Originally Posted by
Stevensb
My wife was bitten by the vintage cycling bug at L'Eroica this year (she rode the 38km on a rented bike and loved it!) so I've been keeping an eye out for something that would fit her and, most importantly, was the right colour! I spotted this Proctor Townsend on CL today. The colour is perfect, I think the size is right and I bought it for a great price. It's a 52cm frame, Reynolds 753 and was probably a full Shimano 600 gruppo originally. Over time things have been swapped out or replaced. The whole tri setup has to go, but that will give me something to do this winter, plus completing the Shimano gruppo, having a matching wheel set built and installing new consumables will sharpen this bike up significantly. I'm planning to keep this project on the QT from her until spring rolls around and we can once again get out on the roads.
Based on some quick research, these bikes were made in Edmonton in the 80's and 90's and seem to be highly regarded in terms of build quality and ride. I'm not sure what time frame this particular bike is from. BF's own RandyJawa and Sixty Fiver have had some good things to say about Proctor / Proctor Townsend on BF and elsewhere.
They are nicely made and relatively unknown bicycles... the 753 points to later production and the Shimano tri c points to the same as it was available from '88-92.
The thing with custom frames is that they may have been sold as framesets and not built up until later with groups from a different period... older frames also seem to collect a lot of cast offs from newer bikes as those bikes are upgraded.
We had a 753 Proctor come into the shop as a donation that is a close match to mine, it is 105 equipped and rocks a triple instead of a double and looks to be a 54-55... it will be a nice bicycle for the right person once I deal with a little tiny dent in the top tube.