English Bicycles

[riptidenj]

For whatever reasons I ended up growing Anglophile in the 1950s and 60s, one of the things I acquired a taste for was the English 3 Speed Bicycle-an "English Race" as it was often (incorrectly) called in the 1950s. I own only 1 at present, a 1969 Robin Hood-lower end Raleigh-that I purchased in 1999 for all of $60 USD. Came with a generator
too. I have put about 7,000 miles on it since then, commuting and pedaling around town. (It shares commuting duties with 3 other 3 speeds.) Lets me recapture some of the pleasures of my youth, lets me feel now and then that I have gone back to what one TV critic described as a "safer and saner" time (though those of us who actually remember the 1950s and '60s might question that description.), certainly a somewhat less hectic one-the population of the area I live in was probably half of what it is today. Pedaling around on it is rather taking a Colt Official Police or S&W Miliary and Police-or a Webley Mark IV or Mark VI to the range. On the one hand you feel you have something that is rather archaic and certainly out of fashion, on the other hand you feel you have a real piece of machinery,
something made by workmen who took steel and wood or leather and transormed into something that is more than the sum of its parts.