browngw 

Rebuilt as original with new tape cables and tires.

omgar

Quick photo of my '76 Holdsworth Super Mistral before the flat bars get swapped out.

BarryCW

Hi I am new on this forum but not so much in age. Making enough posts to get photo load access. Anyway purchased a lovely one owner 1976 Holdsworth 531 Special in blue from Christchurch. Initially got hooked on the flash lugs. It was modernised in the 90's with RX100 stuff and has been well looked after. Have just recently stripped and rebuilt with older Shimano stuff and some nice Gentleman tubulars. Has an original Brooks seat. Will post photo when able. Anyway have had several rides on it and it is truly magnificent. Taught, quick and very comfortable. Actually quite a handsome bike.

Oldpeddaller

I've wanted a Holdsworth Professional ever since I first saw the Holdsworth Campagnolo team race in the1970's in my youth. For one reason or another, usually financial, this never came to pass - until a few weeks ago, when I saw this on e-bay advertised in poor condition with a wrecked fork. I risked small speculative bid - and won! The seller was just 25 miles away so I collected by car. He had owned the bike since his teenage brother had bought it new then passed it on to him, when he had it professionally resprayed in red flambuoyant - the paint is still good under all that grime! The bike had been left in a boathouse at work for decades and has suffered top tube dents (not serious) and pilfering of parts. To make things worse, a some-time Manager decided to use the old bike left in the boat house - but the Brooks Professional did not fit his shape - off it came, together with the Campagnolo seat post to be replaced with MTB items, never to be seen again. The top head set bearing ball race was missing completely and riding it on rough ground without one caused the steerer tube of the original fork to detach from the fork crown - only the brake bolt held it all together! However, if it had been pristine, this is another I would have missed out on due to price. I've obtained a new fully chromed sloping crown fork that looks just like the ones fitted to later models. The frame serial number fits in with those of my shop-built1970 Mistral and another Holdworth in my collection that indicates a very late 1960's or early 1970's build and the details seem to align with the description of the 1969 Strada/ Professional frames built by Reg Collard at the rear of the Lower Richmond Road Putney shop. This would also seem to agree with the previous owner's recollection. The rebuild is coming together well, just waiting for a new 6 speed freewheel to arrive then I have all the parts to go! Keen to go on a ride now!

BarryCW

and here it is:

anotherkenny

Hey everybody! I found myself a blue metallic Holdsworth Professional frame made in 1979 (serial number 021945). I’ll be working on it in my own thread linked here!

—Kenny

Giacomo 1 

I'm an Italian bike fanboy, but I always wanted to ride a proper English bike, and a Holdsworth is at the top of the list. If I was to ever buy an English "racer", it would be a Holdsworth.

Great lookin bikes guys!

jetboy 

somehow i missed this getting post and did not praise it. very nice! great work getting that together.

jetboy 

you too. talk about a contender for prettiest bike on bikeforums. also your camera is really capturing the colors well. I sometimes wonder with the better pics if the poster should include the camera-lens combo and settings as it seems like so many of the vintage riders are also excellent photographers.

browngw 

Getting good images of bikes takes a lot time and planning, understanding light and trial and error. I grew up enjoying photography in the film age and now have embraced all things digital. These Holdsworth pictures were taken this year in early summer along the row of cedars beside my driveway. Lots of light, but not direct and some backlighting through the trees. Sony Alpha NEX3 (compact, mirrorless) with a 16-50mm zoom (set around 35mm). I'm finding a portrait lens setting and getting away from the bike to produce some of my better pics. Sitting or kneeling or holding the camera at a low angle helps. (tilting displays are great for this).
Thks for the nice comments. I can' seem to find your new thread on pictures.

dwscrimshaw@bti

Just finished what I believe to be an Italia Sprint with "1969" Shop number. Kept the original team pant work and touched up the damage with Porsche Signal Orange; replaced decals. Goes well, I now need to master the art of fixed gear cycling. More picture history here https://www.flickr.com/photos/993140...57680883046934

dddd

Post-Marlboro I believe, bought as someone's "Rivendell" style build, I turned it into more of a road bike and used a huge 12-34t 9s cassette with a Shimano 52-42t chainset and a dog's breakfast of parts.
For this latter-day, bespoke build, I built I assembled a red Velocity AeroHead wheelset to match. It is a lively and comfortable roadie!

Wileyone 

That's pretty.

Your serial # runs the same way as my 67 shop bike. I wonder if they were made by Tommy Quick? I have one of his later road bikes after Holdsworth closed and the serial number runs the same direction.

76SLT 

I recently bought this frame from a fellow bf member. It has been discussed in a couple threads going back to 2011, but there is still no positive ID on whether this was made by a company or a private frame maker. I feel it has similarities to a Holdsworth.



