A fellow CR List member has just brought this attractive machine - Item 170 273041588 to my notice and, as it is on sale from a seller in my home v illage, he thought I might know something about it.
Well.... I know the bike very well, having owned it in the early 80s..and I know the current owner/seller very well..and the whereabouts of the bike.. ..just about a quarter of a mile away from where I am sitting at my computer ..
It is likely that a number of CR List members are following this auction, a nd if so, I feel I should point out that the frame is not a Hetchins. It is in fact a Carlton International... a frame that is probably the equal of a ny Hetchins, particularly if one discounts the curly stays. I have asked the seller to correct his description on his auction page, but doubt that he will do so.
The seller would claim to be a cyclist..but his claims about this bike ar e incorrect. It was never built as a time-trial bike..it was built as a tra ck frame pure and simple and dates from the early to mid-50s. Most of the e quipment ie wheels, chainset, bars are original.
The bike came to me in the early 80s by way of a trade-in against a frame t hat I had built for the then owner, who had been told that the frame.by vir tue of its fancy lugs, was a Hetchins. The bike served as an errand bike fo r staff working in my shop and was later lent to my then business partner as his going-to-and-from-home- bike. Unfortunately for me, the partner tur ned out to be the partner-from-hell..and when he walked out on me one day and left me with all manner of problems in the shop that he managed for th e business, I not only lost that shop, but also the chrome track bike that he had used and that we had displayed just inside the door. I remember that its value on the trade-in was £63, or about $95 at today's rate of excha nge. On a technicality the bike might still belong to me, I suppose , but I cannot afford the legal fees to prove ownership.
I have already been asked if, in the event of an American CR List member wi onning the auction, I could arrange to, pick it up, the answer is very very definitely NO!
I might even have a bid for the bike myself..just for old-time's sake, but, in the event of winning I would have to arrange for someone else to collec t it for me.
All that being said...It's a very attractive and quite rare machine.
Norris Lockley, Settle UK