Uncle Fred Rides Again Cycle World

I had been vaguely aware of this South London marque for some years, having seen the odd bicycle on a VCC ride and adverts in Sporting Cyclist.  Real involvement was kindled when early in 2008 I obtained as a job lot four frames one of which included a Fred Dean. No pigment was left on it and the just transfer was a red and gold head with a racing cyclist, an accost in York Road, Wandsworth, and SW18. These transfers are now bachelor from H LLoyd Cycles (encounter Links to related sites).

Closer examination revealed a quality lugless frame with Campagnolo ends and brazes on for barcons. In that location were a few other nice touches especially around the braze-ons which indicated a frame upon which care had been taken. There was a frame number 6704 on the steerer tube on which I consulted Bryan Clarke (the fount of all knowledge on London builders). His proposition was that it was the fourth frame built in 1967. Fred worked for Claud Butler and was manager of the Clapham Manor Road branch. For two years from 1955 one of our members Eric Hall worked for Fred on Saturdays. He paid a good wage of 30 shillings and Eric remembers him equally being extremely knowledgeable and a good employer.

After Claud Butler went bankrupt Fred fix on his own, the shop opening in 1958. He had a number of addresses in York Road: 356 and 535 then finally appropriately 531. Information technology is thought that frames were congenital by Beak Gray or another frame architect who had worked for Claud. Sporting Cyclist suggested Fred was besides a frame builder but this is unconfirmed. It has also been suggested that his lugless frames were built by Ray Cooke who built for Allins.

Fred sponsored a racing squad in the early 60'southward for which Dave Bedwell and Tony Robinson rode. The first passenger to exist associated with Fred was Jock Andrews who won 5 French Road races in 1958, competed in the Tour de France and came 13th in the Worlds that year. In his outset advertisement in Dec 1958 Sporting Cyclist prominence is given to a''Jock Andrews' frame priced at £xvi 16s. At the end of the lx's Fred seems to accept got in trouble with the Inland Revenue and decamped to Europe (possibly Frg as his wife was German language) leaving a sign that allegedly hung in the shop window for many years "out to dejeuner back in ane hour" or words to that effect.

Fred Dean advert. 'Sporting Cyclist' Oct 1963

Leafing through a pile of Sporting Cyclist I was recently given I came across in the May 1964 upshot a three folio article about Fred himself.  Entitled "Ane of the Showtime" information technology told the fascinating story of how in the 1930's, bored with English fourth dimension trialling he rode a number of races in France including Paris-Chartres and the Tour de Paris. His start foray across the channel was in 1931 to ride the Paris-Verneuil a 180 mile day race. Unfortunately, he was prevented from competing by the organisers on the grounds he was non French.  His first race was afterwards that yr the Paris-Dieppe over roads surfaces all the same not fully repaired after WW1. His bicycle with its deep Highgate confined and medium ratio Sturmey attracted at lot of interest. In fact most continental racers never having seen a hub gear causeless it was a brake!

Unfortunately, there is cypher near the business across a picture of the shop, presumably at the time this would have been viewed equally tacit advert. The article also contains some illustrations of Fred's ain touring bike with a number of interesting features including:

one. Two synchronised Mafac cantilever brakes on the rear working from a unmarried lever

2. Seat pivot bolt frontward facing to reduce wear on the saddlebag

3. Gear lever mounted at the front of the handlebar stem together with a bell

Fred is also shown in the article riding a racing frame with a Paris Roubaix gear which would support the contention he was an experimenter.

Fred Dean advert. 'Sporting Cyclist' July 1962

During the ten years the shop was opened he offered a complete range of frames and towards the stop offered stock below the recommended retail price. Clearly Fred was an innovative designer, even his own pre war machine looks ahead of its time with its upright angles and shut clearances.  In  1963 he advertised a frame with a reinforced bottom bracket lug, the Rigidex . He seems to accept combined Continental design with British craftsmanship, eg the 1962 Super Italia model. My ain frame has had the respray information technology deserves, courtesy of Mario Vaz, and rides as only a quality frame can; that hard to achieve balance between responsiveness and comfort.

Any farther information on Fred Dean would be virtually welcome, especially sight of a catalogue, information on frame builders, details of other frame numbers, and more than information virtually Fred himself.

