My long suffering wife was eyeing me with a look of what was best described as ‘weary suspicion’ as I nonchalantly announced I was just popping out to pick up a little something I’d won on eBay ……. ‘is it far?’ ‘Oh no just round the corner really, I’ll be back in 30 mins tops’ ‘what is it then?’ ‘nothing really just a few bike bits, total bargain actually, cant believe I won it so cheap….’ ‘it’s another whole bike you don’t really need isn’t it?’ ‘Mmmmmmm, maybe……’

Right so with my cover totally blown the latest ‘bargain of the century’ was swiftly collected and clamped into the workstand for the usual ‘lets hope it really is a steal’ inspection. This ladies and gentlemen is a handbuilt steel framed roadbike from the well respected custom frame builder Brian Rourke Cycles based in Stoke on Trent in the UK. Rourke’s have been building high end custom frames since the early 1970’s and if you can afford one and don’t mind a fairly lengthy wait you can still make a pilgrimage to their workshop and store in Stoke to be fitted and measured for your own slice of hand made steel goodness. Rourke frames have won national and world championships and have been the frame of choice for a lot of discerning riders over the years and I’d always hoped to own one one day so when I saw this bike come up for auction locally at a very reasonable price I put what I considered a low ball bid in and waited. Luckily for me this was one of those listings where the pictures where a bit rubbish, the description was vague and the way the bike was presented didn’t do it any favours so it wasn’t attracting a lot of attention online. When I collected the bike the seller told me it had come to him from a house clearance where it had been pulled out of a shed in the garden and a mate who knew a bit about bikes had told him it was worth a few quid so he was pretty disappointed it hadn’t fetched more in the auction. I made some appropriately sympathetic noises while loading the bike into the car thinking quietly that I was very thankful he hadn’t spent a few minute’s of his time cleaning it and taking non blurry pictures…..

This is what I’d describe as a really nice bike must have been somebodies pride and joy once but has recently fallen on harder times. The bones are good, the frame and forks are a bit battered with a few pits in the chrome on the forks and rear triangle and some epically badly touched up paint chips, but there’s no dents and as far as I can tell the frame is still straight and true. There’s no tubing sticker on the main frame but the forks still have a Reynolds 653 decal on and I’m willing to bet the rest of the bike is made from the same tubeset. The wheels are another bonus, Shimano Ultegra hubs laced to nice period Mavic rims and bearing the sticker from another well known local bike business, Dave Hinde Cycles who are still trading in Northwich Cheshire. In a similar vein to Rourkes Dave Hinde is a custom wheel builder whose wheels have spun lots of riders from local time trialling legends to National Champions. Finding a set of his wheels on the bike is a real plus and reinforces my theory that this bike probably was originally owned by a pretty serious local rider who liked to go fast. The component choices are a weird blend of Campagnolo and Shimano, but to be honest apart from the wheels most of what’s on the bike at the moment will probably be going in the bin or straight back on eBay to try and claw a few quid back.

So what’s the plan? well I’d have paid what I paid for the frame alone so getting a quality set of wheels is the first bonus. I’ve already stripped the bike down to a bare frame and made a list of what’s worth keeping from the components fitted (just the seat post and the headset) and I’ve spent far too long on the internet trying to decide what flavour of vintage bits I’d like to rebuild this bike with. I don’t want to spend a fortune because how ever nice the frame is the bike is simply never going to be worth sinking serious cash and time into, but with care and some clever second hand component choices hopefully I’m going to have a nice slice of classic British steel to take out for occasional outings when the allure of carbon fibre and disc brakes fade. Stay tuned for the rebuild.