Falcon bike, info and comments would be appreciated

[wurzelmike]

Recently invested in my third 'retro classic' bike. It all started at Easter when I came across a really sad and forlorn looking Dawes Kingpin at the local car boot :facepalm: The amount of rust on the thing suggested it was one stop from the scrap yard, and so a new hobby was discovered. Soon after I picked up a Sun Mist, a bike of many mysteries few of which have been solved but work continues...

The latest addition is this Falcon bike. I've spent the last few weeks trying to date the thing, maybe find a model name and stuff but haven't found much........until a few minutes ago when I came on here and read this really helpful thread on Reynolds tubing

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=266999

I'm now thinking the bike was made between '77-82, and has a 'plain gauge triangle medium spec bike'.

Anyone think this is right?

I'd also be interested in finding it's model name and anything else about the thing. Restoration ain't on the cards for the moment 'cus I've still got two 'almost finished' bikes and so plan to clean the bearings and clean the frame a little. Anything else will have to wait till next year.

thanks in advance, Mike

p.s I really hate the colour but otherwise love the look of the thing, any suggestions on a new colour would be welcomed

 

[Midlife]

Looks a bit like an Olympic.....usually they were purple or blue LOL Having said that Olympics were like a Ford fiesta, they never looked the same year on year. Also a lot of crossover with the Black Diamond.

Suicide (err GT) levers are mid 70's , don't have any strong recollection of the stem mounted levers though. Is there a frame number on it anywhere?

Shaun

 

[wurzelmike]

Thanks for the Info Shaun. Yep, I think you might be right about the Olympic name, the pics below seems to hint in that direction
There's a frame number on the BB but as you can see it's not something you can read. Still I now think it's an Falcon Olympic from '77 to 82. And (I believe) placed just above their black diamond model in the pecking order, about half the price of their top of the range model the Sans what's-it's-name

nice to know, I'll be doing some more googling about the bike, thanks for pointing me the right direction.

Mike

 

[Midlife]

Hi

The Frame number is almost certainly a Falcon so it's not a dressed up Raleigh / Carlton which had those wrap round stays as well. The Falcon Numbers were always a mystery to me, I'll have a look at My Falcon which is 74 ish (Falcon San Remo Equipe) and see what the number is as I can't remember of the top of my head.

Falcon's back then always rode well, shorter fork rake and more upright than their Raleigh counterpart. Frames Designed by Ernie Clements they would say The head and seat badges are quite old, the more modern ones were more raised...Later falcon decals also had a union flag on them.

Another Falcon trait is an almost complete lack of braze ons, you were lucky if you got a chainstay braze on for the rear mech LOL

The brakes should have a date stamp on them if original.......

I have a real soft spot for Falcon's as I used to sell them

Shaun

 

[wurzelmike]

Just checked the brakes - should have done that first I suppose, it's a '78 Falcon Olympic
It's so easy once someone points out how stupid you're being

So that's cleared up. I would really love to know how popular the Olympics were compared to the black diamonds and other bikes in the range, or even better, if there's any catalogs of the '78 bikes on the net.

It's strange not having any any braze ons, it's all rusty clips at the moment, not a good look. Was there a reason they didn't have any braze ons or did they just like to be different?

I suppose the wrap around stays were marketed as being better better in some ways than the standard ones, looks good anyway

 

[Midlife]

Just had a check of my 70's Falcon San Remo and the number is 98486 stamped on the BB........ here is a pic of it. I also had a San Remo Track frame as they ran a road and track team

http://i54.tinypic.com/a4bzt3.jpg

Back in the 70's at Cliff Pratt Cycles we had a lot of space for Falcon Bikes, My boss used to ride with Billy Holmes who went to work for Falcon as a rep so we stocked Falcon. Falcon had several problems selling bikes but the main difficulty was the competition namely Carlton who could sell almost like for like much cheaper. Also Viking had just had a shed load of taxpayers money (like De-Lorean cars) to set up in Ireland who could undercut on price.

The frames were built by 6 ladies who were never taught to braze on so they were essentially "bare"..until the 80's when they started to braze more bits on....

Shaun

 

[wurzelmike]

The San Remo looks like it was well worth twice the price of an Olympic, and probably more too They really knew how to make a good looking frame, any plans on putting yours together?

The fact the frame was put together by six ladies just adds something to it's story. I'm wondering if they employed women to do the job because the could be paid less, wouldn't be allowed now! Or because they were better at it, maybe both
And all that Olympic branding on my frame, oh, what the lawyers would make of that today.

Put on some new bar tape and applied a little autosol today, hope to take a ride on Sunday - still looks as rough as hell but ridable.

 

[satkin55]

It is very similar to a Black Diamond. Have a look at mine here viewtopic.php?t=417913

 

[Old Ned]

Frank Clements and Gerald O'Donovan were, I have been told, quite friendly. For this reason - in my opinion anyway - frames for Falcon could have been built in Worksop and vice versa, hence the similarities with the full wrap-over seat stay design. I reckon there was a lot of 'trading' within the mass cycle manufacturing community BITD, all of which may be muddying the waters for people researching low to medium price bracket bikes..

 

[pigman]

Re:

I may be wrong, but I dont recall any mass market frames having braze ons. Everything was clips - gear levers, bottle cages, top tube cables, bottom bracket cable guides. I dont think it was just Falcon that lacked braze ons