References:
Thanks to Bryan Clarke and Eric Hall for information
Fred Dean advertised in Sporting Cyclist from December 1958 until the end of 1966 (usually alternate issues)
May 1964 Sporting Cyclist contains a 3 page article about Fred Dean

Bryan Clarke explains the numbering of Fred Dean Frames:

Having recently succumbed to the lure of a plain but beautifully made Fred Dean frame, the seller revealed that he had buying of more than than a few of Fred'due south frames and explained the system to me when I asked him to appointment mine; frame number 5554. Only, the first digit represents the year of build based on when Fred first started having frames fabricated nether his own proper noun in 1958. Therefore 1 = 1958, 2 = 1959 so forth. Therefore mine has a date of 1962 whilst the frame belonging to Steve Griffiths, 6704 would accept been made in 1963. The remainder of the numbers could be a running total of frames built but this would mean that 150 were congenital between Steve's and mine, surely too many for a small concern but who knows.

There was also confirmation that the great Bill Greyness was indeed the person responsible for building Fred Dean frames as suggested in Steve's article.

John Spooner shows u.s.a. the Fred Dean he rode in the early 60's:

I bought my Fred Dean in 1959. Information technology was the  "Campione" model, 531DB, Prugnat short signal Italia lugs, Agrati forkends. Cost me £13 13s.Fred's adverts said his frames followed the Italian mode with 72 head, 73 seat, with 1 seven/8″ forkrake. Information technology was a super frame, so much better than the usual 73/71 with yards of rake most frames had then. The  transfers were e'er on the summit tube, FRED DEAN in nearly ¾" block capitals. and headbadge transfer.
They were very popular in the south London bunches, Thames Velo, Morden CRC etc. The late Ken Warren and his team all rode Deans.It's a shame I haven't nonetheless got it just I gave it to a Brighton Velo clubmate for cyclo cross. Needless to say information technology got wrecked!  That was in 1964 and I had just bought a Merlin, which luckily I yet have.

Here is a photo of me on the Fred Dean in the 1963 Sussex Road Championshipss, 88 miles round the Cowbeech circuit. I came 2nd to Barry Carpenter afterwards puncturing and irresolute a bike.

My Fred Dean specification was:

Wheels – Mavic sprints 32/forty on Campag Tape l/f q/r hubs with 15/17g spokes but 14/16g on the gear side. Regina 5 block 13-15-18-21-24. Regina chain.

Rear tub D'Alessandro cotton Imperforabile, which punctured!  Front was a Dutch Radium Criterium. Lovely tubs, very well made and always went onto the rim dead true. They were difficult to get in this country; Chainset – Campag Tape 48/52t; pedals – Campag record track;  brakes Mafac Racer; stem Ambrosio G Prix 5″ with Phillipe Franco Belgebars.
The gears were Simplex Prestige with Campag bar-stop control. These gears were new  in 1963. Previously I used Huret Allvit – they always worked very well, only I felt like a change.
Saddle Brooks B17 "French" with Ideale Competition clip, with that clip yous could become very fine adjustnent. GB stainless clips, Paturaud tie stop straps.EDCO nitrogen pump, with Terry clips (nether down tube in image to a higher place). TA cable guide on stalk bolt with Watney Cerise Barrel adept luck charm attached. Tressorex fabric record. TA "crac" d/t bottle cage.
The frame was Orangish flam with Blue panels and chrome forepart ends.The rider was 21 years erstwhile and hither is in Brighton Velo yellow Unis Sport jersey, Raxar shorts, Hector Martin shoes. Rider looks tired as he had punctured and took two laps (22) miles to regain leaders and so attacked straight away. There were four left on terminal lap. I finished 2d in the final dart

Webmaster adds:

In response to my request for the above information, John replied: "Promise this is interesting. I kept a record of everything when I raced. I wasn't really an "anorak", that was the jacket scooter (Mods) riders wore! Actually, I had a Vespa 160cc GS scooter to become to races in those days, and every bit I came from Brighton where all the Mods & Rockers had their battles I was often stopped by the police force asking where I was going. A chip stupid really equally I had the cycle and wheels strapped to the upright rear carrier!"

Photo of John Spooner on the Fred Dean in the 1963

Dave Bedwell in Fred Dean colours, aged 34 here he is followed by Brian Robinson (St Raphael), two Ryall Raxars' riders - one mayhap Tony Mills and Jim Grieves (Heylett) competing in the 1962 Island of Man Route Race. Bedwell, existence quite short, always rode small frames with very trivial distance between head and down tubes equally can be seen here. Cheers to John Spooner for identifying these riders.

Some other image of John on his Fred Dean at the kickoff of the Dulwich Paragon Route Race, 1962

Here is a picture of Lee, in SWRC colours, on his Fred Dean taken in 1966 at a race in Ashdown Forest. Although Fred'south frames always had the transfers on the top tube Lee had his re-sprayed with the proper name on the downwardly tube just to be unlike! This machine was built with Oscar Egg lugs. Lee tells u.s.a. that Fred was a wonderful character who always gave therm loads of credit, which led to his downfall! Lee rembers that Fred and his wife always showed upwards at races in his red 1956 American Ford Thunderbird. He was a existent extrovert!

