F.A. Lipscombe Cycles

I have just found your excellent website and read the piece about the Frank Lipscombe frame.  First let me put to rest any suggestion that anyone other than Frank build his frames. Up until I went off to sea in the Merchant Navy in 1959 I knew Frank pretty well and hung around the shop in Markhouse Road whenever possible. I never heard Frank say a good word for any other framebuilder ever. As far as he was concerned there was only one person who could build a frame 'properly' and his name was Frank Lipscombe.  End of story.

I rode a 1950 Claud Butler Courier Anglais, lugless and double welded Accles and Pollock tube which Frank always said would fall apart one day and kill me!   My Dad bought it for me second hand in 1953 for £15 which was a lot of money back then.

I was a racing mad lad and Frank took me to the Century Road Club in Waltham Cross, about 1954 and I stayed a member throughout my cycling career.  I rode time trials mainly but some massed start, mainly evening 'sign up and race' events at Crystal Palace.  We used to train on a set of rollers on the pavement outside Frank's shop on Saturday afternoons to the amusement of passing shoppers. We thought we were so cool!

I was interested to read the piece about Ray Booty.  The Boot was hero to most of us, this quiet clarinet playing RAF National Serviceman seemed superhuman. I understand he had a naturally very slow pulse rate which helped his incredible stamina. Gordon Pirie the athlete was the same if you remember him.  But what is that about his gears? I remember him riding with a rear derailleur operated by a rod up the back forks.  He used to reach back to the base of his greatly extended seat tube and twist the lever to change gear.  We all called it a finger-chopper because you risked getting  your hand caught in the rear spokes.  (Ed: I wonder if Richard is confusing Ray Booty with Dave Keeler who used the Paris/Roubaix gears for a few years)

Pam Leggate (is Frank Lipscombe's daughter) and she has given us some of the details above.  She also tells us:

Here  are two photos of the shop (shown below), taken a few years apart, though I am unfortunately not sure of the exact dates. However, the shop front was altered around the late 1950s. The forecourt in the old shop photo shows part of a collection of old cycles which were on loan from Mick Elsden (Century CC I believe) who at that time had a large collection in his garage in Tottenham. Mick and his wife Floss used to provide the food at races in those days, and I am still in touch with their son John.

I note from the website that a Richard Masson (above)  mentions riding the rollers on the forecourt - this was a very popular 'sport' and I remember it drew quite large crowds. I also remember that two of our regular customers, Pete Ashman and Mick Groves used to have competitions on the rollers as to who could go the faster, and there was one memorable occasion when Pete flew off the rollers into the crowd. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but thereafter Pete was known as "Crash Ash". I don't know if Richard Masson would remember those names?

I didn't formally work in the shop, as I was still at school, but I supplied endless cups of tea to my parents and customers alike on Saturdays and, as I said, assisted in the workshop (though I suspect I was probably more of a hindrance than a real help!). I didn't take over the business at all, I'm afraid that I left on my marriage in 1965 and, if truth be told, was quite happy to be away from bikes! My mother worked full time in the shop, and did all the window dressing too, whilst my dad was the 'technician', doing repairs and building frames and wheels, etc.

A lot of the stock was supplied by Hobbs Bros (Joe and Albert) who ran a warehouse business not far away, though I can't remember exactly where. They were also good friends, with whom we often went on holiday. I often went with my dad when he was delivering/collecting frames which had to go to somewhere in the Pentonville Road to be enamelled - he didn't do that himself. I loved the smell of the paint shop.

One or two bikes were exported to a customer in, I think, Kenya. I remember dad complaining about the forms that had to be filled in, even in those days, for shipping to Mombasa. I don't know if you are aware that my dad invented the "PAL attachment", a device that enabled a small child (me!) to ride on the back of a tandem with a second chain ring, higher up, to enable short legs to reach the pedals.