. It was dark blue with lots of chrome.

I am pretty sure this was the frame I posed with in the Masi shop, and was used in one of my early ads. (Left.)

The frame was eventually sold to Bud’s Bike Store, in Claremont, California, and built up as a display model. This bike brought in many other orders, including this one built in 1983.

Then around 1984 this display model was sold, and bought by Lorin Youde. In his own words he told me, “I rode the heck out of it, then for some unknown reason, sold it in 1994.” He added, “Even my wife told me not to sell it, and it was not long after I realized I had made a big mistake.”

Lorin tried to fill the void with other bikes I had also built; he bought this John Howard two years ago.

Then he bought this Recherché in near new condition; it was the one I featured in this post.

Last year Lorin decided to track down the bike he sold. The person he sold it to had resold it, and the bike was in now Spokane, Washington. The new owner had just had knee surgery and so was willing to sell.

A price was negotiated, and the bike returned to it’s original owner at the end of last year. Lorin just sent me pictures. In an email he told me, “I replaced the 8 speed Dura Ace components with period correct Super Record and while not quite in pristine a condition as Chuck Schmidts' it still looks pretty good and is a pleasure to ride.”






Actually, I think the original paint looks pretty darn good for a bike that has “Had the heck ridden out of it.” There are more pictures here.

Like finding an old Corvette in a barn

The smiling face you see above is Tom Cook of Chandler, Arizona. Tom has good reason to smile; a friend of his, knowing he was an avid cyclist, gave him his old bike that had been sitting in this original owners garage for many years.

When Tom emailed me last week, he said, “I feel like I have discovered an old Corvette in a barn.” The bike, covered in dust and minus wheels, was otherwise complete with the old Campagnolo equipment that was on it when the original owner bought it as a teenager in 1981.


The frame number (N814) recorded the date it was built; November 1981, the last digit showed it was the 4th frame built that month.

At that time I was still working full time for Masi in their San Marcos, California shop, so to build four of my own custom frames in one month, in my spare time, shows I was putting in some long days back then.

The DB57 is the frame size (Center to Top.) The DB was an identification mark I used on 1981 and 1982 frames. DB came from Dave and Brenda. (My ex wife.)

This particular frame and its components seem unaffected by the years of neglect, and actually cleaned up nicely to reveal the original paint.

The oval panels were an idea I had used in England in the late 1970s. See the picture of me on the left, holding my personal bike with similar painted on panels. This picture was taken late in 1978 a few weeks before I moved to the US in January 1979.

When I started building my own frames again in 1981 I used the same decals I brought with me from England, even using the logo with the words “Worcester, England.”

I did this partly for economic reasons; I couldn’t afford to re-design my decals. Also I was proud of my heritage and where I had come from.

I had a small extra decal made that stated, “Frame guaranteed handcrafted by Dave Moulton in California USA.” This was to avoid any confusion as to where the frames were built.

The oval panels were a big hit in England, not so much in America. In the UK customers wanted my name prominently displayed; in the US, I was an unknown and it seemed customers preferred to have the name understated.

Only a few frames were painted in this fashion in the US; I am guessing two or three. By 1982 when I started building my own frames full time I had dropped the oval panel idea.

This particular frame has only one set of water bottle mounts on the down tube. It is a “Criterium” frame designed to be raced in short events.

I remember it drove me nuts when I started working for Masi and the frame had two water bottle mounts and a pump peg behind the head tube.

To me the Masi was a classic frame, one which I was every bit as proud of as my own frames. To carry a pump under the top tube was, in my opinion, downright “Hokey” for want of a better word. It spoiled the look and the lines of the whole bike. Plus it got in the way when shifting gears.

I built frames with water bottle mounts on the seat tube in England, but riders would only use two bottles when racing and they were not carrying a pump. The rest of the time the pump was carried in front of the seat tube.

So on these early frames I refused to add a pump peg. I soon capitulated, realizing I was not selling frames in England any more. I had to adapt to my customer, not the other way around. In addition, I began to see that in the hot California and Arizona climate, people really needed two water bottles.

These strange little quirks of the framebuilder back then, made these frames different.

Now it serves to remind me what an ornery, stubborn bastard I was at that time, and it was a wonder I didn’t drive away more potential customers than I sometimes did.

Apart from that, it does my heart good when one of these old examples show up like this, bringing back so many bitter, sweet, sweet memories.

1970s Time-Trial Bike

Fag paper clearances. (British slang for cigarette paper.) Meaning the rear wheel was so close to the seat tube that you could barely get a cigarette paper between the tire and the frame tube. See the picture above.

This was an extreme fashion fad in the UK during the mid 1970s especially on time trial bikes. It served no useful purpose except to make the chainstays shorter thereby saving a little weight, and making the rear triangle a little stiffer. The frames were usually built using vertical rear dropouts to achieve the close clearance.

When fads like this become fashion a framebuilder can do little but follow the latest trend, or loose business; I was no different. However, I did not follow the extremes of some framebuilders who built these frames with clearances so close you had to deflate the rear tire to get the wheel in and out. This bordered on the ridiculous.

Some built frames with extremely steep head angles so the front wheel barely cleared the down tube. This was a part of the trend I refused to follow, as it made for some very “squirrelly” bikes. The last thing a rider needs is a squirrelly time trial bike; a TT bike needs to hold a straight line.

I remember one frame (not one of mine.) brought to me for repair. The down tube and top tube were bent. My first question was, “What did you hit?” The owner replied, “Nothing, I slowed to take a corner, and the frame collapsed under me.”

When I inspected the frame the first thing I noticed was a black rubber tire mark under the down tube right where the tube folded. It became clear to me what had happened. The front wheel was so close to the down tube that when the rider applied the front brake there was enough flex that the front wheel touched the down tube.

Maybe his headset was a little loose, whatever the cause, once the front wheel touched it would have stopped the bike very quickly and the forward momentum folded the frame. I replaced the top and down tubes, making sure to make the head angle a little shallower, making for a little more front wheel clearance.

The bike pictured at the top was one I built for John Patston, an international class rider who represented Great Britain on their national team. In the above picture, John Patston is leading, followed by Paul Carbutt, and Pete Hall. (All on ‘dave moulton’ frames.)

The forth rider Grant Thomas is obscured behind Patston. This was the British Team riding in the 1975 World Championship 100 km. Team Time Trial event.

John Patston was primarily a road rider, very strong and aggressive, often riding away from the opposition to win solo. If others stayed with him, he would usually win the finishing sprint. He was also an excellent time trialist.

I received a great deal of publicity from this particular bike. It featured in the British “Cycling” magazine. (Affectionately known by cyclists throughout the UK, as “The Comic.”)

I can’t remember whether the bike was built in Columbus or Reynolds tubing, but the complete bike built up with Campagnolo titanium components, weighed in a 19 lbs. Pretty light for 1977 when this was built.

The bike was also featured in “The Penguin Book of the Bicycle” published in 1978. (Left.) The same photo shown at the top was used for the title page as the book was opened. (See below.)

My name was airbrushed from the picture, as were the spokes from the wheels to make room for the title text. However the same picture appeared again later in the book, this time with my name intact.

The frame was painted black and had gold pin striping on the edges of the lugs. It also had John’s initials “JP” painted in gold on the seatstay caps. Cycling magazine drew an interesting parallel to this, one that I had not realized when I chose that particular color scheme.

The British tobacco giant “John Player,” also with initials JP, sponsored a Grand Prix racing team at that time. The cars built by Lotus were painted black with gold lettering.


My thanks to Lance Woodman for reminding me of this bike.