Restored and rebuilt Freddie Grubb track frame

[Kevin Mayne]

A Freddie Grubb Comet track frame used for touring, time-trialling, grass track and roller racing through its life, recently put back together and ridden in Belgium.

A few blog posts about its history in one cycling club (Godric CC), racing background and the full spec of the restoration including Campag, Unicator, FB

http://wp.me/p24ZdP-4QX Original owner, fixies in East Anglia, grass track racing.
http://wp.me/p24ZdP-4R8 Roller racing, world roller record
http://wp.me/p24ZdP-5hV Restoration, list of parts and modifications

 

[Spokesmann]

Great colour scheme and a gorgeous frames. More close ups please!

 

[shed]

Re:

nice bike but what is a track frame

 

[Spokesmann]

Re: Re:

nice bike but what is a track frame

Just that a track bike for pursuits and sprints, the frame is designed to be single speed/fixed with horizontal rear drop outs. The geometry is usually more upright with close clearances and shorter wheelbase.

 

[shed]

Re:

thanks

 

[Midlife]

Nice

Yep, before the days of aero, BITD pure track bikes were stiff (sometimes heavy gauge, sometimes had tubes brazed inside the frame tubes) chunky seat and chain stays, higher bottom bracket, round fork blades with heavy fork crowns for rigidity, no drillings for brakes. As Spokessmann says they had a short wheelbase, upright geometry, long stems, curved bars and peels with no quills. Wheels were large flange with tied and soldered spokes with the tubs held on with a horrible glue based on shellac. The ones for indoor use had chrome and stand out colours usually for the crowd to spot them. Riders like Sercu were the indoor pop stars of the day, never usually came first though, that was the hard men.

I loved the look of them, pure minimalism. I had a Falcon Pro Track frame in the 70's.

I've got a 70's Viner track frame in the post

Shaun

 

[Spokesmann]

Shaun I knew you would flesh out my basic knowledge with those really interesting bits of detail! I too like the sheer minimalism of these machines!

 

[Kevin Mayne]

Re:

I used the term "track frame" generically, because that was what we called them locally, or perhaps just "a fixed".

The first blog post I linked to just below the picture talks a bit about what we called track racing which was largely grass track rather than anything on a velodrome. I found some nice black and white photos to illustrate it. It is now almost extinct as a racing form, although a few meets hang on.

Most of the grass track bikes were just the same bikes that were used for road and time trialling, only a few star riders or those who had access to one of the few concrete tracks such as Welwyn or Herne Hill had special bikes.

 

[shed]

Re:

im sure theres a track in hull but its sand and quite small

 

[Midlife]

That's cycle speedway, there used to be a few tracks in hull. East park was our nearest IIRC back in the 70's. They used different bikes

Shaun