Saturday, November 3, 2018

Team Falcon Professional Update

For anyone interested in British professional
bikes, and especially Falcon Professional's, here is some interesting
information on these very rare bikes that I was given from a seller on
Ebay UK selling one of Sid Barras's ex team bikes....
 The team bike for sale on UK Ebay.
 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Reynolds-531-professional-Falcon-team-bike/302941263644?_trksid=p2485497.m4902.l9144

"this was Sids bike at end of 1983 start of 1984 as his winter training
bike it was built with columbus tubes and sprayed and badged 
Falcon at the factory in Brigg . 
My father inlaw was team manager for the falcon pro team untill 
end of 1986 when it stopped, i was part time mechanic for falcon 
at races and maintained the bikes .
Soon as the new team bikes where ready in january 1984 
this particular bike wasnt required and Bernard Tayler the team
manager kept it as his own bike i then acquired
it end of the season .
The bike you own then belonging to Sid would be a 1984 
team issue frame as they had full chrome rear triangle 
and chrome head lugs and forks and were blue built with 
Reynolds 531 pro tubing although some were built from columbus SL
tubing and badged 531 pro as riders preferred columbus tubes
 Phill Thomas being one rider who preferred
columbus tubes for his bikes.
All the bikes in 1984 were built by Brian Rourke cycles 
frame builder Paul Washington and would go to the falcon factory
 to be painted up ,Terry Dolan built some new frames half way
 through the season as the other were pulling apart at the
bottom bracket shells
 Dolan built all the Falcon pro team bikes after that including
 1985 and 1986 bikes when they changed to red colour scheme
 on the frames and used Reynolds 753 tubing"
 Sid Barras and fellow Falcon team mate Phil Thomas
(in Yellow) keeping some pretty serious company during the
1984 Kellogs

Thanks to the E Bay seller ( I didn't get his name) for the information,
now I am all fired up to get my Professional on the road for this
summer...
A young Sid Barras during the Tour of Britain 1974.