Classic Triumph Racing Bike

Here's a nice slice of classic British racing bicycle for you today. It's an old Triumph, looking resplendent in red!

Awesome old fashioned head badge up front.

Some nicely ageing vintage lettering on the down tube.

A very nicely looked after bike!

With some graphics that look like they're spanning the gap between the classic striped graphics of the 60s and 70s and pushing into the more fluid abstraction of the 80s and 90s! Thanks to some recent good weather here in Nottingham, the bike racks are filling up with interesting steel, dragged from people's sheds. So expect some more good bikes soon!

Vintage Triumph Racing Bicycle Badge

Classic, standard, everyday vintage bicycle logo post for you today. This is what I'm finding a million of sitting around the streets of Nottingham. These older vintage racing or city bikes that were made in the city back when it had a manufacturing industry. Relentlessly classy logos abound.

In this case, Triumph have been doing their thing. You can see the decline though. What would have used to have been an enamelled badge, now a sticker on the head tube. Nottingham really lost its way back in the day.

Some of the Triumph bicycle lettering on the down tube.

And this is the whole deal. I feel like I should really explore the old bicycle industry here in Nottingham. How an industry can go from sending bicycles out of the city, to countries around the world (like this Raleigh I saw in Denmark) to just being the administrative headquarters, organizing the plants more recently in Vietnam and Cambodia and that now churn out the bikes with the minimum of labour regulations and industrial safety. A sad story of the prioritization of short term profits over long term corporate sustainability, as demonstrated by the decline and fall of every old Nottingham bicycle company.

Triumph 20 with matching luggage

Delayed from yesterday when I was mad busy, here's a little Triumph 20 shopper bike. These 20 inch wheeled bikes were made popular back in the day, and really they make a lot of sense. By having these smaller wheels you do reduce the potential top speed of the bike, but with that trade off you get much better acceleration from a stop and a reduction in the force needed to progress along at lower speeds. Ideal for city use then! It's why the folding bikes being made now by the likes of Brompton and Dahon with the smaller wheels make so much sense.

I really appreciate the matching luggage that came with this old Triumph.

A sweet little 20 inch rear fender with that nice round reflector...

And the usual awesome Triumph bicycle logo!

Some nice lettering...

And a claim of being a registered design, tops it off!

Beige Bicycle Logos by Triumph

So The Bicycle Safari has become a bit focused upon vintage bike graphics of late, but with these kind of vintage bicycle logos sitting around on the pavements it's hard to resist. Take a look at these I spotted on an old 'Triumph Traffic Master' bicycle made right here in Nottingham.

A rad badge up on the front.

Some suitably brown graphics on the down tube.

A pretty incomprehensible logo for the Traffic Master name on the seat tube.
But overall it's a classic bit of brown and beige bicycle heritage. Extremely practical and suitably simple, my only improvement might be some hub gears.