This beautiful hand-built frame could be yours for $20!
About 4 months ago this mystery frame was dropped off at the shop.
The rattle can paint job left a little to be desired, but I didn’t see any frame damage. The Campag ends made me believe that it was a quality frame worth saving, so I posted the pics over on Steel Is Real on Facebook to see if I could get any leads.
Wait, so who’s Geoff Roberts? He’s Charlie Roberts’ son, and likely drilled the holes in the BB of this particular frame.
So, who’s the Charlie Roberts fella? He was born in 1920, and before WWII built frames for Claude Butler. He was in the Royal Air Force during the war, and after started building for Holdsworth. He ended up leaving Holdsworth in the 60s and started Roberts Cycles. In the 70s his sons, Geoff and Chas helped build frames, Geoff heads Roberts Cycles today!
The mystery bike is Serial #220, making it an early Charlie Roberts frame. Based on the frame and options, it’s a Touring Super being built sometime in the mid 70s. Tubing is Reynolds 531 with Campagnolo dropouts and fork ends.
3 months. That’s how long it takes to sand a frame by hand.
I don’t know how many coats of various paints were on this frame, but my guess is “enough”. Whenever I had downtime at the shop, I would spend a few minutes reminding myself why I should media blast frames, but still just reach for more sandpaper. Ultimately, I have no idea how many hours were spent on prep, but that did make painting it a tad easier. Fortunately, the 1/2″ of paint protected the frame well, as there were no dents! Decals were ordered from the UK and took about 4 weeks to get here.
I painted the bike with British Racing Green (well, the BRG that Mazda used on the 1990-94 Miatas). Gold accents were done as steadily as I could. Clear coat was 3 coats of 2k high gloss.
And now for the build kit
I had put together a pile of period-correct parts for the build, but ultimately, I decided that since I was rebuilding this bike in 2025, it should be built with modern kit so that it would appeal for more folks, and hopefully be more pleasant overall.
I was a little limited as to which wheels I could use because of frame spacing, but remembered that Tiagra had a 130mm spaced HG11 wheel. From there, it was a no-brainer. 2×10 Tiagra with GRX400 rear mech and GRX600 cranks. The Velo Orange quill was what made this whole project possible- allowing me to throw any modern bar on, which ended up being a Salsa Cowchipper in 42mm. The tires are Schwalbe G-One Allaround. Pedals are Deore XT dual sided pedals.
The front rack is a NOS Pletscher fork crown rack.
And she’s done!
I hope this will make someone a fantastic and unique do-it-all bike. It’s certainly one of only a handful of Roberts bikes in the US, and one of even fewer (maybe the only one) made by Charles Roberts himself.
So how do I get it for $20?!?!?
We are going to raffle this bike off between now and the end of the month! We’re only selling 60 raffle tickets for $20 each. You can come by the shop anytime during regular shop hours to buy a ticket. If that’s not possible, then we can figure out a way to make sure we get your $20 recorded. You can buy multiple tickets, but only 60 total tickets will be sold.
Our plan is to have one of the participants at the BingoCat on 5/31 draw a winner.
