Technical & Reference Section > Tech and Restoration
Birmingham Wheels Frame - Reynolds bars
dinglem:
Some great comments about this frame here - thanks guys ;D
I managed to find a little time to strip a few of the components off it yesterday, and also gave the frame a quick check-over and polish. There are no dings, dents or scratches in the chrome to speak of, so the original finish can definitely be retained. It isn't 100% at this stage but a bit of elbow grease (and maybe an attempt at the coke/silver foil trick?) should bring it up nicely i think. The drop-outs are pretty much perfect too :daumenhoch:
The forks are Tioga Max Flo Aero which were made by Tange and so can also be presumed to be original.
I've also noticed that the Reynolds 531 sticker mentions that this frame uses the Butted Reynolds tubing; information on the BMXMuseum site indicates that either plain gauge or more expensive Butted options were available, so it looks like butted tubing was used for this frame. All of the repro Reynolds 531 decals appear to be without the Butted option annotated from what i can gather, unless somebody knows any different?
Everything had obviously been well greased prior to the last build as i had no issues whatsoever when stripping her down. Once the seat post clamp (MX hinged) had been released the post just pulled out by hand with minimal effort. It is a tidy looking Shimano DX item in nice condition.
The cranks initially appeared to be Sugino CT 175's, but will require a rechrome. (Not sure about that spider though? Anyone??)
The wheels are super-skinny UKAI 20 x 1 1/8 items on silver Suzue hubs. They do look a bit funky but they seem to suit the lightweight racer feel of the bike. They are definitely growing on me anyway....
I'm not too sure what i will retain and what i will replace, but there are some nice components there and it seems a shame to change some items which could potentially have been from the original race build. The more i look at it and now i've looked beyond the frame and at the other components the more i think i got a bit of a bargain!! :daumenhoch:
dinglem:
Well, i have just contacted another Birmingham Wheels owner, who has sent me the following picture of his frame. I have already added this to the full listing on page 1 of this thread for reference and to keep the full known Wheels listing complete.
What is interesting is that this guy is the original owner, having purchased the frame directly from the Birmingham Wheels workshop back in the day. He states that this frame (with the lower seat post tube) is actually a 'Pro' frame size as this is what he ordered.
At that time this frame was chrome and he actually watched the black decals being added to his frame by Trev Robinson.
I was under the impression that the frames with the taller seat post tube were 'Pro' frames and the one pictured with the shorter seat post tube was an 'Expert', but this info contradicts this. I am still after the top tube lengths on the frames with the longer (higher) seat posts tubes and also the BB to top tube lengths for reference and comparison.
Anybody got this info?
dordymush:
Cool find
But don't take the OG stickers off it pleaseeeeeeee :'(
dinglem:
--- Quote from: dordymush on January 27, 2014, 12:32 AM ---Cool find
But don't take the OG stickers off it pleaseeeeeeee :'(
--- End quote ---
Thanks - i'm pretty chuffed with it!!! 8)
I've already gathered quite a few parts for the build, have retained many that came with it and simply cleaned them up, and managed to get a load of information from old Wheels Team riders whom i've tracked down/Fb-stalked, including some great period Birmingham Wheels race photies :Great_Britain:
Just waiting on their permission before posting them up :4_17_5:
I'm not too sure the Wheels stickers are the originals, well not the ORIGINAL originals anyway. The guy i bought it off was telling me a story about how he got some replacement stickers for it by going to see some guy about the frame 15+ years ago and during the conversation he pulled a set of decals out of a drawer for him, but to be honest i was so excited about how little he was asking for the frame i think my brain was filtering out all of the peripheral sound...! I was so excited i wasn't really listening. I have just emailed him after reading your comment so hopefully he can re-tell the story. So they might be, they might not. Depends if he ever used the new set. Or, they might be an original set of Wheels decals but not the original ones to the bike.... if you know what i mean. Will let you know.
The battle-scarred decals on the downtube are actually probably good enough to retain, thinking about it.... Undecided.
dinglem:
Ok – I just heard back from the guy I bought the Birmingham Wheels frame from.
He has owned if for over 20 years, having picked it up from a car boot sale with the intention of looking for something nippy to use for bike polo(!) Having immediately been offered 50pounds for it by a guy from a Midlands bike shop (Bike Pro, Yardley), and once he realized what it was he called into the estate office at the Birmingham Wheels Park and spoke to a guy there; he said they still had some decals ‘floating around in a drawer’ so gave him a set, and the ones still present on this frame are that set. The Reynolds sticker is the original that was on the bike when he bought it.
So, they are ‘original’ Birmingham Wheels decals, but not the original ones to the bike.
He has not used it for over 15 years, during which time it has been stashed away in his loft before he eventually decided to sell it. So that's established a little bit of history about this particular frame.
One forum member has also sent me some pictures of his Birmingham Wheels Mini which I have now added to the full known frames listing on page 1 of this thread. He also sent a few cool period adverts which he has kindly said I am free to post :coolsmiley:
From a recent thread on this forum I have also seemingly discovered what the curious original cranks are that came with the bike, as pictured earlier in the thread. I thought they looked a lot like Sugino CT’s but the spider was all wrong, having a small tear-drop pattern on the relatively thin arms; turns out they are Hanabishi, made in Japan in the early 80's:-
http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/skyway/64537/2
http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/se_racing/62038/2
http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/schauff/9776/1
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