Anyone know a Covent Garden frame builder, 70/80's?

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D_XZ

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Does anyone know of a framebuilder who had a shop in Covent Garden in the early to mid 80's? Possibly even late 70's?

My boss has a rather large tourer that was custom built for his body measurements. He can't remember the shop name and he's repainted it (by hand!!) at some point. Just curious to see if i can figure out where it came from - the Boss reckons the builder was quite well known at the time.
 
I think Covent Garden Cycles did do custom builds at one point. Whether they were built in house or subcontracted I don't know, but they certainly had an enormous road bike locked up outside when I was in London in the early nineties. I seem to remember they'd supplied Chris Greener with a frame:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Greener
 
The little shop that was off of Neal street?
Used to go there in the early 90's, don't remember any frame building at that time, and they didn't look like they had the space. Basement was retail.

Not there any more.
 
Not sure if the actual building was done at the shop but they took all the body measurements there and agreed all the dimensions/materials so some of the building expertise was located on site at least.

He does say it was in Convent Garden area & didn't think it was Grays Inn Road but not sure.

I'm guessing whoever it was is long gone now from the sounds of it
 
Sounds like the shop just took body measurements and sent them to an actual framebuilder to have the frame built.

There was a tiny shop in Soho called, I think, Paolo Garbini, who sold their own branded frames, not actually built by them of course.
 
Covent Garden Cycles for a short time in the early 80s had a second shop in Penton St, Islington - Tom Board had his workshop there for a little while - I don't remember whether he was there whilst the shop was going there but he certainly built frames there after it was closed for about a year. His workshop before that was behind Smiths enamellers down in Clerkenwell... I think Covent Garden Cycles owned by Norman Hillier did sell their own branded frames...
 
Covent Garden Cycles (in Norman Hillier's day, before he sold the business to Debbie DeMeritte and before it relocated into Nottingham Court) subcontracted all of their frame repair work and almost all of their modest custom frame business to Tom Board.

The extra-extra-extra large bike used for many years as a billboard (built for the tallest man in Britain) was made by Chas Roberts. It featured on a postcard which is still available locally. It was put out at the end of Notts Ct every morning until it was destroyed by a reversing delivery van.
 
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