Roberts Cycles
Roberts Cycles was a custom bicycle frame builder in Selhurst near Croydon, South London, England.
Beginning soon after World War II, Charles (Charlie) Benjamin Roberts was a frame-builder for Holdsworth, Claud Butler and Freddie Grubb. In the 1960s, he founded Roberts Cycles at the family home in Sydenham - he was joined in the workshop by his teenage son Chas, and then by his youngest son Geoff. In 1979, Charlie died suddenly and Chas took over the management of the business (which by then had moved from Sydenham to Anerley) with Geoff Roberts and Derek Bailey building frames.
The shop at Gloucester Road, Croydon closed at the end of May 2015, when Chas was 64. Geoff Roberts continues to build and repair frames.[1]
Production was limited by capacity to 100 steel frames per year, and they were made in a bespoke manner to the dimensions, mass and equipment specification requirements of the customer. A mixture of Reynolds and Columbus tubing was used in construction, which was all completed in-house. Painting was originally done in house, but was then outsourced and completed to a high standard. The frames and completed cycles not only have a reputation for innovation and excellence, but for the quality of finish, reliability and comfort.
The range included track bikes, road bikes, touring bikes, tandems and off-road bikes. Unless built for demonstration or shows, all frames and complete bicycles were tailored to the specific requirements of the customer. Technical specialisms were developed latterly that could be applied including: fittings in the down tube and cross tube that enabled the complete cycle to be dismantled, and the application of Rohloff internal geared hubs. In the last year of production a prototype Gates belt-driven bike was made to explore the potential of the application, but no such customer bikes were completed.
Early history
Charles (Charlie) Benjamin Roberts was born in 1920.[2] He entered the cycle trade, at the then not unusual age of 14, working for Charlie Davey in Croydon. Davey, a successful cyclist in the 1920s, owned a shop in Addiscombe Road (Davey Cycles) and helped finance the Allin and Grubb business (South London bike builders) in 1919.
Other builders that Charlie Roberts worked for, all in South London, included Claud Butler, Freddie Grubb and Holdsworth. Contemporaries of Roberts at Claud Butler and Holdsworth included Les Ephgrave, Fred Dean, Bill Hurlow, George Stratton, Pat Skeates and Bill Philbrook – most of whom, like Roberts, subsequently set up workshops of their own.
During the war Roberts joined the Royal Air Force as a mechanic. Post-war he returned to frame building, primarily for Holdsworthy (the minor name change was the result of a split in Holdsworth into Holdsworthy and W.F. Holdsworth), where he became foreman and later works manager.
Like many of his contemporaries in the cycle trade (including Freddie Grubb and Charlie Davey), Roberts was also a competitive racing cyclist. His specialty was time trials and, according to the records of Addiscombe Cycling Club, founded by Charlie Davey in 1906, he held the Southern Road Racing Association 12 hour record from 1940 until 1959 as well as setting the South Eastern 12 hour record in 1946. While formally registered with the club, from 1940–1947, he notched up nine first places, six second places and five third places in time trials.
Roberts Cycles, 21 Trewsbury Road, Sydenham
Charlie left Holdsworthy in 1963 or 1964 to set up his own business. Initially all the work took place in the cellar of the Roberts family home in 21 Trewsbury Road, Sydenham and this address featured on the head crest of early Roberts frames. The CR monogram in the crest, which remains the firm’s trademark, was inspired by the logo once used by local football club Crystal Palace.
Charlie was friends with John Pratt, then owner of Geoffrey Butler Cycles of South End, Croydon, and this led to him using a shed at the back of the Geoffrey Butler shop; his son Geoff worked with him there. Roberts-built custom frames were then sold through GB Cycles, and GB branding also appeared on Roberts-built frames. Roberts also built trade frames for W.F. Holdsworth (then owned by yet another ex-Holdsworthy staffer, Roy Thame) and Condor Cycles (Gray’s Inn Road, London). Although working in GB's shed, Roberts frames still carried the original crest encircled by the same Trewsbury Road home address.
