Holdsworth Championship rebuild

Very nice! I picked up a Championship earlier this year and have been searching out info ever since. As you say, it takes a bit of trawling - and I knew what mine was to start with!
Without wanting to escalate the decal position controversy I thought I'd post a couple of pics of mine pretty much 'as found'. I'm pretty sure it was sitting in a garage since the mid eighties... It seems pretty original except for tyres and the rear wheel, so may help if you need references at all - just give me a shout if you need close-ups.

Hurrah! pictures of a bike... now that's more like it!

PeachyPM":zbbs46eh said:

Hurrah! pictures of a bike... now that's more like it!

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Ha Ha, quite, my thoughts exactly.

Scarily though it's yet another variant with different cable guides and dare I mention them different decal locations to the ones I found. How can a manufacturer make one lowish volume model and vary it so much in two year production period? It's worse than owning an Alpina BMW.

I will post some more photo's of mine later this weekend as I have managed a bit of assembly recently but the necessary evil that is work is getting in the way at the moment.

TheDocmeister":ml1jobsk said:

Very nice! I picked up a Championship earlier this year and have been searching out info ever since. As you say, it takes a bit of trawling - and I knew what mine was to start with!
Without wanting to escalate the decal position controversy I thought I'd post a couple of pics of mine pretty much 'as found'. I'm pretty sure it was sitting in a garage since the mid eighties... It seems pretty original except for tyres and the rear wheel, so may help if you need references at all - just give me a shout if you need close-ups.

Click to expand...

Ooh I like that, very nice and I might take you up on the photo's moving forward.

But I do have a couple of questions if you can answer them i.e what make is the front hub and rim? What make are the bars? and what make is the seat pin?

Seat pin is probably an alloy Birmalux if it's just plain with no markings or there might be a faint Birmalux stamp where the saddle clamp attzches

Front wheel is the original - if the online brochure is anything to go by - high flange Campagnolo with definitely an anodised rim, so I assume still Staral. It has a very 'square' profile. Bars are GB. Not sure about the seat post, but I'll have a look tomorrow and see what I can find markings-wise.
The rear wheel seems to have been replaced with a Rigida rim and Mailard low flange hub at some point - but still with a Campagnolo spear.

Saddle post is indeed marked Birmalux - looks like 26.4mm.
On closer inspection the hubs aren't Campagnolo at all! Sunshine is the marking on the spears - very Campagnolo in style I hasten to add. Amazing what hides under years of grime!

Midlife":2vmtkm0n said:

Seat pin is probably an alloy Birmalux if it's just plain with no markings or there might be a faint Birmalux stamp where the saddle clamp attzches

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TheDocmeister":2vmtkm0n said:

Front wheel is the original - if the online brochure is anything to go by - high flange Campagnolo with definitely an anodised rim, so I assume still Staral. It has a very 'square' profile. Bars are GB. Not sure about the seat post, but I'll have a look tomorrow and see what I can find markings-wise.
The rear wheel seems to have been replaced with a Rigida rim and Mailard low flange hub at some point - but still with a Campagnolo spear.

Click to expand...

TheDocmeister":2vmtkm0n said:

Saddle post is indeed marked Birmalux - looks like 26.4mm.
On closer inspection the hubs aren't Campagnolo at all! Sunshine is the marking on the spears - very Campagnolo in style I hasten to add. Amazing what hides under years of grime!

Click to expand...

Thanks Both, that's what I expected and what I took from the catalogue but it's nice to have it confirmed. The only bits I don't have that are correct are the wheels (both rims and hubs) so unless I can turn up a pair will go with what I have which is Mailard large flange hubs laced into Rigida rims which are correct period wise and the seat pin and saddle, seat pin I'm pretty certain I've got a correct Birmalux one somewhere although the one in there at the moment is an ITM which will work if I can't find the Birmalux and the saddle where i'll use one the PlanetX Holdsworth ones.

With the sun shining and having a day off work I decided I needed to get on with this one so below is where it started out this morning.

I didn't like the black Weinmann's, they don't look right so I found a pair of silver ones in the parts box, they need a good polish but will do for now for assembly purposes.

I'm not sure about the wheels either as they need a good clean but I do have the wheels this frame came with although I don't think them original either but are in a bit of a sorry state so was going to strip them down, polish the hubs and rims and re spoke them over the winter, so for now these will do again for the purposes of assembly.

The eagle eyed will also notice my next project to be started lurking behind which will be Frencher than a French thing that's pre disposed to Gallic shrugs.

And finished bike for now. This is going to be striped down a little bit over the winter to have a few parts polished and so there will be a final photo in the future once I've got round to all the cleaning and polishing but for now it's built.