Anyone here with a Ken Ryall?

A slightly unusual request.......... I have this mystery frame that bears the serial number K75013R. I always suspected that the 'K' and 'R' could stand for Ken Ryall. Is there anyone here with access to an old '70's Ken Ryall frame who could look under the bottom bracket shell and tell me if their serial number starts with a 'K' and ends with an 'R' like mine does?

My bracket shell has been replaced so there's no longer a number there, but the same number remains on the steerer tube.



Or any other ideas welcome......... Thanks

http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/bu ... lders.html

is there a K anywhere on the frame ?

Shaun

No........ just in the serial numbers.

There's a few pictures of the frame in 'gallery 2'/user albums/torqueless.

I actually phoned up Knight a few years ago in one of my sporadic attempts to find the maker of this frame. (never heard of them before I saw that classic lightweights page). They are still in business, but the frame building side of it is long gone I think. The bloke I spoke to was trying to be helpful, but I'm pretty sure this is a 1975 frame, so that's a long time ago... I was asking more or less the same question that I'm asking here.... "frame number starts with a 'K'. is it one of yours?" The 'R' could stand for 'road' or 'Reynolds' I suppose. Anyhow I couldn't get a definite answer either way..

I asked Shorters if it was one of theirs because it came to me originally with Shorter transfers.... but the kind that suggested 'resprayed by' rather than 'built by'. I was there in the shop 15 years later with the frame in bare metal. Couldn't get a definite anwer there either....
How much evidence do they need in order to say 'yes' or 'no'?....... or even: 'I dunno but I can ask the framebuilder' ?

Maybe it's bad form to walk in and out of bike shops with bare metal frames... much room for improvement in my 'bike-shop etiquette'! Let's face it... I been riding the same bike for 28 years....studiously ignoring every bicycle innovation since the 6-cog freewheel... how long are they gonna stay in business with customers like me?

The K might be a month code ? back in the 70's when I worked in a bike shop some frame manufacturers used a letter code for the month A= January etc so K = November.

K75 migh mean November 1975?

Shaun

Yes it could be a month code.. I hadn't considered that... I assumed that the '013' part of my serial number meant this was the 13th frame of 1975. Could equally well be the 13th frame of November 1975, possibly implying a much larger volume of manufacture.

The problem is that this frame has no 'special' features which could identify it as coming from a certain builder. It's a generic 531db road frame with Prugnat lugs and Campag ends. Perhaps that in itself implies a certain volume of manufacture.

Do you have any other pics of the lugs and seat stays? just out of sheer curiosity as 1973-78 is my sort of era

Shaun

If you click on the 'gallery' button at the bottom of this post it will take you to some pictures of my frame.... not very good ones!

One clue could be the fork crown. It is just like the one on this Jack Hearne on Classic Lightweights



except that on mine the two 'points' are not there. Well this is a common enough semi-sloping fork crown from that era.. what is it... a Haden? I don't know if mine is just a later version of basically the same fork crown or if the framebuilder took the trouble to cut and file those points away.



The lugs are Prugnat long points with triangular cut-out in the top-point. I think they came like that.. it's not like the framebuilder had to cut out those triangles. It doesn't look like anyone did much filing on the lugs beyond thinning the points but I don't know... these lugs look quite refined compared to some i've seen... and I mean ones I've seen with 531db in them, not the ones with gas pipe in 'em!

The seat-stays are the 5/8ths tapering ones you expect to see on a 531db frame, with the usual 'domed' ends where they are brazed to the dropouts.

Since you dig 73-78 (me too) I may have to dig out some old photos of this frame when it was painted Merckx/Ocana orange... You have been warned!

Interesting frame

The Prugnat lugs came out about 73 if memory serves..... in cheaper frames they were quite thick as no work was done on them.

Those have been thinned and prepped which is a good sign. The stop for the rear mech cable seems in the wrong place. When the bottom bracket was re-shelled did you go for underbracket cabling and have the rear mech stop moved from on top of the frame ?

Not sure why but it looks like a Harry Quinn...... or perhaps a Woodrup made for someone else.

All in all a nice frame

Shaun

That is the anomaly. That cable stop was there underneath the chainstay when I bought this frame in 1984, and the original 65mm bracket shell had a pair of metal channels underneath for the cables. I reckon the frame had been resprayed fairly recently when I bought it, so maybe someone took that opportunity to 'update' the cable routing. I guess under-the -shell was standard practice by 1984?. Anyhow I remember being glad it was where it was... I hate trying to clean the muck out from around those old top-of-the-bracket cable guides!

Over the years I've had this frame resprayed once and repainted it myself twice...I'm doing that again right now. I guess each time the old finish has been removed the lugs have got a bit thinner and refined, partly by accident and partly by design. I'll admit to giving them a good going over this time around, but they were never offensively thick.

I Will re-check Quinn and Woodrup numbering systems. IIRC Quinn numbering is incompatible with my frame number! Pennine looked like a good lead for a while.. I suppose I should contact them and ask about 'K's and 'R's

Anyway looks like there's no Ken Ryall owners about.... but if there is, you can help me even with a negative answer such as "my frame number is nothing like yours and definitely does not contain a 'K' or an 'R'!!!"

This frame identification malarkey is largely a snail-paced process of elimination...........

Back in 1975 I never came across a frame with under BB cable guides so that places it in the 80's from that point of view...

By then the vogue was for the rear brake cable to run across the top tube which was a real pain on the "undercarriage" when stopping at traffic lights LOL

Harry Quinn usually had a Q in the number somewhere at the start..

I guess the brakes are nutted and not an allen key ?

Shaun