British Falcon
 

So I bought me a bike yesterday.

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Ernie Clements frame, 1975 or older (still has my local county bike permit sticker :thumb:), pretty good paint, tires shot, and, unfortunately, a replacement handlbar:(.

$149 - how'd I do?

Nice! Bring it to the All British Cycle Event this weekend in Minnesota!

I'd be tempted, but it's about 800 miles away, and I don't think the tires will last that long.

Handlebar's not a problem - a GB 'Maes' or 'Tour of Britain' bend alloy drop bar would have been fitted as standard. The Maes is a plain bar with no engraving, the "ToB" has a map of the British mainland on the right side and the GB logo on the left. The nearest equivalent to the handlebar tape fitted as new will now be black or white Ambrosio Bike Ribbon. That bike is in nice condition, not many Black Diamond and similar entry level models survived being dropped on paper rounds, thrashed through woods and generally ridden to death, which was possibly the natural fate of a teenager's first "real" bike in the UK in the early 70's. My guess is a '73 to 74 model, possibly 75.

I always loved Falcons since I first encountered them in a tiny LBS in Milwaukee in the early 80's ("Frank's Cycle shop", somwhere near Locust and Oakland Ave.). The little shop had a few Falcons in the flashy gold and white colors with the bold, stretched out Union Jack and "Falcon" in bold slanted font, emblazoned on their DTs. Give a much more overt affect to the bikes compared to the comparatively conservative looks of the Peugeots that were next to them in that darkly lit ,small shop.
This Falcon looks great too and the $150 price is getting up there for what this model looks to be but seems to still be reasonable if the bike is in great condition and complete.

Chombi

The guy who sold it to me thinks he could locate the bar, but it's good to know an original isn't hard to find.

Another odd thing is the location of the pump. It's in the original location, but I haven't seen that a lot. Did it come with a pump originally? I haven't had a chance to take it off yet.

Pay too much? Probably, but other than the bars it's all original. Not concours but well cared for - a scratch here, etc.

I'm thinking of doing what's called a "resto-custom" in my other hobby (VW's). Modify it, but don't make any changes that can't be reversed.

Yes, dependent on the exact model (my memory's not that clear now, these were really popular bikes and the bike shops and school bike sheds were full of them), it would either have had a white plastic Bluemels pump with a high pressure adaptor hose that pushed into the top of the handle for storage or an aluminium Brittania pump of the same format with red, white and blue plastic rings near the bottom of the pump tube (body) that provided a grip for the fingers of your left hand. Both pumps would get pretty hot in use putting 80 psi into each tyre! Unfortunately these are hard to find now although they do pop up on UK e-bay under Vintage bicycle parts every so often. You'll need to measure the distance between the pump peg heads and buy a pump that is about the same size when closed. I'm still looking for the right one in red for my 1966 Claud Butler!

If you can get the original handlebar it's worth chasing it on that bike. The whole thing is just so original, like it's still 1974 and it's only been used for four months or so (apart from the tyres, which I'm guessing have probably perished during 36 years of storage?) I wouldn't mod it at all unless you need new parts you can't source. They were a very pleasant ride as standard - rolled well, smooth, not fantastically fast or light but still fine to ride all day long. It's your bike though, your choice.

I think you did alright. I have a 75 Black Diamond and a 1968 San Remo. Even though the Sam Remo is to big for me it rides like a dream.

I'm going to take more pics and get the details off the parts and post it all up. I do intend to pursue the handlebars, although installing them might need to wait. The bike is intended to be a rider, and I'm a pretty big guy, so I'm going to upgrade some of the parts just so that I don't damage the originals. Also, I have a bit of a weird situation with the length of my arms - I could deal with it when I was 14, but I'm not sure if drop bars will work for me at 40+.

Makes perfect sense when you explain it that way R2.0 ! Definitely worth keeping all the original parts safe in case you ever want to shift it - all original Falcons of that era don't come available that often especially in the condition yours is in.

It was raining last night so I just left the bike in the trunk. Pics later.