Hello all, Today I celebrated my 56th. birthday. Having mow reached this milestone you could say its downhill all the way , great advantage at this age when bicycling but not so rosy when considering life and work in general. Unfortunately I am now at that stage when I cannot remember where I placed the cone spanner I was using five minutes ago but can recall an event that took place over thirty years ago vividly. Having now reached this distance and to keep me active and sane, thought it might be a good idea to exercise my brain matter and share some classic bike knowledge in a letter once a month. Hopefully this will get a debate started and jog peoples memories and add to Dale's CR site. Anyway he goes. Most of you on your side of the pond fall head over hills with London builders whose surnames begins with H and who manufactured funny looking frames. I also shared Alf's passion for salt beef bagel's, lochshen soup, potato latkes and other kreftig dishes. but not for his funny curly contraptions. But there is another London builder whose surname begins with H who deserves more recognition namely R.O.Harrison. R.O. was a builder at Maurice Selbach shop in Kennington and was employed there when M.S. managed to drop his sprint wheel down a London tramway conduit. Unluckily for Maurice there was a lorry coming the other way and they scraped him off the tarmac like a pound of strawberry jam. tragically robbing us of a great cyclist and innovative cycle maker. Shortly after this tragic incident ROH set up his own business in South London building his own named frames. He soon established a reputation for high quality frames especially his tandems. But the one outstanding model he will be most remembered for is his unique Shortwin design. This model was introduced in 1948 in answer to the revival of the prewar craze for short wheel based machines. Waller was making the Kingsbury over the water (River Thames) in East London and Harrison's of south London came up with this design. The shortwin was of welded construction and had a wheelbase of 39" it was unusual in having a seat tube in front of the bottom bracket and a down tube consisting of twin braced tubes, very similar to the carbon Colnalgo's. This is now a very rare beast. This has been a smashing birthday my daughter Rachel came out cycling with me this morning. The wife and children for a present got me a high tech mouse and keyboard. Sue cooked me my favorite roast pork dinner not strictly kosher, and I am now of to the pub for a pint and a fag! If anyone would like any further information on the Shortwin or Harrison's please contact me off-list.