Parkes Lightweight
- Thread starter funk2monk
- Start date
Guinessisgoodforyou
Retro Wizard
chickendrumsticks
Senior Retro Guru
That's a nice old thing. Is it me, or is the BB axle back to front? Could be the angle of the picture I guess.Hi,
I’m looking at doing a restoration on this Parkes but would like to know age and possibly model of bike to help with sourcing components. Frame came as a bare frame. Looks like it’s had a rattle can gold re spray in its past.
Any pointers greatly received
Jonny69
Senior Retro Guru
Post 7 in this thread is a list of the date codes: https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/j-c-parkes-year-and-model.449551/
Sun and Parkes models shared the same numbering scheme, which were one or two two letters followed by numbers, usually on the rear dropout. Yours looks to be V12723 - I haven’t seen one with the smaller ZS like yours and those letters look different, so maybe they were added as owner’s initials or something. Anyway, a V would be 1954/1955. Z would be 1958/1959.
I think that looks fairly consistent but my first thought was that it’s a bit later than that. It’s got the later Parkes head badge, Parkes of that era usually had clip headsets (I don’t know why) and those over- bottom bracket cable guides were more common in the early 70s. @keithglos used to mention he would get FC Parkes visit the shop trying to sell frames which weren’t the best quality. Yours might be one of those because it doesn’t have quite the detail that the earlier handbuilt frames had. The lugs look heavier, pressed dropouts etc.
As I understand it, Parkes models (at least the earlier ones) were technically all handbuilt, while the Sun models were the factory built ones. I don’t think they had model names like the Sun bikes did. There might be a bit of chrome hiding under the paint. Equipment probably would have been the same as on the Sun bikes.
Sun and Parkes models shared the same numbering scheme, which were one or two two letters followed by numbers, usually on the rear dropout. Yours looks to be V12723 - I haven’t seen one with the smaller ZS like yours and those letters look different, so maybe they were added as owner’s initials or something. Anyway, a V would be 1954/1955. Z would be 1958/1959.
I think that looks fairly consistent but my first thought was that it’s a bit later than that. It’s got the later Parkes head badge, Parkes of that era usually had clip headsets (I don’t know why) and those over- bottom bracket cable guides were more common in the early 70s. @keithglos used to mention he would get FC Parkes visit the shop trying to sell frames which weren’t the best quality. Yours might be one of those because it doesn’t have quite the detail that the earlier handbuilt frames had. The lugs look heavier, pressed dropouts etc.
As I understand it, Parkes models (at least the earlier ones) were technically all handbuilt, while the Sun models were the factory built ones. I don’t think they had model names like the Sun bikes did. There might be a bit of chrome hiding under the paint. Equipment probably would have been the same as on the Sun bikes.
Last edited:
Old Ned
Old School Grand Master
Could be an early Stronglight. Their axles had 'outside' threading which soon got modified to an 'internal' threading.
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