He talks the talk. Does he walk the walk? Or is it the other way round?
Instead of the antipasti and vino rosso of Siena’s L’Eroica, it’ll be moules frites and lashings of heavily fortified beer this coming Sunday, when devotees of that exotic and near-extinct breed of cyclist, The Flemish Hardman gather in Oudenaarde, Belgium to pay rolling hommage over the potentially (but hopefully not) slippery cobblestones of the Flandrian countryside.
Our story finds us in the Midlands on a dark winter morning in 1862, the young John Brooks awaking from strange dreams. Having completed his ablutions, and breakfasted on a gruel of buttermilk and barley, he makes to leave for work, only to open the stable door and find that at some point in the night his horse, Ned, has shuffled off its piece of this mortal coil.
A potter around the (until now very well-kept secret) Brooks underground vault at Smethwick this week threw up some truly amazing surprises. Did you know, for example, that Mr. Brooks filed a patent in the 1920s for what appears to have been a primitive form of internet called the “Highway Code”?
Even more interesting, however, was the box containing Brooks catalogues from the 1890s. Not only for the abundance of inventively realised solutions to cycling quandaries found therein, but also for the charming use of language thrusting like a B50 “Climax” from every page.
Proper Saddle Maintenance? (This saddle was misidentified recently by a Brooks Stories
contributor as having originated from our factory)
Over recent years, Brooks has been discovered by a constituency of buyers that might not normally be found spending its money on a leather bike saddle. In fact, said constituency might previously not have been found spending its money on any type of bike saddle, or any other component part of a bicycle, for that matter.
John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquis of Queensberry Joe Goss fought them all
Most good stories tend to contain a beginning, middle and end. But even the bad ones all have a beginning…
And ours places us on a cold November evening propping up the counter of a congenial, smoke-filled tavern called The Black Bull on Scholefield Street, Birmingham in 1901. Our landlord is the ageing, heavily moustachioed and still powerfully built “Gypsy” Jem Mace, storied champion of England and the World, whose reign uniquely straddled the switch from illegal bare-knuckle fights to those held under the Queensberry Rules.
From the Brooks Catalog, 1890 (or 13 Great Races Ago)
Nowadays, if there are at least two noughts in a year, it can mean only one thing- that the Knutsford Great Race is, or to be strictly accurate, has just been, once again upon us!
Conflicted Luddites, Assorted Antipodean Throwbacks, Moustache Cultivators and A Few Who Were There First Time Around convened last month at the town of Knutsford, Cheshire in order that they might avail of the decennial opportunity to ride the fabled Great Race.