Most of the frames built in the 1960s were road racing, track and touring frames. Charlie’s sons Chas and Geoff were brought into the business at an early age, and both worked on building carrier racks and lug filing and drilling for three to five years before they were allowed to graduate to frame building. Chas Roberts managed the business after Charlie's death in 1979, and younger son Geoff has built frames for most of his life and continues the Roberts tradition to this day from his East Sussex workshop.
East Dulwich and Forest Hill
Outgrowing the shed at Geoffrey Butler’s, the Roberts workshop moved to East Dulwich but continued to use the Trewsbury Road address on head badges. Business was evidently good because Charlie and his sons were joined in the workshop by Derek Bailey, an experienced builder from Holdsworthy. Meanwhile, Charlie Roberts’ friend John Pratt had sold Geoffrey Butler’s and decided to open a new shop in Forest Hill, South London, called Phoenix Cycles. He invited Charlie Roberts to share the rent on what had been a funeral director’s premises and Charlie agreed to move his workshop again and to sell Roberts frames via the Phoenix shop. Frames built at Phoenix had either Phoenix or Roberts transfers – John Pratt recognised that Roberts was strong brand and sold bikes under both names.
This was a period when the Roberts workshop pioneered innovative frame designs. A notable change from traditional frames with narrow ‘pencil’ seat stays was the use of chunkier section seat stays, initially on track frames, a style later followed by many builders in the 70s. Another unusual Roberts design was the curved split seat tube designed to accommodate a very short wheelbase for time trial bikes.
Roberts cycles prospered at Phoenix, moving to a larger workshop at the same premises, but in 1976 John Pratt sold his business and Charlie Roberts, his sons Chas, Geoff and Derek Bailey moved from Forest Hill to new premises in nearby Penge.
87 Penge Road, Anerley
The move to the new address, 87 Penge Road, Anerley, was marked by inscribing it around the head crest used on frames. When Charlie Roberts died suddenly in 1979, his son, Chas, then in his thirties, took over the management of the business with Geoff Roberts and Derek Bailey as frame builders. They were joined by Phil Maynard, formerly of Holdsworthy, and later by Neil Brice, another Holdsworthy graduate. Bailey eventually departed for Canada. Production in Penge ran at around four to five frames per week.
The business grew and Chas was able to buy the neighbouring shop. As demand from club cyclists increased, the quantity of frames built for the trade declined. The 1979 Roberts catalogue lists eight models including several touring bikes, a track iron, a time trial frame, several road bikes and a mixte frame. It also records Charlie Roberts’ racing record, noting that he was runner up in the BBAR, rode London to Paris in the late 40s and had victories in the Bath Road ‘50’ and ‘100’.
One of the customers at the Penge shop was Maurice Burton, Britain’s first black professional cyclist, who won the UK junior sprint title in 1973 and represented England at the Commonwealth Games in 1974. For a period in the 1980s Roberts sponsored Burton supplying him with both road and track frames.
The best known rider, however, to be measured up by Chas at the time was Tony Doyle, whose Ammaco-sponsored and liveried track bikes were built in the Roberts workshop. Doyle was World Pursuit Champion in 1980 and 1986.
The introduction of new tubing ranges from Reynolds and Columbus (the Italian tubing maker) enabled Roberts to design frames with combinations of tubes from different makers, to suit varying purposes and riders – a mix-and-match approach that continued until 2015.
Roberts gained a reputation and customer base for time trial and low profile frames, and for club riders in South London Roberts became synonymous with cutting edge custom frame design.
Croydon, 89 Gloucester Road and Cycle Art Bromley
In 1983 Chas Roberts transferred the works to 89 Gloucester Road, Croydon. The team now included Winston Vaz, another ex-employee of Holdsworthy. Geoff Roberts eventually left to set up his own business actually buying Ron Cooper's and working with Ron before moving to his current workshop in East Sussex - even after leaving Chas, Geoff continued building Roberts frames.
