It was the father, Maurice Woodrup, who started up this family firm some time way back in the 50s, after he and Bob Jackson had gone their separate ways from an earlier partnership. The company had two retail shops both in the western suburbs of Leeds..the first one being a tiny shop in Headingly from which they sold "bread and butter" machines" and the lightweight shop down the hill on Kirkstall Road in the heart of what was at the time a very slummy industrial area. It was a good choice and probably a cheap one...as most of the workers in the nearby factories would cycle to work in those days ..and then cycle as a hobby and for their holidays.
The small shop closed some 20 years ago I guess, but the lightweight one, with the framebuilder's shop on the first floor is still there and has changed hardly at all over a period of 40 years, while, in recent years, most of the factories have gone, and the heavy industry and some of the long bleak rows of terraced houses have been demolished and the area gentrified. Maurice died some ten or less years ago and had he been alive he would have been astonished to realise that his strictly functional bike shop would now be classed as a highly priced piece of real-estate.
Maurice did not move with the times very much and was content to sit, dressed in his mechanic's overalls, just inside the front door inevitably, almost, building a pair of wheels, while just 15 minutes away on the other side of the city his erstwhile partner, Bob Jackson would be immaculately dressed in pinstriped suit, looking and performing like the international business tycoon..
It was and is Maurice' s son Stephen who was and is the chief frame-builder, and who now runs the company - a company that has seen off many rivals. The second-string builder, a very competent chap, moved on about five years ago to head up the workshop at St John Street Cycles near Bristol, where he spends most of his time building serious touring and Audax types of frames in steel.
In the 70s and very early 80s there was another builder, Steve ? , a young man with good skills but an erratic temperament. So you might get a work of genius..or depending on his mood, a frame whose geometry was totally off the scale. Steve moonlighted for a shop run by a friend of mine..and built a number of frames under the Delta Sportive brand. Unfortunately he was heavily into tuning "hot-cars," a hobby that ended when he wrapped his latest machine around a telegraph pole at the age of 32.
Just around about that time his father a cabinet-maker also died at a relatively early age...and for some reason that I never really understood, I was asked to sort out the family's collection of now unwanted bikes and to sell them on. I recall two of Steve's own machines, both fast road-racing/time-trialling machines in 531SL. While one was a gem and predictable in its handling, the other had angles far too steep that resulted, at the front end with massive overlap...linked to a very high bracket. It was a lethal ride.
Woodrup frames generally enjoy an enviable reputation for well constructed, predictably handling machines... a far better reputation on the whole than Bob Jackson's..but there are exceptions to this norm. I think it only fair to state that Stephen Woodrup is very respected as a meticulous builder.
Norris Lockley..Settle UK
NOrris Lockley