Lee Strugnell writes:

I have just read the story on Fred Dean Frames. I used to live in Wandsworth and owned a Fred Dean for about  ten years, as did many of  united states of america in the South Western Road Gild. Information technology was a great cycle and served me
well in many races. Fred told me that my frame was built past a guy  named Brian Packer.I don't think at that place was room at the shop for frame building and I never saw any sign of it. Sadly I don't know where Bran Packer built the frames. His signature was a curved brake span at the rear which followed the shape of the brake stirrups – very cool!

Roger Pratt on his Fred Dean:

Quite why I bought a London frameset in Spring 1960 when I lived in Cardiff I'm not sure. However, Dave Bedwell rode one and we had a Bedwell lookalike in the Ajax, Jimmy Mathers, who was also 1 of my heroes. (Jimmy rode The Oats in 1956.)

The frame toll £12.19s 6d from memory; my take abode pay was about £4.50s a week. It was made to measure with a 25″ seat tube. The complete wheel would have been about £25.00. Information technology travelled to Cardiff by British Railways. Information technology was 531, had plainly Nervex or Prugnat lugs and Campag ends. It was finished in gloss black with powder blue head and seat panels and gilt lug lining – very tasteful. It had Gold Fred Dean transfers on the meridian tube which was usual rather than the downward tube. This photo was taken by Len Thorpe in the Severn Road Social club fifty in July 1961 when I was xviii.

Equipment – Campag. large flange hubs, Fiamme rims, Pirelli Leggero tubs, Stronglight cranks, TA Criterium rings, steel Cinelli badged stem and 17B bars, Brampton pedals, Brooks Professional saddle, Mafac Racer brakes, Campag. front and rear gears, HB control for the front changer, v-speed block, Christophe toeclips and straps, Detto Pietro shoes, TA clip-on muzzle and canteen, Bluemel'due south pump with a Campag. adaptor and pump clip. There were no braze-ons – non fashionable at the time – except the rear restriction span.

Roger Pratt of Cardiff Ajax since 1959 photographed on his Fred Dean competing in the Severn Road Club 50-mile TT in 1969

The frame was built up for me at Charlie Alexander's shop in Cardiff docks. Charlie and his frame builder, Cliff Smith, built his own frames (as C.W.Alexander) and they were quality products – he built me a frame in 1966 for the Milk Race.

I cannot remember what happened to the Fred Dean. I began road racing in 1962 and several of us in the Ajax bought Eddie Soens frames from Liverpool – built by his son – Billy? Soens. Team-mates later went for George Brooks frames from Bristol then Ron Coopers if anyone remembers those names.

Brian Baldwin of Polhill Racing Club:

Two or iii of u.s. in the Wigmore Cycling Club, based in the Medway Towns in Kent owned a Fred Dean in the late 1950's. Mine was a 1958 'Italia' model, which had plain lugs, looking very similar to the Oscar Egg lugs in 1 of your pictures, and those on Lee Strugnell's automobile. This was 'all the rage' at that fourth dimension, and my frame was built to 20 one and a one-half inches with 73/71 seat and head angles (best Italian exercise at the fourth dimension).

It cost xvi guineas – £16.16s. (£sixteen.80), and I readily recall the Saturday railroad train ride from Chatham to Waterloo and then some other to Wandsworth Town station which was 100 yards from the shop at 356 York Road to collect information technology. Fred took a £v.00 deposit and the balance was cleared past weekly 10 shilling postal orders until it was paid for, and I still take the payments book with Fred's signature on each receipt!

Interestingly, my current 2010 Colnago EPS has very similar frame angles to the Fred Dean, although the wheelbase is much shorter than that used in the 1950's. It also cost about 160 times more than the FD…

Fred was ever dressed in black shirt, trousers and shoes which somehow added an air of mystery to him, just was always friendly to us youngsters (I was seventeen in 1958) and on each visit there was always the obligatory cup of bike-shop tea.

The frame was painted in a skillful strong yellowish with a black head tube, with the maker's transfer (on which the rider depicted looked to be the aforementioned chap as on the BLRC logo) and a small black panel on the seat tube, with the maker's proper noun in plain black block capitals on the downward tube. The vogue in those days was not to have whatever bosses brazed on every bit it was reckoned to weaken the frame, so all cables utilised Campagnolo clips.

