Dawes question

[Robert Taylor]

About a year ago I bought an unridden Dawes touring frame and fork. It was sold to me as having been
made in the early 70's and I have no reason to doubt that. It has touring angles, 18 inch
chainstays, forged long horizontal dropouts (stamped Dawes), a transfer saying British Built, and a
Reynolds 531 transfer. The transfer is one which may mean that only the main tubes are 531. The
transfer on the downtube reads Dawes Handbuilt. Though clearly a touring frame it lacks cantilever
bosses. Marks on the paint at the dropouts showed that wheels had been mounted but the claim that it
had never been ridden appeared to be true. When I mounted wheels I found out why. Both the fork and
the rear dropouts were considerably out of true so the wheels sat crooked in the frame so I think
this mismade frame and fork had been stripped of the components those 30 long years ago and the
frame had been moving from hand to hand ever since. I put the thing in the hands of a local
framebuilder who cold set the fork, removed and rebrazed one rear dropout, aligned the frame,
respaced the rear from 120mm to 130, and a few other things for a bill about triple the amount I'd
paid for the frame and fork at the beginning. I have since built the frame into a bicycle with
mostly period correct components and it rides very nicely indeed.

So now at long last, the question. Can anyone tell me what I have? Was this frame one of the nice
ones of it's time or simply a servicable tourer?

Thanks, Bob Taylor

 

[Gary Knighton]

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 09:30:52 -0600 (CST), contributor Robert Taylor had scribed:
> About a year ago I bought an unridden Dawes touring frame and fork. It was sold to me as having
> been made in the early 70's and I have no reason to doubt that. It has touring angles, 18 inch
> chainstays, forged long horizontal dropouts (stamped Dawes), a transfer saying British Built, and
> a Reynolds 531 transfer. The transfer is one which may mean that only the main tubes are 531. The
> transfer on the downtube reads Dawes Handbuilt. Though clearly a touring frame it lacks cantilever
> bosses. Marks on the paint at the dropouts showed that wheels had been mounted but the claim that
> it had never been ridden appeared to be true. When I mounted wheels I found out why. Both the fork
> and the rear dropouts were considerably out of true so the wheels sat crooked in the frame so I
> think this mismade frame and fork had been stripped of the components those 30 long years ago and
> the frame had been moving from hand to hand ever since. I put the thing in the hands of a local
> framebuilder who cold set the fork, removed and rebrazed one rear dropout, aligned the frame,
> respaced the rear from 120mm to 130, and a few other things for a bill about triple the amount I'd
> paid for the frame and fork at the beginning. I have since built the frame into a bicycle with
> mostly period correct components and it rides very nicely indeed.
>
> So now at long last, the question. Can anyone tell me what I have? Was this frame one of the nice
> ones of it's time or simply a servicable tourer?
>

From your description a pre-1988 Galaxy Frame. Cantilever brakes where introduced to the Dawes
Galaxy in about 1989.

Gary

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