Sir Neil d'Menture
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Back in the day everyone in NW England had at least one Ribble bike in their garage. Road bike, Winter bike, race bike, TT bike or touring bike. Everybody had them.
You could walk upstairs at the Water Lane shop
pick a frame to suit your needs from the 100 or so hung up there, buy a box of bits and in a couple of hours you would have a brand new bike ready to ride.
In the middle of one of our many lockdowns I saw an old frame, some wheels and a box of bits being given away for collection some 50 miles away. Stated to be approx 1990 vintage. I agreed to pick up and had a couple of sleepless nights wondering what plod would say if they stopped me on M6 at 8PM. Anyway the handover in a Lidl car park went well and I came home with this
Rattle can sprayed in Canary yellow then touched up by brush with every shade of yellow or orange available. The wheels were cr@p and most of the bits I sold on for £40 - paid for the petrol!
The frame was straight and free from defects so a local powder coater shotblasted it and painted it this colour for £50. It may be coincidental that this was the colour of some skips he was treating. But it will pass for Telecom purple.
Then started the trawl for bits. I decided to go for Shimano 600 Tricolour as being more or less period specific. All bits were found though some needed much tlc. Crankset, seatpost and stem were polished to within an inch of their life and then I found the bars were too thin for the stem. The old beer can shim came into play.
Decals came from Lloyds, as ever.
The only real problem was the headset. The original 105 was a bit the worse for wear so I decided to put a 600 Arabesque on. Steerer tube was, of course, too short so then I had fun and games getting a new length of tube and finding someone to TIG weld it for me. That was another £20. I splashed out on a set of dedicated Arabesque spanners, but not genuine Shimano ones merely £10 copies from Poland.
Just finshed it and been out for a ride. Very nice and comfortable.
The purists might say that not everything is period correct, but then there never was a standard for these bikes. Specification varied according to personal taste. I do have some 6401 dual pivot brakes that I am tempted to put on, but they are not as shiney and bright as the 6400 so might not bother.
(Sorry about the blurred photos - my back doesn't like me bending over!)
The whole project has cost far more than the bike will ever be worth, but as a lockdown project it was a good thing to focus on - and it kept me in the garage and away from the wife....
You could walk upstairs at the Water Lane shop
pick a frame to suit your needs from the 100 or so hung up there, buy a box of bits and in a couple of hours you would have a brand new bike ready to ride.
In the middle of one of our many lockdowns I saw an old frame, some wheels and a box of bits being given away for collection some 50 miles away. Stated to be approx 1990 vintage. I agreed to pick up and had a couple of sleepless nights wondering what plod would say if they stopped me on M6 at 8PM. Anyway the handover in a Lidl car park went well and I came home with this
Rattle can sprayed in Canary yellow then touched up by brush with every shade of yellow or orange available. The wheels were cr@p and most of the bits I sold on for £40 - paid for the petrol!
The frame was straight and free from defects so a local powder coater shotblasted it and painted it this colour for £50. It may be coincidental that this was the colour of some skips he was treating. But it will pass for Telecom purple.
Then started the trawl for bits. I decided to go for Shimano 600 Tricolour as being more or less period specific. All bits were found though some needed much tlc. Crankset, seatpost and stem were polished to within an inch of their life and then I found the bars were too thin for the stem. The old beer can shim came into play.
Decals came from Lloyds, as ever.
The only real problem was the headset. The original 105 was a bit the worse for wear so I decided to put a 600 Arabesque on. Steerer tube was, of course, too short so then I had fun and games getting a new length of tube and finding someone to TIG weld it for me. That was another £20. I splashed out on a set of dedicated Arabesque spanners, but not genuine Shimano ones merely £10 copies from Poland.
Just finshed it and been out for a ride. Very nice and comfortable.
The purists might say that not everything is period correct, but then there never was a standard for these bikes. Specification varied according to personal taste. I do have some 6401 dual pivot brakes that I am tempted to put on, but they are not as shiney and bright as the 6400 so might not bother.
(Sorry about the blurred photos - my back doesn't like me bending over!)
The whole project has cost far more than the bike will ever be worth, but as a lockdown project it was a good thing to focus on - and it kept me in the garage and away from the wife....
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