Mine was congenital up with Cinelli stem and 66 'Campione del Mondo' bars, Campagnolo front and rear mechs with handlebar controls, a TA/Stronglight chainset with a Regina 5 speed block. Mafac 'Racer' brakes helped to stop, and Lyotard 'Marcel Berthet' single sided pedals with Cristophe toeclips and André Bertin straps provided the propulsion. I sat on a Brooks B17 'Competition narrow' saddle. Wheels were Campagnolo quick release modest-flange hubs built on to Fiamme sprint rims, but I could merely e'er afford D'Allessandro 'Balilla' training tubs! A TA stem-fitting unmarried bottle cage with a 'Vitelloise' bottle completed the whole thing.

I raced effectually the due south-east counties on it for the 1958/9 seasons and and so stupidly, with hindsight, sold up in Spring 1960 to fund driving lessons for my first car. The Fred Dean was advertised in Cycling Weekly and sold the solar day after publication for the advertised £thirty to a immature lad who was driven down to Chatham from London past his father. What a bargain!

At least one of my friends – Dave Benger (see below) – bought a Fred Dean in the same yr, and Dave rode his with rather more success than myself, winning several races

Dave Benger as well remembers:

I had my frame built around the aforementioned time as Brian (see above). Mine was finished in a complex color scheme of argent gray metal with a dark blue rear triangle, orange head tube and alternating orangish and night blue bands on the seat tube. Chrome head lugs and rear ends and, eventually, full chrome front forks. I thought, and yet do, it was a very pretty bike, 'a la mode'.

It was kitted out with Fiamme/Campag sprints, Gran Sport gears with handlebar controls, Brooks saddle, Cinelli bars and stem and Mafac brakes with Universal levers. I had definitely tried to make it wait like a Federico Bahamontes bike.

I accept attached a moving picture of me ( below) on it, only breaking abroad on 'agony corner' at the start of Bluebell Hill in Kent in the 1958 Rochester Civic Week Inferior road race, which I was pleased to report to Fred Dean I had won, thus, I retrieve, speeding up commitment of the proper chrome forks which were late.

These Italy frames were the first that I knew of built in the mod way of steeper seat angles, shallower head and fork rake and shorter wheelbase with closer clearances. The seat stays were too chunkier with a substantial wrapover at the seat lug. Lively and responsive, I raced on mine until I joined the RAF in 1962, taking a few more wins, including the 1959 BCF Kent and Southward East London Junior Bounded champs, the first year of the BCF )British Cycling Federation).

I somewhen sold mine in 1962, having had it resprayed yellow, the chrome forks having tarnished quickly, to another member of Wigmore CC, whose name escapes me. It went for nearly £25! Given the benefit of that about accurate of sciences, hindsight, I rather wish I had kept information technology.

Memories of my Fred Dean bike by Terry Saxby:

I was fifteen at the time and had grown upwards in Wandsworth, a keen cyclist with a wreck of a cycle. My Gran and Uncle decided to treat me to a wheel from Fred Dean in York Road, Wandsworth . We went to the store after Xmas to order it and I call back it every bit a quite nighttime, small chaotic shop with a few bikes and accessories plus a counter, in the back a small workshop area for repairs and build-ups , I don't think the frames were made there just I'k non 100% sure.

I ordered a 21½" road frame in Brunswick Green with white hoops on the seat tube and white FRED DEAN transfers on the down tube, although I take read hither that Fred unremarkably put them on the top tube. I had chrome Nervex lugs and chrome front and rear fork ends . The frame was stamped 414 under the lesser bracket . I tin recall Campagnolo gears, hubs and seat post, Mafac brakes and Ambrosio confined and stem . I picked it up from the shop in bound 1961, I remember information technology took a year of weekly payments for my Nan to pay it off with Fred! It was a fantastic bike that I rode until I got married in 1967 then sold it for near £20, more than a weeks wages and so. I recently bought another Fred Dean in good useable condition, its an earlier 1 than I originally had.

I read here that Fred started with the first digit as the year made commencing No.ane in 1958, this would exist correct for my original frame commencing four in 1961. Mmy frame doesn't accept braze on lugs for brake cables etc and its numbered 317 on one side of the BB and 201 on the other . I'm pretty sure that 317 would exist the year and the production number for that year, i.e. 1960  frame, number 17 . And 201 to be the number of frames produced since Fred started in 1958, although information technology could as well exist a 1959 frame and cycle number 317, if y'all see what I hateful… any comments gladly welcomed.

I take simply re-read the entry higher up on Fred Dean bikes, there is a mention of Brian Packer building frames with a curved rear restriction mount to match the brake contour .. my current bike has this feature but I can't remember if the original ane did or not. The photographs that I take seen of Fred Dean  frames all seem to have straight brake mounts .

Thanks for reading

Posted: Th 11th June 2020

Author: Steve Griffith

montalvosart1957.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/classic_builders/dean-fred/

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