I'm afraid I mistated, and I meant to say it was Les Ephgrave that may have made the Pat Hanlon that I have. The notion that Les Ephgrave built some of Pat Hanlon's frames came from The Classiclightweights.co.uk site, and was mentioned by Mick Butler. Also attributed to her marque at various times were Tom Board and Stan Pike. I have a Hurlow-built Condor too and an Ephgrave and I sometimes forget who built what. I have a Tom Board-built Paris TdF from the 80s also, obtained from Mick Butler. It was a tight little community over there in those days wasn't it! I don't remember who sold me the Pat Hanlon now but I think Ephgrave was mentioned in the context of that sale also. They are all wonderful bikes.
Bob Freeman Elliott Bay Bicycles 2116 Western Ave Seattle, WA 98121 206-441-8144 http://www.elliottbaybicycles.com http://www.davidsonbicycles.com
-----Original Message----- From: Harvey Sachs <hmsachs@verizon.net> To: rdf1249@aol.com; Classic Rendezvous <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Mon, Jan 4, 2010 5:30 pm Subject: Hurlow, was Women frame builders.
my great friend Bob Freeman wrote: <snip>
I haven't read all the posts related to this thread - Did anyone mention Pat Hanlon? Read about her in Classiclightweights.co.uk. I have a very lovely example of her work. To be fair, she employed talented workers to build them in her shop, much as we and many other frame shops do. I am told mine may have been the work of Bill Hurlow. Will post on my flickr site when I get some paint on it. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++,
Bob, I Do Believe. Mostly. And my tongue is firmly in my cheek, since that may not be obvious from what I'm about to say.
Still, without doubting your word about your Pat Hanlon possibly having been created by Bill Hurlow, thinking back on the past 8 years or so I've been reading CR, I'm forced to confusions by the number of bikes attributed to Mr. Hurlow:
1) His shadow and himself must have blessed every shop in England that ever saw a flame lick a lug. And stayed at each long enough to do some serious building for other folks' labels. 2) He must have been the most productive and/or long-lived builder ever to have built by hand. I mean, like these things are all beautiful. Exquisite. 99th percentile or better. 3) Recognizing that America and England are divided by a common language, maybe the term "Hurlow" in the Olde Country is just generic, refering to any really superb (superbe?) frameset, no matter who made it. Or when.
Again, Bob, this isn't about your veracity. Your reputation is fantastic. And Ken Sanford (among others) has a bike that's actually labeled as a Wm. Hurlow. And it is gorgeous. But, Mr. Hurlow must have been making bikes much faster than our friend at Landshark (1/day?) to have done all the work attributed to him. :-)
harvey sachs mcLean va Really. (anybody got a nice spare Johnny Berry lying about looking for a new home? That's the other extreme: superb work but really scarce in most of the universe. Not that I'm planning to buy one any time soon.)