Last week I wrote about Pashley turning 100, and mentioned that Birmingham's Hercules was once the biggest bicycle manufacturer on the planet.
A few days later, an email arrived from reader Steve Parkinson who revealed that he learned to ride on a Hercules. In India. Roughly 65 years ago.
He described what followed as an "unsolicited and probably unwelcome 'old man's ramble'", which might be the most wrong anyone has ever been in my inbox. It's a love letter to a lifetime of riding, and at the centre of it is a bike he built himself in the 1970s and is still riding today.
I asked Steve if I could share it, along with some photos from his archive. Here it is, lightly trimmed, in his own words.
Over to Steve
Living in India until I was seven, my first memory of cycling was being taught by local kids to ride an adult gents frame bike (Hercules or similar) by putting one leg through the frame to reach the right pedal and riding it on a steep tilt with the handlebar at nose height. I loved it.
It wasn't until the 1970s that cycling became a passion. Rediscovering it after a dreary road trip in an old car to south Italy, during which I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on endless roads, seeing Europe flash past as if on a screen.
I didn't fancy motorcycling, so on return I bought a copy of Richard's Bicycle Book by Richard Ballantine. I still have my copy, much oily-thumbed and annotated with handwritten gear ratio charts tucked into it. With its help I built my first proper bike, a Reynolds 531 touring bike that looks very similar to the one on his book cover, including the FW Evans frame bought at their first shop in The Cut, Waterloo.
I'm still riding that bike after 50 years, updated to STI and flat bars.
That bike took me cycle camping around France and Spain a few times, as well as commuting across south London for many years.
Cycling took more of my disposable income than I care to admit. The Madison/Freewheel shop in north London accused me of knowing their annual catalogue by heart. Velorution was just a delight!
Anyway, I've now turned 70 and have owned quite a few bikes. Those that stood the test of time and are still in use are the original Evans Tourer, a Moulton TSR and a Brompton. I had an Airnimal but gave it to my son... who had just built his own tourer onto a second-hand Bob Jackson frame.
I have to admit that following a recent but unsuccessful knee replacement, I've fitted electric assist to them, mainly for the confidence that I can get home if I need it.
I love bikes as much as I love the sheer thrill of riding them when they're well designed, well made and set up to take you anywhere.
The bit that stuck with me
There's a lot to love in Steve's email, but a few things have stayed with me since.
A boy too small for a Hercules found a way to ride it anyway. That same boy, sixty-odd years later, is fitting electric assist to his bikes, not to go faster, but for the confidence to keep going. The machines changed. The instinct never did.
And in between: one bike, built by hand from a book, ridden for half a century. Through France, Spain, Skye and decades of south London commutes. We talk a lot about sustainability in cycling. Steve's Reynolds tourer might be the most sustainable product I've ever featured.
His son, meanwhile, has built his own tourer on a second-hand Bob Jackson frame. The apple, it seems, doesn't fall far from the bike shed.
Thank you, Steve. Consider this a standing invitation to ramble any time.
Got a story of your own? A bike that's been with you through thick and thin, or a memory from the old Velorution shops? Comment below.
