biggs682

Just thought i would share my latest find that i picked up last night its an R.E.W Reynolds of Northampton this will be the 6th one i have owned over the years and only the second to carry a full 531 frameset .

From what i can tell quite a lot of the shop frames were built by Woodrup Cycles of Leeds although at the moment i am not sure if this is one of those .

Simplex rear drop outs and elongated front drop outs , originally it must have looked stunning with half chromed forks , fork crown , headstock lugs all of which have not lasted greatly and half chromed rear stays that look a lot healthier .

Not sure of my plans yet , but more than likely will try and clean up / off the excess fork rust and build up as a simple 5 or 6 speed machine and enjoy .

I can always have it refinished at a later stage if i like the way it rides and these R.E.W's normally do ride well

gugie 

Very nice! Outside of the rust in the chrome areas, it looks to be in good shape. What are your plans for her?

Ex Pres 

Looks like a great frame to hang your patina'd parts from. To me, with that ring up front it's calling out to be a nice single speed, on sprints of course.

fietsbob 

There is an REW Reynolds, hand making classic touring shoes, descendant of the same company ?

England had a lot of regional framebuilding to supply their own shops.. that's over.

dweenk 

With that chainring, you need legs like Sir Chris Hoy.

Big Block

Can you give a well-focused photo of the downtube gear lever braze on?
and can you measure the inside spacing of the bottom bracket pulley mount?

deephate 

I agree! That thing is intimidating.

vtchuck 

REW Reynolds was a great company BITD. I still have some custom handmade shoes, a jersey and white nylon socks from the 70's. I sent them outlines of my feet for the shoes & measurements and design for the jersey. My FIL ordered custom wool jerseys with flocked sewn on lettering. I received typed, signed letters from Mr. REW himself... wish I had kept them.

non-fixie 

Very nice! We don't see nearly enough English bikes from smaller builders on this forum. Thanks for sharing it.

biggs682

Not a descendant but he is another Northamptonshire person and i think he actually does have an R.E.W Bike

biggs682

Wow those letters would have been great to see , he is a mystery man as not much info about him and even less about who built his frames . It has come to light quite recently that Woodrup built some but alas not this one .

I have never found anybody who worked with or for him apart from a local chap that worked there on work experience for a few weeks and he knew very little .

Does the Jersey have R.E.W Reynolds on it ?

biggs682

Now thats a thought

biggs682

Will do but it wont be till later in week

vtchuck 

Nope, but it was custom made to my measurements and specs. Sent a sketch of what I wanted. Also still have arm and leg warmers. Sadly, I am no longer able to fit into it. If I remember correctly, REW had a 6 or 8 page mimeographed catalog and offered clothing, gloves, shoes, leather helmets and some Milremo components.

BTW, there have been a number of discussions about REW Reynolds in the Classic Rendezvous group, so that might be worth checking out.

biggs682

I use to work with a guy who was a customer of the shops and he use to take great pleasure in telling me it " was a proper bike shop back in the day not like these boutique shops we have now "

Will have a look on C R then

biggs682

Have put some pictures up for you on the Facebook page R.E.W Reynolds Bikes

biggs682

Black R.E.W
Well not much has happened on the the cream and red R.E.W in the last few weeks as other projects have taken over .

But good news is another R.E.W is back on the road , i got offered this one about 8 months ago but the seller wasn't convinced he wanted to get rid of his sadly deceased uncles old road bike even after 5+ years of it not being used . He contacted me last week asking was i still interested well you can all guess the answer .

It now resides in my garage and has so far done 2 days worth of commuting and a total of 20 miles and all going well so far , hoping to get out for a 25+ miler on it over the weekend .

It's laden with a Campagnolo groupset and a nice stronglight chainset and rides as good as any other R.E.W that i have owned

biggs682

Quick update finally got this old girl up and running last night and then did some fine tuning this morning to enable it to be ridden for my commutes today

Sorry about the bars but they are actually very comfortable to use

Doug Fattic 

I can confirm that R.E.W. Reynolds frames were made by Woodrup in Leeds and painted at Ellis Briggs in Shipley, West Yorkshire (a separate town but in the same metropolitan area of Leeds and Bradford). Well at least some of them were in 1975 when I was learning to build frames at Ellis-Briggs. Rod and Bill were the painters and their room on the 2nd floor was also where the frameshop was located. If I remember right Jack Briggs told me that they helped Woodrup get started in the 50's after some kind of falling out with Bob Jackson. I spent a day at Woodrup while Steve showed me how to do a Masi style of scalloped style seat stay top treatment.

It is highly probably that E-B painted your white and flam red frame. One time I remember taking some frames to the chroming shop located in another small town about 15 miles away. One trick E-B liked to do was chrome the center of a seat tube before building it into a frame. Then the 2nd color bands were chrome.

Here is an example of a "it is a small world" moments". While I was there, Rod and Bill painted a Woodrup in an unusually complicated maroon and yellow and other colors. I would watch the progress because Andrew (the young frame builder then and now passed) and I would eat lunch in the paint room. While I didn't try my hand at painting in England I did learn the techniques of how to do the complicated stuff there. Anyway when I get back to Ohio in the fall to continue teaching high school, I go into the local Kettering Bike Shop and to my total amazement, there is that same Woodrup frame waiting for its owner to come pick it up. What are the odds?

The Golden Boy 

It's always fantastic to hear stories like yours directly from you.

Thanks!

MiloFrance 

+1 and a thanks from me too!

biggs682

wow what a great reply , Kevin Sayles has already confirmed that my cream and flamboyant red one was not built at Woodrup so the hunt for it's maker is unknown still

Doug Fattic 

I visited R.E.W. Reynolds in 1974 a year before I learned how to build bicycle frames. He showed me a set of blank lugs he had personally carved to have one of his builders turn them into a frame. I don't think he told me who was his builder(s) were as that is private information. I also ordered a pair of cycling shoes from him at the time (which are still in my closest I think). .

There is some chance it was made as well as painted at Ellis Briggs. The workmanship on the Nervex lugs looks better than average. It looks exactly like some of them that were built there. Things get a little fuzzy about who built what where because there were some builders that operated out of there garden sheds that took up the slack for makers selling frames to shops selling them under their own name (like R.E.W). These builders didn't necessarily market under their own names.

Did you find any serial number somewhere? Sometimes the fork steerer also has a number stamped on it to keep the right one attached to the frame it is made for. The serial number often gives clues to when the frame was built.

biggs682

Yes matching numbers on fork and bottom bracket

biggs682

Stampings read 7753 across the centre of the bottom bracket and then 448 just off to 1 side

It would have been a classic looking frame in it's heyday and like all R.E.W ' s that i have ridden a treat to ride