The workshop at Gloucester Road originally had no shopfront, so in 1985 Chas opened a shop in Bromley named Cycle Art; this shop was successful enough for Roberts to stay there beyond the initial short lease. A showroom to receive customers was also constructed at Gloucester Road.
The 21st century, notably in London, was marked not only by a cycling boom but a retro fashion that saw hand-built steel frames prized highly. This boosted orders for Roberts track frames in particular, but road and touring frames also benefited.
Roberts mountain bikes
Roberts were probably the first British frame builder to construct a US-style mountain bike in the early eighties. The 1980s MTB initiative came from Jake Heilbron, the manager of West Point Cycles in Vancouver and co-founder of Canada’s Rocky Mountain Bikes and Kona Bicycle Company. Heilbron was familiar with the heavyweight mountain bikes being used in California but wanted something lighter and sprightlier so he shipped a Californian style frame to Roberts, whom he knew through Cycle Imports of Maine, and asked them to make something similar.
Roberts established a name for high-end mountain bike design. Their familiarity with lugless frame building made it relatively easy for Roberts to accommodate the new dimensions of tubing from Reynolds and Columbus as well as build frames with sloping top tubes – an innovation that was not available on any of the US or Far Eastern bikes for sale in the UK at the time.
UK and off-road world champions were measured up for frames: both Dave Baker and Tim Gould rode Roberts-built frames to victory, although they were badged as Peugeots (their sponsor). The first Roberts mountain bike catalogue featured the top of the range White Spider (named after the north face of the Eiger), the mid-range Black Leopard, an off-road tourer, the Rough Stuff; and the Transcontinental, a long range tourer. Short-lived off-road models included the Cobra, Stratos and Phantom. One example of the White Spider was built as a companion bike for purchasers of Aston Martin cars – sprayed in a colour to match the owner’s car.
After this Roberts developed one of their most sought-after models, the D.O.G.S.B.O.L.X, which featured a hooped rear end that dealt better with the stresses of rim brakes. The frame evolved over the years but most models were produced with Columbus Max biaxial tubing. As disc brakes became popular, steel frames fell out of fashion, but more recently in 2020 the design has been revisited and the DOGSBOLX 1Evo is once again in the range of bikes that Geoff Roberts produces in Sussex - The "1" is a reference to the 1x chainring that the bike employs and the "Evo" refers to the modern bolt-thru axle and disc brake configuration.
Another design revisited recently is the Rough Stuff - the new RS 1Evo is a bespoke off-road adventure/gravel/touring frameset, produced from Geoff's Sussex location.
Road, touring and track
While Roberts set the pace in mountain bikes from Croydon, low profiles, road bikes and touring frames continued to be built from the 1980s and into the new century. International tourist and writer Josie Dew chose to ride a Roberts,[3] giving the brand an unexpected boost.
A low profile Aston Martin bicycle was built in collaboration with Mike Burrows (who built the Lotus frames for world champion Chris Boardman) with streamlined tubing and a streamlined seat tube – although Roberts had built "aero" tubed frames much earlier than this. In an interview with the authors of Made in England[4] Chas mentioned that Roberts bikes were built for royalty, but did not identify who these aristocratic customers were.
More recently Geoff Roberts produces the bespoke RR Evo - an up-to-date road frame that features bolt-thru axles, disc brakes and the lightest Columbus tubing. Touring bikes and lugged frames are both still available.
See also
- Ron Cooper (bicycle framebuilder)
- Witcomb Cycles, another South London frame builder until 2009
- List of bicycle manufacturing companies
References
- Geoff Roberts Frames
- Roberts Cycles, The Boneshaker, Journal of the Veteran-Cycle Club, number 198, Volume 20, pages 15-28. Updated version, London Cycling Campaign, accessed 9 January 2020.
- Josie Dew (6 November 2010). "Inside leg measurements and a lot of old tubes". Retrieved 9 January 2020.
- Matthew Souter & Ricky Feather, Made in England: The Artisans Behind the Handbuilt Bicycle, 2012, p130. ISBN 978-0957366800