Thursday, January 7, 2016

Sun/Carlton track bike



Well here is an interesting machine..
A fame with Carlton decals and a Sun head badge.
Raleigh had brought Carlton in 1960 and moved all
 it's handbuilt bike production to Carltons Worksop premises.
Sun was also absorbed by Raleigh about the same time, and
for some reason I can't quite work out, the Sun brand gets
tied up with Worksop, well this famous name
 appears on all their headbages from 1963.

This machine would have been built in that brief period when
Raleigh (Carlton) was running three teams in the
 British Professional road/track scene.
One of those teams was Sun-Truewel-Wienmann (later Huret) 
which was really the last Hurrah of the Sun brand.
From memory this team only competed for two seasons in the 
late sixties, or maybe to 1970 at the latest.
At this time they made available team replica frame sets,
or fully built up bikes.
Sun-Truwell-Wienmann in action,1968, a rare appearance
of this short lived team on the cover of  ICS!
Sun riders are, L Trevor Bull, John Aslin. 

Pretty slap dash lug lining...but nicely built nonetheless.
A piece from Cycling magazine, September 1967 
announcing the Sun-Truwell Team.
 Carlton style frame number system, said by some, 
as way to identify a top end Carlton built Sun Frames.
Zeus components, as used on original team machines.
John Aslin in the Sprint, ICS October 1968.
 Not a great photo, but probably as this page is one 
of the very few (only) places you will see colour photos
of The Sun-Truwell team, we will have to take what
we can get.
Two famous names on one badge, Sun-Worksop.
So, it would seem this is quite a rare bike, I certainly
haven't been able to find another.
But by a very strange coincidence, I have a unknown frame that has
been hanging in my workshop for at lest the last five years.
Someone early on suggested it might be a Sun, however I
had no way to confirm this, until now...
I now know I have a very nice 1960's Sun team bike frame set,
which I am extremely pleased about, as I am very fond
of the English Pro bikes, of course it it needs a full
restoration, but hey, that's what I do...
The shot in seat stays, Carlton Pro style..
Super sloping fork crown Carlton Pro...etc
you get where I am going with this.
The holes for the head badge match the Sun track bike
dimensions, as does the B/B  frame number system.

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