A story from the Luton & Dunstable Cycling Forum's Bicycle Recycle program...
Here is one of the bikes from a van-load of about 20 that came to us from a Sustrans project in Luton when it wound down. This was the only road bike in the lot: a Marlboro Medallion which had a mid-1980s lugged steel frame, steel-rimmed 27 inch wheels, 5-speed with downtube shifter, unbranded brakes. Completely unremarkable in every way.
Tom is my boss. He lives about 10 miles away from us and is often on the same train as me each morning into London. He has a young active family. They live just off a shared use path built on a disused railway line. The family has one car. Tom has for a number of years commuted between his house and the train station using an "old beater" chosen deliberately for its calculated lack of appeal to bike thieves. Or so Tom thought. Until two weeks ago when, just before he and his family went away for their summer holiday, he left it unsecured at the train station and came back that evening to find it gone.
After a good service... and replacing the old worn out tyres with good quality nearly new tyres (albeit deliberately mismatched)... and replacing the bent aluminium stem with a rather nice GB branded steel one... which necessitated finding another handlebar (with grubby but better quality bar tape still intact)... the bicycle may now be rather better looking than Tom wants!
The Recycle project has put 30 bikes back on the road this year.
Have just been given a Marlboro Lynx. I'd not heard of the brand before - apparently they were supplying catalogues such as Littlewoods / Grattan and Halfords from the mid 70s to around 1987. Most are low end, but Marlboro owned Holdsworth for a couple of years during which time the odd cromoly / 531 seems to appear. Mine is probably a later bike as it has 700c wheels - frame is probably hi-tensile or chunky cromoly as it must weigh around 12.5 kg. It actually looks quite attractive in a yellow finish (banana yellow rather than nicotine yellow) :)
ReplyDeleteHi ZeroG, thanks so much for dropping by and contributing this information! I've found very little about Marlboro. I did see mention of Marlboro and Holdsworth sharing premises but didn't know there was an ownership link as well. How is your Lynx to ride?
DeleteHi Rebecca, that's interesting re the sharing of premises. I did find out that Marlboro production was at Wordsley, Stourbridge near Dudley. The Birmingham area was of course the centre of bicycle steel tube production in England - handy :) What happened exactly after the take over of Holdsworth I don't know (although I do know that the Claud Butler brand was included in the deal - Holdsworth had acquired CB back in the late 1950s). In 1987 Marlboro then sold Holdsworth / CB to Falcon Cycles. This leads me to believe that my bike is a 'transition' model because it is fitted with various Falcon branded parts - quite clunky, steel derailleurs and aluminium brake calipers marked Falcon. The alloy / mazak gear levers have an embossed falcon image. Falcon I suppose were just using up the old Marlboro stock.
DeleteWell, riding the bike home was a bit of an adventure ! All manner of scrapes and rubs from wobbly rims, brakes and a large egg in the front tyre :) The bike is fairly heavy - it's a largish frame (24.5 inch) and it felt like I was pedaling through treacle! However as I later found out, the wheels appear to be the real culprit being extremely heavy steel items. Compared to my daily bike - a Raleigh Super Equipe it was quite a shock, but I actually think that with a decent set of wheels it could be a pretty good runaround. With the yellow finish and glossy black forks, at a distance you might think it actually has carbon forks ! I did take some pictures during stripdown but I don't know if it's possible to add them here - I can always add them to a hosting site and leave a link. The red /silver example above looks very clean and original - mine bears quite a few signs of neglect although it has actually been ridden very little. Hopefully I can sort out some wheels and then give a follow-up appraisal.
Steve
Btw, apologies for the name mix-up - somehow my old account ZeroG was applied to my original message even though I haven't used it in years... Must admit I find Google accounts/services baffling at the best of times :)
ReplyDeleteA few pictures now added to my blog.
ReplyDeleteSteve