Hi Chas, An interesting story. You have to be very careful when buying on Ebay, but at times you no choice but to take a gamble. I checked out the Competizione. Looks like a nice frame, but nothing like your Pro frame.
When I was racing, I had a team mate that bought a shop Professional from Holdsworth. The wrap-over seat stay on that bike has always stuck in my mind. The factory frames do not have the same "hunk" of steel in the wrap-over as the shop frames, but the workmanship on both is wonderful.
My friend bought a Holdsworth Mistral bike in the early seventies and raced on it. Again, it was finished in team colours, but was nothing like the Pro.
I think that, second to the Holdworth, I'd pay the earth for a lagoon blue Carlton Professional bike from the early 70s'. They look so sharp with the chrome and sloping fork crown etc.
It is good to make your acquaintance.
Kind regards, Peter Barrie, Ontario, Canada
----- Original Message ----- From: Verktyg@aol.com To: pjrogers@rogers.com ; classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 8:05 PM Subject: Re: [CR] Holdsworth Pro Frames
Peter,
Several years ago I bought a Holdsworth on eBay that was billed as "an older model or one off" professional. The seller extensively quoted information from Norman Kilgariff's Holdsworth site.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/
After much research I've figured that it's a WF Holdsworth "Competizione" model in orange and blue "Professional" kit. It's described as being "Built with good quality tubing" what ever that means. Also there's no Reynolds
stickers but as I understand, Holdsworth et al. didn't use the transfers on their bikes built for the domestic UK market. There's no chrome, no Professional decal on the top tube, no fancy painting on the seatstay caps and so on. It weighs a ton!
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/
The seller cited this 1969 Professional as an example of bike without the standard features.
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
I bought it with the suspicion that it wasn't a real Holdsworth Professional because parted out (if I ever decided to do that) the components on the bike were worth far more than I paid for it.
Last year I got a REAL 1972 Holdsworth Professional frame with all of the classic features. A major difference in workmanship plus it feels at least a Lb. lighter than the other frame.
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA
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