Hey guys,
I need some help. I purchased this bike I spotted on craigslist. I can take more pics tonight.

Seems to have a flip flop hub, maybe a very old brooks swallow, and some nasty orange paint all over it. No hole on the front fork for brakes.


What do you think I've got my hands on here?



and some pics

















Here's the flickr set for it with large sizes for all of them:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/2314280...7623977044913/

check out the seat post. check out the skip tooth cottered crank?

I've been looking at ebay and here

https://www.classicrendezvous.com/USA/USA.htm

to try to find something like it but I havent found anything exact. Any more clues i should look for to help identify?

No idea, but its interesting that it has a rear brake. Can you tell if it was drilled out by someone to be able to add a brake? Does that tob tube bend down right about where the first cable clip is?

i'll take a look when i get home, but i think it's a flip flop hub so I assume you'd need a brake for when you use the freewheel. Maybe its a 6 day racer? i think the track bikes this old were set up to be able to ride on the road as well, but I'm not really sure.

Top and down tubes look bent, but the fork looks straight.

oh great, and I was going to ride it to work tomorrow.

photos can be tricky to judge, you should check it in person, look at the reflected lines as they approach the junctions, feel the tubes there for buckles, etc.

thanks. i'll take a closer look when i get home.

Pretty cool, whatever it is!

Does it fit you? I would have thought it's a hair small. Not that that should stop you from riding it, of course.

The lugs are interesting; I'm thinking they are the plain lug blanks that most builders would cut and shape into something artistic, which suggests to me a small (and not very ambitious) builder. But I speculate.

As for the frame being bent... well, check the toe clearance.

rear dropouts look crimped and bolted (top part)? hard to tell...

it would fit me great if i put a 3 foot long seat post and stem on it

the lugs do look very pedestrian. However, i was looking at some pics of schwinn paramount track bikes from that period and I thought they looked kinda similiar...

The only American track bike makers I can think of to google are Pop Brennan and Dick Power; you can find a few images that show their lugwork. I can imagine they all started with the same lug blanks, but did a lot more work on them before brazing.

Tell us the seat post size, too, when you get a chance. It's an indicator of tubing thickness, and therefore of tubing quality, albeit not a really good indicator of the latter... 50's Raleighs with straight gauge 531 tubes used the same 25.4 seat post as the hi-ten ones.

The fork has smashed ends too, maybe it was a replacement.
If it wasn't for the track-type rear drop, I would say it was just a plain English bicycle, probably Hercules.

It looks like those tube bends are an optical illusion due to the barrel in the background, the shadows get larger as the barrel rotates to the background.
my $.02

this is in the flicker set:

top tube still seems to dip towards the front.

+1 top tube looks bent just forward of the cable clip.

Cool bike though. I love the handlebars

It hased handle bars just like my Raleigh. Maybe they used a bent top tube? running short straight on parts? lol I'd ride it even if it was bent, you could always do what I did to ride it, My raleigh is small but with the neat handle bars flipped around it's rideable and looks neat maybe hang it up as a thing to admire?

The frame is bent, but it has no wrinkles whatsoever - I'm almost certain that this is a frame that the Park headtube tool I have on loan will fix perfectly. You might have some paint crinkling afterwards, but it should end up straight.

If you're willing to cover shipping to and from, I'd be more then willing to try it. I've been looking for a frame with gradual bend damage for a while - I'm pretty sure it's the only damage that this tool will fix.

-Kurt

+1...the bolt on track ends suggest roadster frame too.

Very nice, other than the paint everything looks original.
What kind of hubs does it have? They will be a good clue to dating it. Those williams cranks (while swaged) are the pre 1950s design so the youngest it could be is mid 40s.
What brand is the brake?

that's hot

Dating Williams cranks is a good start,
and can we have a good photo of the brakes?

I want to call it from the 1920s. Square lugs, like this bike's, ended in the late 20s, early 30s and the frame geometry is slack for a track bike from the 30s.

But if the brake bridge is original to the bike, I'd say it is a path racer from the late 40s, early 50s.

pics tomorrow but here's some info

stem say iver johnson e

tires say dunlop special lightweight 26x1.25 dunlop road racing

hubs are british hub co ltd and based on pics ive seen i think they're solites. they say mark IV on them.

the saddle is a wrights.

no markings at all on the crank except made in england, which is written all over the bike basically. that confuses me since isnt iver johnson a us company?

the seat binder bolt has the initials AS

the rear brake is a sidepull and certainly seems original.

both rear cogs are fixed, one is just larger slightly.

based on what research i've done so far it does seem 30's, that is if the wheel/rims are original.

The dropouts are usually a giveaway. Rear track ends do look crimped and bolted; front is just crimped, no dropouts. This indicates a very cheap frame. How heavy is it? Just judging by the photos, it looks like the typical mass-produced gas-pipe frames of the 40's, especially with the bulky lugs, so I wouldn't get any hopes up. Chainring was made for 1" pitch block chain, so its current chain is obviously an update, or the crankset was an upgrade. An actual track bike from the 30's would have been drilled for a front brake, if it had a brake at all for road use, not a rear. Cheap replacement fork and repaint? Possibly, except that the crimped rear track ends are consistent with the crimped fork ends. With those crimped ends, this was definitely not a bike used in 6-days; not strong enough.

Luis

Holiday, let me know if you'd like to try straightening the frame.

-Kurt