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Bob Jackson - Leeds
- Thread starter Tsundere
- Start date
Joe*Pro
Senior Retro Guru
Found this:
Bob Jackson, J.R. (John Robert) Jackson, first opened shop in Leeds in 1935 as J.R.J. Cycles using money borrowed from his mother. He built bikes until WWII when all production had to be put on hold while Jackson served in the Royal Air Force. After the war, he restarted his bike-building business in full force, and in 1955 was able to purchase the historic British Merlin brand to begin producing Merlin frames in parallel with his J.R.J. frames.
By the 1960s the company’s reputation as a quality builder of lightweight road and track frames had grown both in Britain and the U.S., and Jackson was handling production for multiple other bicycle brands as well. Eventually, a name change took place, and J.R.J. was dropped in favor of the more colloquial Bob Jackson moniker, and Bob Jackson Cycles continues to build frames under that name today even though Jackson passed away in 1999.
Bob Jackson, J.R. (John Robert) Jackson, first opened shop in Leeds in 1935 as J.R.J. Cycles using money borrowed from his mother. He built bikes until WWII when all production had to be put on hold while Jackson served in the Royal Air Force. After the war, he restarted his bike-building business in full force, and in 1955 was able to purchase the historic British Merlin brand to begin producing Merlin frames in parallel with his J.R.J. frames.
By the 1960s the company’s reputation as a quality builder of lightweight road and track frames had grown both in Britain and the U.S., and Jackson was handling production for multiple other bicycle brands as well. Eventually, a name change took place, and J.R.J. was dropped in favor of the more colloquial Bob Jackson moniker, and Bob Jackson Cycles continues to build frames under that name today even though Jackson passed away in 1999.
It's only a few miles from Leeds where it was built.
