Hi. I have some photographs of a restored 1938 Rensch. The bike originally belonged to my Grandfather, who was a keen cyclist. If anyone is interested, he was involved in clubs around the Reading area, in England. He passed away some years ago now, but a few years prior to that the bike was given to a friend so that it might be restored. These pictures were taken in 1999, I believe. It is shown incompletely restored, but not far off:











Here are some excerpts from a couple of letters that the new owner, who undertook the restoration, sent to my grandparents at the time:

"The frame and forks went to Argos at Bristol to be stripped, re-chromed and re-sprayed. I managed to find a small scraping of the original colour and had it analysed and re-mixed. I think you will agree it's a pretty fair match. Incidentally when the frame and forks were stripped down, the fork tube carried the Accles and Pollock mark, A/P. This must have been amongst the last batch of tube to come from the works as it was taken over by Reynolds and renamed '531'.

The wheels have been rebuilt onto the original hubs and all the bright work re-chromed, with one exception - the bell!! Well something needed to be in original condition.

A saddle was needed, so I contacted the production manager at Brooks who I have got to know quite well over the years (now sadly reitred). He was able to make me a new saddle to the 1938 pattern, as you can see from the photographs it's black with the larger steel rivets.

After searching for eighteen months, asking the same question in scores of shops, I found a transfer set in an old bike shop in Essex.

The Oz gear was more of a problem as most of the units for sale has a lot of wear, especially in the forks. Having fone so far with the Rensch I decided that only a new Oz gear would do. A long and exhaustive search eventually turned up an Oz gear set. It was complete with shifter controls, all cables and a three-speed block, unused and boxed, new from the later 1930's. It was located in the South of France by a friend on holiday. I fitted the very expensive Oz gear to the Rensch; the machine was all but complete, missing only the mudguards. Mudguards as fitted in the 1930's must have been made from celluloid - to date they have eluded me, but I am a patient man.

I must say that of all the cycles I own, the Rensch turns the most heads. In 1938 it must have been at the cutting edge of technology - the last word in road bikes."

I am also told that it was bought new for around £200. That amount in 1938 apparently can be equated with almost £10,000 today (source: http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/). That seems an awful lot so I'm not sure how accurate the £200 figure is.

I hope you like the pictures and information - feel free to ask questions but I don't know a great deal more than I have already presented. I never saw the bike myself - well I suppose it probably did fall inside my field of vision on a few occasions, but I was young and wouldn't have been interested in it at the time.

Thanks for looking