F.C. Parkes Lightweight ‘48/‘49?

[TheDocmeister]

I’ve just picked this up from the local Gumtree. No history with it, I picked it up from the father of the owner and he knew very little about it.
It’s a bit grimy, but that seems to have been its saving! Genuinely can’t find anything really wrong with it that a bit of cleaning won’t sort out. At a push, it’s missing one Huret wing nut on the front wheel…

 

[TheDocmeister]

Here’s another few shots of it (still on the bike rack until I can find somewhere to stash it out of sight…)

 

[Jonny69]

Very rare bike. I don’t know how much you do or don’t know about Parkes bikes. FC Parkes started the Sun bicycle company. They were the factory-built bikes and the Parkes brand was used for the handbuilt lightweights. They shared frame numbers with Sun frames, so your P is 1948/1949:


Over the years on here, I’ve heard it said that the L in the frame number stands for Lightweight and designates it’s a Parkes frame and not a Sun. I’ve never seen any evidence to confirm this, but it has been consistent every time a Parkes turns up on here, including mine. Some more info here well worth reading and following the links: https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/f-c-parkes-sun-bicycles-frame-numbers-question.365685/

Parkes frames usually had clip headsets, even well into the 1950s. I’ve never got to the bottom of why that was, other than concluding maybe it was a Parkes ‘thing’. Yours doesn’t have a head clip.

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

Very nice and very desirable in my eyes.

 

[TheDocmeister]

“Parkes frames usually had clip headsets, even well into the 1950s. I’ve never got to the bottom of why that was, other than concluding maybe it was a Parkes ‘thing’. Yours doesn’t have a head clip.”

I had a quick poke about it yesterday evening and you’re spot on. The headset is marked “Specialized” I guess there’s been some work done to keep it on the road over the years…
My one big concern was the stem, it looks a little bent to me, but everything appears straight otherwise and it rides well (once I’d adjusted the incredibly narrow toe clips. You can just about see what I mean in this cropped shot.