Dear all
I've been lurking on your admirable list for a couple of weeks and enjoying the diet of bike porn.
I've got no cycling background at all, having started commuting to escape the tyranny of London public transport. Wise Old Bob at the romantically named The Bike Shop in Lewisham (previously known as Youngs - it still has the sign) sold me a Raleigh 531 road bike which was a revelation to someone who had only ridden mountain bike sort of stuff. It was enough to get me addicted, and after a very short search I got lucky and bought a gorgeous c. 1980 Mike Mullett (hooray!) road bike which is now my pride and joy and daily commuting machine.
I am also the heir of my dad's c. 1947 Granby, fancy lugwork, brazed on pannier rack and all, which is now in a sad but convincingly unsophisticated state of neglect (hopefully not of decay) and I want to get the frame restored as a present for my father. I'm in SE London, and any suggestions of a sympathetic and not ridiculously expensive frame-furbisher would be welcome.
The anthropormorphic burden of folk-memory that the bike carries includes my dad cycling home from Dartford to Radlett (c. 50 miles) with this new frame over his shoulder, and the tale that when he took it touring to the Pyrenees he cut the end off his toothbrush to save weight. As a true numpty I suspect that if I did that I'd take the wrong end with me! My sister then rode it to West Wales, where she was taking up a new life as a farmer, so it's exchanged significant numbers of molecules with a couple of us already.
I thought it was probably best to get the frame done first and then see about bits - he says he's still got the original Sturmey Archer 3-speed fixed wheel somewhere, and I've asked him to try and find it, as a start.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Ed Maggs