I know this is a few days late but I have not been able to post to the list for a while.
Hiduminium was/is the name given to a range of aluminium alloys originally developed by Rolls-Royce in the twenties and used in racing aircraft engines for the Schneider Trophy. The alloys were later produced by High Duty Alloys which I think were owned by Armstrong Siddeley who made a big thing in advertising of its use in the engines of their Siddeley Special cars. The alloy was frequently mentioned in the semi technical aircraft press during the war. The name was thus well known and well understood by your average cyclist in the forties. Concorde used one of more of the Hiduminium alloys. Britain then could legitimately put the adjective 'great' in front of its name.
This allows me to ask a question. W.F.Bradley writing (probably in the forties) about Vincenzo Florio and his love of new technology mentions his ownership of all-aluminium Beeston Humber bicycles. This would, I think, have been in the last years of the nineteenth century. Does anybody know anything about them? How were the tubes joined?
Stuart Tallack perilously close to the rising sea level on the south coast of England