In The Wild: REM Special Peugeot Swoopy Mixte

Windmill Street, Fitzrovia, London -- Summer 2015

An Oldie But Goodie: Raleigh RSW 16

Here's another Luton & Dunstable Cycling Forum Recycle Project story...

One Saturday afternoon last month, Adam disappeared into the depths of our shed looking for a longer seat post for Petra.  He began removing various bicycles and boxes of parts from the shed and laying them out on the lawn. My mind on Petra, I took little notice. I am so accustomed to seeing lots of 'junk' from the shed -- all of it donated, all of it received without inspection -- that it was several minutes before my eyes focused in any meaningful way, only for them to land on something that made me dash for my phone. 

I know nothing about Raleigh's RSW range but I knew instantly this was not another run-of-the-mill "let's see if we can transform a sow's ear into a silken purse" sort of refurbishment project. 

A few minutes later, I had uploaded a handful of photos to the Vintage Bicycles UK group on Facebook. And within 24 hours, this little beauty had a new home. 

And Then There Were Two

Last year's rebuild of my 1978 Puch Princess has been a complete success. 

With one small niggle.... the paintwork.

Lots of scratches, the "Princess" decal long gone from the top tube, and -- worst of all --
damage to the seat tube where a previous owner apparently draped a lock from the saddle rails.

Ideally, I would love to have the whole bike resprayed, but I felt mired in indecision over whether to go for as-close-to-original as possible (including reproduction decals) or opt for something entirely different. I hesitated to jettison the Puch branding and identity altogether. However, the decals are the distinctive part of the 'livery' and I've never been 'in love' with the distinct 1970s vibe they give off. Don't get me wrong, they've rather grown on me over time. But if I were planning the colour scheme of this bike from scratch, this isn't what I would have come up with! The light metallic green colour might well have made my shortlist of colour options but in the end would have likely lost out to something else -- possibly navy, maybe even red. That would be a crying shame but I know in my heart I could not promise I wouldn't. 

Hence my inaction over doing something about the tired, worn paintwork. 

Over last winter, while the bicycle mostly hibernated (only coming out on dry days for a bit of coffeeneuring and errandonneuring), I shoved this 'first world' problem to the back of my mind. 

There it lie dormant, just waiting for a catalyst to wake it up.

Spotting this on ebay proved to be that catalyst.

Bickerton!

Most of the bicycles donated into the Luton & Dunstable Cycle Forum's recycling program are pretty predictable:  old 10 speeds, mountain bikes and 'bike shaped objects', almost all from the lowest tier in terms of price - and quality. 

There is the occasional exception, such as the Kerry children's bicycle that came in last March.

Today, we got something equally unusual:  a Bickerton folding bicycle. 

A Vintage Mystery: Kerry Bicycle Company

What is it?

Background

The LSTF-funded Travel Choices project in our area is coming to an end this summer. One very successful initiative (largely run by Adam) over the past year has been the bicycle workshops. This has included people bringing in their own bikes for free-at-point-of-service checks and then having it serviced/repaired by one of the project's mechanics, or learning how to service/repair their own bicycle themselves using the workshop's tools and having a mechanic on hand to assist and answer questions. 

The other aspect of this Travel Choices initiative, run through the workshops, was a donation scheme: bring in your old bicycle and donate it, then choose another one that suits you better from the ever-growing stock of bicycles donated by others. This effectively recycled a number of bicycles through the community. Each donated bike got checked over, serviced and repaired to the extent needed to make it road-worthy. Any bicycle that could not be made safe to ride would become a donor, 'cannabilised' for any useful parts. 

With the project coming to an end, the two local councils are working on transitioning their resources into "legacy" projects that can be run by local volunteers. The Luton and Dunstable Cycling Forum has been a key partner throughout the Travel Choices project, so it is the obvious contender to take over some of the activities that the Travel Choices project had run. And so the Forum finds itself the recipient of a lot of the cycling-related stock and inventory. 

And thus it came to pass that a van-load of donated bicycles (and boxes of components) was disgorged on our driveway this week!