Mark Manley
Raleigh Fan
I know this is older than is usually found among these pages but I thought I would share anyway. After buying a BSA three speed hub a couple of years ago, completely different inside to an SA I had an eye out for a suitable pre-Raleigh BSA to put it on and was expecting to get something post WW2. Last week I spotted what the seller thought but not certain was a BSA in rather rusty hand painted condition, it was only 12 miles away and was more than I originally thought it was worth but watched it in case of a price drop. Yesterday I started trolling through pictures of vintage BSA bikes and brochures concluding that it was a 1934 to 1940 Opperman Special which was their top of the range made to order bike the equivalent to the Raleigh RRA and hit the buy it button.
I picked it up this afternoon from the seller who had bought some tools from me last year so we knew each other, he does know about bicycles and suspected it was something special but did not bother investigating it further, he was not giving it away but I suspect would have charged more had he looked into it. It is a 21" frame so my size and I believe from 1935 which from what I can find out the only year the pump was mounted on the down tube, they were usually fore or aft of the seat post tube.
There were many models of lightweight BSA clubman sold at the time and they all seemed to have the front mudguard mounts a few inches up the fork tubes but only the Opperman Specials had the rear mounts up the seat stays which this one has, there is also chrome under the paint and feels fairly lightweight for that age of bike suggesting Reynolds tubing, all of the other lugs and frame details match as well.
Many of the components are original except for the wheels but I have the BSA hub for that, the SA drum brake hub is a later edition as I believe is the front wheel.
I will check it out more but as it seems to be something special I feel it deserves a full restoration rather than the renovation I usually do to bikes, I might even splash out on a professional respray, at least the choice of colour is easy as the only option was black even if the chrome was optional and most of the components were from a menu so no two were likely to be the same.
The seat post tube and head tube decals are available but the down tube had a Hubert Opperman signature which might need to be specially made by someone.
Time to break out the Whitworth spanners!
I picked it up this afternoon from the seller who had bought some tools from me last year so we knew each other, he does know about bicycles and suspected it was something special but did not bother investigating it further, he was not giving it away but I suspect would have charged more had he looked into it. It is a 21" frame so my size and I believe from 1935 which from what I can find out the only year the pump was mounted on the down tube, they were usually fore or aft of the seat post tube.
There were many models of lightweight BSA clubman sold at the time and they all seemed to have the front mudguard mounts a few inches up the fork tubes but only the Opperman Specials had the rear mounts up the seat stays which this one has, there is also chrome under the paint and feels fairly lightweight for that age of bike suggesting Reynolds tubing, all of the other lugs and frame details match as well.
Many of the components are original except for the wheels but I have the BSA hub for that, the SA drum brake hub is a later edition as I believe is the front wheel.
I will check it out more but as it seems to be something special I feel it deserves a full restoration rather than the renovation I usually do to bikes, I might even splash out on a professional respray, at least the choice of colour is easy as the only option was black even if the chrome was optional and most of the components were from a menu so no two were likely to be the same.
The seat post tube and head tube decals are available but the down tube had a Hubert Opperman signature which might need to be specially made by someone.
Time to break out the Whitworth spanners!
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