NEWS: New cycle speedway frame on the market
Paul Pinfold Junior has manufactured a frame called the “Empire Classic”
Below is his story about this and a few photos:
Since joining Coventry Cycle Speedway club in late 2017, I’ve had a burning desire to fabricate a Cycle Speedway frame. I thought I could do that !
I grew up watching my Dad build Sidecar Speedway frames. He also built solos for Mitch Shirra, Bruce Penhall, Gary Guglielmi and many more.
I actually went on a 7 day frame building course at The Bicycle Academy in Frome Somerset to learn properly.
What sparked the initial thought was that nobody really makes a proper bike for the younger kids. So next I’ll hopefully be building one for my son Ben (aged 6), with either 18 or 20 inch wheels, which will hopefully handle better than a BMX around an oval track.
The frame is made from high end Columbus (Zona) butted tubes, a type of cromoly. All lovingly fillet brazed.
I gave it twin top tubes just for aesthetics really as I have always loved the look of old school BMXs like Haro and the DP Freestyler from the 1980s.
It’s also said that twin tubes are stiffer. The complete bike weighs in at 9.5 kg. The top aluminium Archie Wilkinson bikes weigh in at 8.5 kg approximately.(well Sam Hardie’s does he told me). Accurate to what our bathroom scales say at least.
I’m pretty pleased with that weight comparison. Obviously what group set you have makes a slight variance in weight too, cranks, stem etc.
If I really went for it to build for lightness, I could just use a single top tube and use lighter rear drop outs to shave off some weight. Steel has really come on leaps and bounds now. Steel is 3 times stiffer than aluminium so the tubing can be really thin walled and butted to compensate for weight and still stronger than aluminium with an almost infinite fatigue life. As you can tell I’m a real advocate of steel frames.
My late father Paul Pinfold Snr was a legendary Sidecar Speedway and Grasstrack frame builder and racer. He revolutionised the sport in Australia in the 1980s with his frame designs.
My twin top tubed frames will be called “Empire Classic” a nod to my late father who organised some Sidecar Speedway meetings called this.
In the not too distant future I hope to build something a little more radical looking and as I said kids bikes too. But the beauty of building yourself is you can build whatever you desire.
So if anyone wanted something specific geometry wise or whatever, I could hopefully achieve this for them. With either Columbus or Reynolds tubing. I’d also like to build (fixie) single speed commuter bikes for the road, mainly because they look similar to Speedway bikes lol ! I just love the sharp steep geometry.
So watch this space.