I believe the "Barra / Garrin" is actually one of the bicycles sold under the Fontaynalloy label around 1950. Fontayn (not sure I have the spelling right) was a British distributor of parts that were made on the continent. In their literature, they made a big deal of these special aluminum frames.
There were certainly many quality control issues, and if I'm not mistaken (just a guess), the one Peter saw was one of a number that a particular individual had brought over. If I recall, there were as many as 6 of them, and most of those broke.
Mike Kone in Boulder CO USA
At 11:57 AM -0400 6/27/09, Peter Weigle wrote:
Thanks for posting the nice photos. The half-chrome treatment on the
Thanet is quite interesting.
>1950's Barra,
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/49353569@N00/sets/72157620636148132/
The Barra probably is technically not one made by Barra - it doesn't have ovalized seat and down tubes at the BB. And no serial No. on the head tube, as far as I can see. It's probably one of the bikes made by Garin under license. In the Barra "autobiography" (translated and reprinted in Bicycle Quarterly a year ago), he mentioned how that deal had gone bad, as the bikes weren't up to his standards... and to distinguish the bikes he then started making under his own name, they all were stamped "Barra" and the serial number on the head tube.
>50's-60's Thanet Silverlight.
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/49353569@N00/sets/72157620494776287/
Somebody asked about the brakes. They are Resilion cantilevers. Two cables, one for each side, which are joined before they reach the brake lever. The brake dates from the 1920s, hence the "adventurous" design. Many British bikes pre-war had "D-shaped" fork blades, to prevent the clamp-on brakes from rotating... Cantilever brakes as we know them today became popular only in the 1930s in France. One of the first successful designs (perhaps the first) was by Barra (see above, even though the bike shown in the link has sidepulls).
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com