Bruce's Bikes

Superbe by name

Well, this is a wee bit of a departure for me. A new bike not very vintage, not very light and with no sporting pretensions. In fact, it's only 34 years old which makes it by far the youngest bike I have. It could be the grandson...

Hobbs Superbe as I found it. I had an email from someone the other day asking what's happened to the Hobbs I wrote about last year. Well, I'm afraid that restoration has stalled for want of a pair of wheels. I've cleaned the...

The festive period isn't the best to find time for doing up a bike so progress has been rather slow of late. I was hoping that it might have been possible to salvage the rims on the Parkes' wheels but they're just too far gone....

The Parkes' serial number: LL1650 This F. C. Parkes is proving a hard one to pin down. First I thought it was a 1939/early '40s bike, then a 1947 machine based on the date code on the Sturmey AW rear and now the front BF...

A good dousing with WD40, a rub with a paint brush and a Doherty brake is revealed. I wasn't expecting that. I've seen the odd alloy Doherty caliper looking like a GB but this is a steel one with quick release chrome. Actually,...

Well, would you believe it. After pinning my reputation (What reputation? -Ed) on a guesstimate of 1939/40 for the F. C. Parkes in the previous post, it transpires I was out by eight years. The bike is post-war rather than pre-war. It...

A tourer from the middle of last century - what a find. Today, I'm celebrating another "dump" find, one of my best yet. It's an 1939/early '40s F. C. Parkes, a hand-built lightweight from the company that made Sun bicycles...

Do you see a face in this pic of the bag? The upright flap is like a gelled-up quiff, the buckles are the eyes and the leather reinforcement underneath is the frog-like mouth. Just over a year ago, I wrote about a barn find...