It has Nervex lugs with a serial number of 95112 stamped on the bb as well as the steerer tube which is also stamped from Accles & Pollack.

English right hand threaded bb both sides.

Stallard rear dropouts. Fish mouth seat and chain stays.


Chromed head tube lugs.

Right side only shifter braze on.
What do you guys think?

dwscrimshaw@bti

You might have seen this thread, but on p7 there is a lot of debate on number stamping styles. In fact the whole thead wnet down the route of debating shop number for the period.

Holdsworth Professional Track Frame? - Page 7 | Retrobike

dwscrimshaw@bti

The use of Nervex lugs may be simular to Holdsworth, but I don't think they ever used French BB and the same rear drop outs. More importantly the frame number is far too high for a Holdsworth 5 Digit number and I am not sure if CB got that high either. I think you need to look at a different stable.

Wileyone 

1985 T.J. Quick serial number. I think the first 0 is a double strike.

rhm

I've been following its progress!

Are you really sure the BB is french threaded?

That's surprising, since it looks so much like an English frame.

I don't believe any English maker would have preferred to use French BB threading. What's the fork threading?

The single shifter boss is a 50's thing. I believe a Cyclo (either the English or the French one), or a Simplex, or a Huret shifter, any one of them, will fit.

I may have mentioned this in one of the earlier threads about this frame: but it seems to have been common enough for frames to have a mix of 531 and A&P tubing, often A&P steerer and fork blades. On my Fothergill, for example, the frame seemed to have a 531 decal (that is, at least, it had a rectangular decal of the correct dimensions for a 531 decal; but the actual decal was long gone). I found no tubing stampings on the frame, but steerer and fork blades had clear A&P stamps.

At any rate, the serial numbers doesn't seem to be Holdsworth. I think the serial number will be the clue that clinches it in the end.

76SLT 

Both sides are right hand threaded, and both accept an adjustable cup from a Bianchi so you are correct, it's an English thread. The only fixed cup I have is left hand. In the earlier threads I did say it was English. I got confused with all the research I've been doing. I edited my pic description.
How can I figure out the serial number? Andrew at Yellow Jersey thought it might be an Artisan build, so would they register their serial numbers or do I just have to hope someone just recognizes the number pattern? The fork threading is english.

76SLT 

I was wrong on the bottom bracket. It is English threaded, right hand thread both sides. The steering tube is also English.

76SLT 

Another clue that may help.

rhm

Well... if we agree it's not a Holdsworth, maybe this isn't the best place to discuss it. I mean, like, i don't care, but it'll be easier to find all the discussion if you bump one of the old threads about this frame, so we have all the ideas in the same place and can more easily avoid repeating ourselves. Not like I mind repeating myself, but others probably find it annoying.

A lot of boutique builders used Nervex lugs. It's a good sign, but doesn't really narrow the field much.

You can find a lot of catalogs here: Veteran-Cycle Club Online Library

and more here: Catalogues

If you look at some of those catalogs, you'll see that sometimes the lug manufacturer is listed, while other times is not. Armstrong, for example, mentioned Nervex Pro lugs in their 1956 catalog. Fothergill mentions them in his 1958 catalog. But we can assume almost any builder would be willing to use them at customer request.

It seems your head badge has no rivet holes, correct? If that's the case, then you can probably rule out companies that used a riveted on head badge (such as Holdsworth, Armstrong, etc).

The serial number will be definitive only when you find other serial numbers in the same format. Looking at it, I suppose "951" could be the year, "12" could be the month, "7" could mean the seventh bike made that month; or "9" could be the month, "51" the year, and so on. Or maybe this was simply the 95,112th bike frame made by this factory. No point in speculating, really; if you find another frame with the same scheme, it will be pretty obvious. It would probably be a good idea to make a list of all the possible builders (that'll be a very long list!) and rule them out one by one with the reason. For example: clearly not a Freddie Grubb, wrong serial number format (https://www.veterancycleclublibrary.o...20Library).pdf) .

There is a page on serial numbers here: Frame identification by frame number
but it is hardly exhaustive.

You can spend a lot of time browsing the photos here:
Readers' Bikes

dwscrimshaw@bti

Yes, I assume this is a numbering system of his own and had left Holdsworth by then? 1985 would have been the end of the 6D numbers and the start of Malbrough & Falcon ownership.

Wileyone 

I think what I was getting at was that perhaps he was consistent with the way he oriented his serial numbers.
Even when he left Holdsworth.

dwscrimshaw@bti

Yes, that does seem to be the case. The conclusion of the discussion on the Holdsworth numbers were that different foremen used differednt locations and orientations. The slight inconsistancies would be due to different frame builders following the same principles.