Drillium - From racing craze to bicycle artwork (Part 3)

From Colin Manwaring

While looking through your site I was inspired by your drillium pages and tales of Alf Engers.  I rode many times as a schoolboy in the same races as Alf in Kent and Essex and always looked up to him,so I decided to do a bit of drilling myself.  It is not 100% but not bad for a Black and Decker workmate and a hand-held drill. Obviously based on Alf’s chrome Shorter machine with a bit of poetic licence with the drilling which is done in the modern way with countersinking and paint.

I got the all-chrome lightweight frame some time back and have added the ‘Shorter’ decals myself,it has a slotted bottom bracket shell (see image below). i think the lugs are Cinelli,but only a guess,it has Cinelli bars and stem,Cinelli Unicanitor saddle, Huret Jubilee rear mech, Lamprade seatpin, Campag pedals with the quills removed, Weinmann 500 brakes, Regina Oro chain, Campag large-flange hubs 28-spoke tied and soldered on Mavic rims, 13-17 freewheel, Campag bottom bracket and chainset with 52 tooth ring not a 57 as Alf used as I dont think I would be able to turn it these days.

I still live in Gravesend, Kent, my local 25 course in the 70s was the Q25/3 (i think) it was the course where Alf Engers was stopped by the police for being in the 3rd lane, a race I was in myself – it was a very fast course and I think all the times I went under a hour were on this course.