Caminargent
D. E. Twitchett
Bert Brighty's Caminargent with all-alloy components
Way back in the dim and distant nineteen-fifties Brighty's Cafè in the Essex village of Abridge was a regular stopping place for our club. I can still remember the loud cheer rendered by my clubmates when scraping noises from the kitchen indicated that our eagerly awaited toast had been burnt and was just the undergoing restoration!
Bert Brighty was something of a character in Eastern cycling circles, but was from an earlier generation. I never saw him but can still recall the cartoon of him on his Sunbeam which adorned the cafè wall.
The photograph shows the
cafè at that time, evidently on a weekday, for the cycles
would be stacked ten deep at weekends
Come the sixties and
my generation dispersed around the country and abroad and Brighty's was
temporarily forgotten.
Sometime around 1970 I received a phone call suggesting that I contact Mr Brighty junior who was disposing of his father's effects which included a 'funny' bicycle. Thus did I become the owner of the late Bert Brighty's Caminargent. I kept it for twenty years or more, never rode it, but from time to time lent it to riders with less weight and shorter legs than me so as to give it some use in suitable events. Sometime during the nineties in the midst of a ten year spell of unemployment I sold it along with other machines which were too small for me to ride.
I am told that subsequently the machine has been altered, but the pictures here show Bert's Caminargent exactly as Bert left it. Every item of equipment was aluminium, unsullied even by plastic handlebar tape. How Bert must have longed for an alloy chain. Note Constrictor original open-sided tyres in the close-ups.
The machines were imported by Hicking of Station Approach, Hayes, Kent
Below is an interesting illustration of the components used to build the Caminargent frame
Sometime around 1970 I received a phone call suggesting that I contact Mr Brighty junior who was disposing of his father's effects which included a 'funny' bicycle. Thus did I become the owner of the late Bert Brighty's Caminargent. I kept it for twenty years or more, never rode it, but from time to time lent it to riders with less weight and shorter legs than me so as to give it some use in suitable events. Sometime during the nineties in the midst of a ten year spell of unemployment I sold it along with other machines which were too small for me to ride.
I am told that subsequently the machine has been altered, but the pictures here show Bert's Caminargent exactly as Bert left it. Every item of equipment was aluminium, unsullied even by plastic handlebar tape. How Bert must have longed for an alloy chain. Note Constrictor original open-sided tyres in the close-ups.
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 Detail images of the all alloy Caminargent showing how the alloy tubes (with cork reinforcment inserts at the ends) were bolted into the alloy lugs. The interior of the lugs is eight-sided as is the tubing so as to eliminate the possibility of torsional twist. The lugs are bolted by two bolts - one screwing into the other. The fork blades were also bolted into the alloy fork crown and the fork ends bolted to the blades.. Caminargent produced a saddle with alloy framework and they specified Stronglight alloy cotterless chainsets. The sectional construction meant that tubes damaged could be replaced simply and also the machine could be dismantled for transport. The Patent No. 3912-09 was taken out in 1936 |
Below is an interesting illustration of the components used to build the Caminargent frame
