1930’s Hetchins club racer
Late 30’s Hetchins
This is Jeff’s old Hetchins club racer, which was a fine racing bike until he left it on the radiator and it melted.
No, just kidding. It’s supposed to look like that.
The wavy tubing, a Hetchins trademark, was said to make the bike ride more smoothly over rough roads. Regardless of any engineering or marketing, the bike looks terrific. Who knows, Harry Hetchins may have had a phobia or something about straight tubes.
The head tube badge on this bike, an ornate Hetchins logo, incorporates the shield of the city of London in the design. The lacey lugs that one would usually find on a Hetchins (check out the Millenium model elsewhere in the museum to see what we mean) are missing on this bike. Those fancy tubing joints would come standard on Hetchins frames about a decade later.
Hyram “Harry” Hetchins and his partner Jack Denny developed quite a following at their North London bike shop. Curved tubes and ornate lugwork were only part of their musically inspired creations.
The head badge looks royal
Pre-war Hetchins had fairly simple lugs
Curvy Hetchins chain stays
The seat tube is dimpled so the wheel can be pulled in closer
The creased “Six Day” seat tube provided room for the rear wheel to be tucked farther forward, making a shorter wheelbase for quicker handling. Like the curvy tubing (which was originally meant to make unlabeled Hetchins racing bikes identifiable to spectators) the dimpled tube was originally done for track racing star Tony Merkins, and became a regular feature on the Hetchins bikes sold to the general public.
This bike is a “club” racer, designed to be fast and versatile. No three speed hub and luggage rack on this bike, those would be for tourists. The only nods to utility are the fender mounts and light bracket. Since the bike was born in England, that light bracket ended up on the right side of the bike.
Does the rear derailleur look a little advanced for the 1930’s? It should. It’s a Conloy Osgear, and it came out in ’47, but it looks and works really neat, and would have been the kind of thing a Hetchins owner would have upgraded on a 10 year old bike.
The wide bars are comfortable and stylish
Hubs drilled out like Swiss cheese
An English saddle on this English bike
1947 Conloy Osgear derailleur
The Conloy Osgear rear derailleur utilized a modern parallelogram design and a single shift wire. Unfortunately it only had a single pulley, so the total gear difference could only be about six teeth. The shift cable runs up and along the top tube, which puts the lever in a nice convenient spot.