Apologies if this is already well-known, but I stumbled across this today, and thought y'all might appreciate some Monday vintage goodness!

Claud Butler | Cycle EXIF

Beautiful.

I have a 531 Claud Butler Audax frame hanging above my workbench ready to build up. It looks as rough as that bike looks beautiful, but I'm looking forward to riding it! It was free from the pay it forward thread and will likely get components from a $7 junk pile Windsor.

What a beauty!

Thanks for sharing.

I think the oil cap on the BB is my favourite detail.

Beautiful bike...thanks for sharing...needed that on a Tuesday morning...

I dunno, guys. If that Claud Butler has been "sympathetically restored" I'd hate to see an unsympathetic restoration. Lots-O-bling, but nothing looks right.

I agree, more of retro-fantasy build with the wheels and stem/bar selection.

Based on this comment I expected an old bike fitted with Modern parts.


I think it's a pretty bike. Maybe the wood rims are a bit too old-y for it, or maybe the moustache bars are too precious for my taste... For someone who may not be familiar with this "vintage" of bike, or someone that may find anything beyond welds as "exotic," this is a pretty bike. From the lugs, to the paint to the decals to the fork (I love that dual fork crown), and even most of the parts. It's an old bike done up pretty.

Yup, it's pretty, it's shiny, and it may be reasonably functional (i suspect it's not). If it's what the owner wants, I have no problem with it. My objection was not with the bike, but the juxtaposition of the words "sensitive" and "restoration." This is what we call a "build" on this forum, and I don't see anything sensitive about it.

This is so amusing. They couldn't even get that detail right. It would have had a lubrication nipple.


Take that bike along to a bike show and watch grown men roll around on the floor laughing. When they regain composure, given them a sheet and get them to list all the components that are out of period. Even the lug lining was done without the delicate touch.

It appears to be a random assortment of French components on an English frame. No wonder the Britexit poll succeeded.

Sadly, when you do a Google search for Claud Butler, it is this fantasy bike which comes up first.

Yup.

An English bike of that era, like, for example, a Claud Butler, would have been built with all British components. Not for chauvinism or preference, but because there was no money for imports. So imagine away all the Italian, French, and Chinese components... and what's left?

Dunno. But obviously:

The front wheel would have had 32 spokes.

The rear wheel would have had 40 spokes.

Hiduminium or aluminium, not wood.

A (non-Soma) Lauterwasser bar is unlikely, but not out of the question. If so, the brake levers would be the kind that go on an upright style bar, not those drop bar levers.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Oy!

and to Rudi's comments:
I assume they are Prior hubs, the RD hanger is much much later, the brassed wingnuts, the installation of the cotter pins, the oiler cap not Tecalemit nipple, the Stronglight crankset bolts, the late 1950s Simplex lever cover, the far too modern watch.

It hurts my eyes.
Interestingly a search does not reveal the frame date.