Claud Butler still built great frames up until their bankruptcy in 1957/8... Bill Gray was their chief foreman framebuilder for most of the post-war years and is one of the largely unsung greats of post-war British framebulding. Afterwards Holdsworth used the name for their more budget priced frames. However Raleigh did build the frames that Ray Booty and Reg Harris used - they were of course not off-the-shelf RRA frames but how many Team/sponsored rider frames are? RRA frames were very highly thought of by serious cyclists - not so much TTers or massed start riders but by CTC members who were equally serious riders but in a different way... Of course Lenton's were a budget frame but were certainly a cut above basic sports frames from Raleigh or any other of the large builders - of course the market for Lentons was not racers but for riders who were on a tight budget and would have often been the less affluent CTC members.
Hilary Stone, Bristol, British Isles
barrie carter wrote:
> Hi Niell, sorry you are wrong. Firstly, lug patterns meant little, the builder and his pro of independants successes did. Firms that made pretty lugs only appealed to the better off riders, and they were seldom the race winners. Your average club rider would buy what he could afford, but would NEVER buy a Raliegh et al. It was well known who the builders of these frames were ,and it was only the Name that was real. Im sure you must know that. Can you immagine Ray Booty riding a Record Ace straight from the shop for his RRA and other records. I dont think so.
> Another make that annoys me when mentioned is that of Claud Butler. Before the war he was respected. His frames were built by Holdsworths at the anerly factory after and who knows wsho built the rubbish, though Bill Hurlow, an old work mate at Condors and still a friend, built the odd ones.
> Whenever you say you are a bike rider, bet your life some hopefully impressive liar says"I had a Claud Butler " as if its the Open Sesame to the bike world. Its the open sesame to the junk yard and a great big zero in the impression stakes. You are right though, our TTs were far from flat and at 14 I was riding 25 miles to a 25 aand 25 home again, all on a bowl of corn flakes and on a fixed wheel. I cant even remember the name of the frame, but it wasnt a Raleigh, a Dawes, a C. Butler, a.............Barrie Carter, in a vanishing world and frightened of current accepted history, in a 299 year old house, in Roundham, Somerset Uk, Home of Stan Pike
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Neil Foddering <neilfoddering@hotmail.com>
> To: barriemgracer@yahoo.co.uk; Rendezvous Classic <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Sent: Sun, 7 February, 2010 16:35:50
> Subject: RE: [CR] TTs and Dawes.
>
> Hang on a minute, Barry, if you're going to write off all these marques as complete rubbish, then you might as well do the same with cars, and say that verything except a racing car is complete rubbish. I suggest that it was more a case of "horses for courses", plus a large dose of snobbery, ignorance and fashion. I say ignorance, because I suspect that many clubmen of the day wouldn't have been able to recognise a well-built machine, but went for what everyone else did, the flashier the better, and the fancier lugs, the better. (And as to the anonymous grey porridge which was churned out using Nervex lugs over a couple of decades, try to identify who built a frame if the transfers and headbadge are missing).
>
> The Raleigh Record Ace built just post war until about 1954 is a quality machine, better-built than some machines I've seen from smaller makers which would have been deemed acceptable to clubmen, and this model was good enough for Reg Harrris and the great Ray Booty, although the ordinary clubman might well have been nervous of what his clubmates would say if he turned up on one, and would have taken the path of least resistance.
>
> I stand to be corrected, but I don't believe that this level of snobbery regarding different makes of lightweight existed to the same extent before the war; I say "lightweight", because there certainly seemed to be a divide between the clubmen and the utility riders, whom they affected to despise. Again, citing the Raleigh Record Ace and its predecessors, there seems to have been no shame in using one of these well-built machines for club and racing purposes, and top riders of the day, including Jack Rossiter, Sid Ferris, Bert James and Charles Holland used them for successful record attempts.
>
> As to flat TTs: I'm reading (for the second time) "A Wheel in Two Worlds" by Ron Kitching, and any notions of all Time Trial courses being flat will be quickly dispelled when you read what some of the Yorkshire courses were like.
>
> Neil Foddering
> Weymouth, Dorset, England
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
>
>
>> Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 14:40:41 +0000
>> From: barriemgracer@yahoo.co.uk
>> To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>> Subject: [CR] TTs and Dawes.
>>
>> who told you all this rubbish about Flat Time Trials? The mere meaning of the words TIMED TRIAL, should tell you that it was a TEST over an out and home equidistant measured distance. I only en
>> ver saw a flat one. round the reservoirs at Thames Ditton and that had more corners than a maze. All the time trials I road ,and that was many, were hilly, but most people rode fixed gear bikes in TTs and it wasnt until the late 50s that guys started to use gears. The fixie craze now on was the norm in the pre and post years.
>> As for front changers, you dont seem to understand that these great lumps of iron you call lightweight, Dawes, Phillips, Raleigh, etc were complete rubbish and no club member would be seen dead on them. They never had front changers because most of them had 3 gears not 5 with great chunks of steel williams, phillips or Raliegh chainsets. If you wanted front changers, you were a club rider and had a lightweight that was hand made. The Dayton was another piece of junk that people rave about. None4 of these bikes were ever used by club riders .
>> Dont also forget that just after the warf, we had a poor economy m most people had a bike, few had cars, we had petrol rationing too and cars were not made available to \joe Public until the mid 50s, so you rodce everywhere. Hence the suedo racer, Dawes, Dayton, NEVER Raleigh, or Hercules unless you were the local vicar, posty or copper, bikes like the Phillips Kingfisher, sold for 9 guineas[not your sort!] and was usually bought on finance. These old horses were sold with 3 gears and front changers were only fitted to lightweight european steeds.
>> Dont EVER think that we only raod flat TTs. The UK may not be the Alps, but little of it is flat, and the organisers of such were sadists.
>> Sorry for the lesson
>> Barrie Carter Roundham in hilly somerset. UK
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>
> ________________________________
> Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now