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Spud Taylor on his beloved bike in racing days |
On the road again… Spud’s D-Day bike
War veteran’s 70-year-old bicycle restored to glory
SPUD Taylor and his beloved bike did the wartime D-Day landings together but for more than 50 years the machine lay rusting and forgotten in the hall.
Then Highbury man Mr Taylor, 88, decided that he wanted the bike, considered a collector’s item and purchased for £20 in 1938, restored to its former glory.
This week local repair man Rob Sargent delivered the 70-year-old bike, now looking sparkling and new, back to the pensioner, after painstakingly cleaning, repairing or replacing every part including the spokes.
Spud, real name Rupert, who got his nickname because a friend from childhood with a cleft palate could not pronounce Taylor, was extremely delighted.
A former demon racing cyclist with the Camden Wheelers before the war, Spud refused to be parted with his hand-made bike.
Even after war broke out and he joined the Royal Navy he was given special permission to have it on board the mine-sweepers where he served. And, as the December issue of Highbury Community News reports, during D-Day he was able to take the cycle over to France in case it was needed to run errands.
Spud, who lives in Wilberforce Road, said: “I remember buying the bike when I was 18 and it cost me £20. That was a lot of money in those days. But it was a fantastic machine. With the Wheelers, who were based in Highgate, I won lots of racing medals and cups. But I had to give up cycling in 1975 due to injured hamstrings and it sat in the hall ever since.”
A member of the Fellowship of North London Cyclists Spud, a former telephone engineer for 37 years, sadly won’t be able to ride the bike again. “I’ll probably give it to my grandsons,” he added.
Rob, who has a shop in nearby Mountgrove Road, had the bike rechromed, re-enamelled, cleaned and repaired, preserving as much of the original as possible.
Rob said the Granby bike was pretty solid despite its age.
“It was in a terrible state when I picked it up. To be honest I thought it was beyond repair. It took about three months to do the job. I had to send away for various bits.”
Back in the 1940s almost every part of London had a cycle frame builder.
“In those days bikes were built of steel to last,” he added. “Today, they make them out of carbon and a new racing bike won’t last more than about five years.”
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