[CR]Amazing British engineering!

(Example: Events)

From: <brucerobbins@supanet.com>
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 16:08:31 +0000
Subject: [CR]Amazing British engineering!

In the little free time I have, usually half-an-hour in the evenings, I've been restoring a 1935 George Elrick bike. He was a Yorkshireman who moved to Stirling in Scotland in 1935 where he opened a bike shop and built frames in a wooden shed attached to the back. This bike is the fifth he made at his Stirling premises. For those interested in Scottish bikes, Bob Reid has promised to put some pictures of the Elrick on his Flying Scot website as soon as I can take them.

Anyway, I took the bottom bracket assembly apart the other night to find that, after cleaning, the Chater Lea axle and cups were virtually unmarked. The axle bearing surfaces looked like new. The old lad I bought it from, who purchased it from Mr Elrick, says he can'r remember changing the ball bearings let alone the axle so everything seems to be original. The Chater Lea headclip is also in near NOS condition as is the lamp bracket by the same maker.

What amazed me was that this isn't a bike that has had light use in the Californian sunshine. It was raced hard up until the last Sunday before WWII broke out and then used as transport throughout the war when the owner was serving in the RAF. It saw a lot more use, in all weathers, after the war as well.

My exposure to Chater Lea components had previously been pretty limited but, having examined their engineering qualities up close, I'd have to nominate this company as the King of component manufacturers.

It's pretty tragic to think that, having once been capable of producing bike components of such outstanding quality and longevity, the UK now has no large scale bike industry. What went wrong?

Bruce
Dundee
Scotland