Mrs. Brooks was always on hand with a bowl of dilute beef extracts for weary travellers.
Editors note- While recently scouring a car boot at a Nottingham jumble sale, we decided to happen upon a dusty wooden crate marked with the company logo. Inside we found an amazing collection of historical notes and photographs about the Brooks company from the late Victorian era. These notes fill in some of the gaps left in the Brooks Historical Record. We are still putting together the pieces of this massive find, but we are able to already share some of it with you. The first of which are details concerning the Brooks Tea Rooms that are related forthwith.
That late 19th Century Birmingham was a hotbed of both biking and bike manufacture is a fact of which even the most casual student of cycling history will be aware, and Brooks was already the world’s pre-eminent purveyor of bike saddles while Sunbeam in nearby Wolverhampton could barely meet the customer demand for its “Dwarf Safety”.
A lesser known fact, however, is that “England’s Second City” was also the site of the world’s first incarnation of what we now know as “the Cycling Culture Café”.
The Brooks Tea Rooms opened its doors in 1877, just a stone’s throw from the Brooks Works in Great Princess Street. Initially planned by management as a sort of open Works canteen, it quickly attracted regular hordes of non-employees with its selection of beef potions, pork scratchings and triple fermented gooseberry cider.
We have looked before at various popular Cycling Cliques, or Velosophies, and their attendant membership costs. One of these is, of course, Bike Dandyism. And no Bike Dandy is worthy of the name without having once in his life participated in an Olde Worlde group ride.
Englishman Charlie Walker got in touch with us a couple of years ago. He had a tour in mind and was on the hunt for the right saddle.
The objective of the expedition was, as he put it, “to reach the ’4 corners of the Old World’ (before the Americas were discovered). Namely Nordkapp (most northern point of Europe), Singapore (most south-eastern point of Eurasia), Uelen (most eastern point of Eurasia) and Cape Agulhas (most southern point of Africa).”
So we equipped him with one of our Flyer Specials, and off he went.
Fast Food? Certainly Long Distance Food nestling atop Sean Conway’s cockpit.
The almost unimaginable physical and mental demands made by the WCR Grand Tour on its riders have this week taken a heavy toll. Martin Walker and Niel Coventry Brown have both announced that they are pulling out of the race.
Eric Murray receiving his birthday bottle of bubbly from works manager Steven Green.
“Building a Brooks is both famously and justifiably labour intensive. Before reaching a seat post (your seat post), during the various stages of its construction at Smethwick, the composite parts of a saddle bearing our name will typically pass through a dozen separate pairs of expert hands and eyes.
The successful coordination of these different stages of production, culminating in an end result worthy of the Brooks nameplate, is absolutely reliant on the expertise of veteran steelworkers, riveters, cutters, soakers, pressers, packers and polishers.
So earlier this spring, a short ceremony was held at the Brooks works to recognize the enormous and lasting contributions of Maria Thomas, Barbara Lawrence, Eric Murray, Stephen Bell, Mohamud Hirey and Malgorzata Krawczyk to our story…”
By Brooks Works Manager Steven Green.
Friday 24 February saw a day of celebration at the Brooks factory in Smethwick. Two happy events were being acknowledged.
Kind Strangers dispensing Wine Gums and Free Money have lightened Stephen’s mood no end.
We have remarked once or twice recently on Simon Hutchinson’s comparative quietness, but clarifying news has reached us this week through his girlfriend Nicola. It seems that shortly after the spill he took near Perth earlier in the month, one of his bags went missing. It’s not known whether the bag was removed from the site of his accident, or from the hospital to which he was admitted.
All the good stuff was in there. Passport, banking cards, tracker, the works. Nicola is currently scrambling to have Simon supplied with replacements, while Simon continues to fight the good fight, powering across the Nullarbor Plain as you read this.
As most of you will be aware, the 2012 Olympic Games take place this summer in the English capital. And with most of the WCR Grand Tour riders scheduled to be arriving back in London around the same time as the Olympic Torch, we felt that these two special occasions should marked by an appropriate limited edition model.
Behold the Brooks B17 Select World Traveller 2012.
Tweed Run Stalwart and avid follower of the WCR Grand Tour, John Griffin.
In London, bus lanes which fall under the jurisdiction of the City Of Westminster are also cleared for use by cyclists. This is, broadly speaking, a Good Thing. Buses are big, slow and noisy. You can generally hear or see them coming from the vantage point of your saddle if you’re paying a little attention. And when they’ve passed, you can then continue to luxuriate in the extra space that a bus lane provides for somebody on two human powered wheels, while others sit gridlocked in their cars, blood pressure rocketing.
Why is this beast bleeding from the mouth? Ask WCR Thrillseeker Niel Coventry Brown…
Ladies! Gentlemen! Say Hi to Kristina Storey! At the start of the month, Kristina packed her bags, hopped on her bike and joined the WCR Grand Tour in search of the Guinness World Record for Fastest Circumnavigation of Any Planet by a Female.
She is already bringing up the average Sanity Quotient of our increasingly loopy Peloton of riders, who find themselves flung to the four corners of the Earth, and combatting the gradual onset of Saddle Fever.
Be-Brooksed display bikes at Harrods this week for Paul Smith’s Pop-Up store.
Readers of the Brooks Blog will be pleased to learn that English fashion designer and keen cyclist Sir Paul Smith has a new project on the go. Fifth floor of world renowned department store, Harrods of Knightsbridge, is the site for a two month Pop-Up displaying his new summer line of cycling jerseys and t-shirts.
Mrs. Brooks was always on hand with a bowl of dilute beef extracts for weary travellers.
