Who built what for whom??

Right, get your pigeons out because I may well be throwing a very large cat amongst them.

A cycling friend of mine of long standing and who has a genuine interest in the history of the sport and bikes related this to me on our Saturday ride. He works as an HGV driver and last week he was delivering to a factory in Barton-on-Humber and got talking to a guy, mentioning that he hoped he would get home early enough to get out on the bike. This guy then said that although he wasn't a cyclist himself, he worked as a 'bike builder' for many years - 'for a bloke called Ernie Clements, have you heard of him?' Friend obviously says 'Yes!' and then he got the full story.

Seems he started with Ernie at the old Elswick-Hopper works in Barton as a lug filer and gradually worked his way up to being a very proficient frame builder. When EC bought Coventry Eagle and moved Falcon production to the Brigg site he went with him and said that he built frames for guys called 'Lambert' (obviously Keith), 'Woodburn' (John), 'Hitchen' (Albert) amongst others so he must have been pretty good at his craft.

Now for the 'cat' part. He reckons that EC (as can be expected) was good mates with other people 'in the trade' (such as Gerald O'Donovan) and they built frames for many other companies - including Viking, Carlton and Raleigh. This ties in with comments I have seen that Carlton also built for other people and it would appear from that spare production capacity was moved around between them all as and when necessary. I think he said that he could tell where a frame was built from the serial number.

Now comes the killler bit. One day they had to send a van to Humberside Airport to collect a French guy who was coming over for measuring up for frames. When he arrived he was very arrogant and refused to ride in a van so a taxi was ordered. He could speak English (but wouldn't) and knew exactly what he required in the frames - which were built by the guy in question.

Oh, I forgot to say - he wore glasses and had a pigtail. Remind you of anyone?

So, true or false, what do you think?

Interesting!

It seems LF used Gitane branded frames up to 1988. The in 1989 the Super U team had "Raleigh" frames.

Paul, I find this completely believable.
When Falcon got the UK sole import rights for shimano, mainly to give them a source of decent cheap components, and to sell to wholesalers, a small wholesaler and manufacturers agent, Bill Butler, told me that he carefully worked out a monthly order that he could afford for the next 6 months. On receiving the whole order immediately he asked Clements how he was supposed to pay for it, and was told "We've mucked up bigger companies than yours".

Doctoring of brands happens in many sports can't see why cycling would be any different...

I worked for years for a major UK motorcycle leather suit manufactuer and in that time I re-branded more suits for top racers than I can think of..

Old Ned":2wxmk1dl said:

Right, get your pigeons out because I may well be throwing a very large cat amongst them.

A cycling friend of mine of long standing and who has a genuine interest in the history of the sport and bikes related this to me on our Saturday ride. He works as an HGV driver and last week he was delivering to a factory in Barton-on-Humber and got talking to a guy, mentioning that he hoped he would get home early enough to get out on the bike. This guy then said that although he wasn't a cyclist himself, he worked as a 'bike builder' for many years - 'for a bloke called Ernie Clements, have you heard of him?' Friend obviously says 'Yes!' and then he got the full story.

Seems he started with Ernie at the old Elswick-Hopper works in Barton as a lug filer and gradually worked his way up to being a very proficient frame builder. When EC bought Coventry Eagle and moved Falcon production to the Brigg site he went with him and said that he built frames for guys called 'Lambert' (obviously Keith), 'Woodburn' (John), 'Hitchen' (Albert) amongst others so he must have been pretty good at his craft.

Now for the 'cat' part. He reckons that EC (as can be expected) was good mates with other people 'in the trade' (such as Gerald O'Donovan) and they built frames for many other companies - including Viking, Carlton and Raleigh. This ties in with comments I have seen that Carlton also built for other people and it would appear from that spare production capacity was moved around between them all as and when necessary. I think he said that he could tell where a frame was built from the serial number.

Now comes the killler bit. One day they had to send a van to Humberside Airport to collect a French guy who was coming over for measuring up for frames. When he arrived he was very arrogant and refused to ride in a van so a taxi was ordered. He could speak English (but wouldn't) and knew exactly what he required in the frames - which were built by the guy in question.

Oh, I forgot to say - he wore glasses and had a pigtail. Remind you of anyone?
So, true or false, what do you think?

Click to expand...

Laurent Fignon :?:

You might like to think that but I couldn't possibly say

The bloke says he was never told his name but it sure sounds like him.

Frames were sent to the 'other companies' in the raw state for spraying etc.

"Framebuilders of trust" were quite common on the continent back in the day but hadn't appreciated that similar arrangements existed on a wide-ish scale in the UK. One instance that stands out is the ANC-Halfords "Peugeot" bikes from the '87 TdF, apparently Brian Rourke jobs in reality.

David