Bad Lag

This is a detective series I'm watching on Netflix.

Inspector Murdoch rides a shiny, new black bicycle. Does anyone know what bike it is? It looks to have very slack frame angles as you see on old bicycles but it seems to be new. Even the spokes shiny to the point of causing glare in the camera. If I had to guess, I'd say it has a honey Brooks saddle.

Is it a Pashley or a Flying Pigeon or a genuinely old bike that's been repainted or,...???




BTW, the other television show I've seen in called Pedal America! I want to like it but it is horrible.

mapleleafs-13 

murdoch mysteries is a brutal show lol, they show it on CBC in canada and i don't know how it stays on the air. Then again they show cornation street

markk900

Hey Hey Hey....don't be dissin' Murdoch! One of my favorites! BTW, didn't you see the episode where on top of solving the murder he also invented the derailleur? Berto didn't mention that little know piece of Canadiana.

Seriously - I do love the show and have not been able to make out what kind of bike he (and George) ride. I do find if funny they can ride 10s of miles to a crime scene on 1900s roads in suits and not have a hair out of place when they get there.

David Newton

Yeah, ye-olde tig welded frame with unicrown fork.

photogravity

By this picture, that is quite obvious.

Reynolds 

The crankset looks anachronistic too.

mapleleafs-13 

along with those uber vintage aluminum rims....


but only bike geeks like us would notice that

David Newton

To be fair to the OP, this was the only picture I could dredge up from the Murdoch Mysteries with a bicycle in it. This was in an installment with a bike race. It may not be the bike he rides on his daily rounds.

elcraft

If Murdoch's cycle is a rod levered "Roadster", it could be an Eastman. Eastman Is an Indian-made, bolt for bolt Raleigh clone. Excepting the wrong insignia on the chain case, it is almost indistinguishable from DL-1, at eight feet!

Lascauxcaveman 

I'm a big Murdoch fan too, eh? And I've noticed over the years he's had several different bicycles (not all of them strictly period-correct, component-wise). The guy is always on his bike but you don't get any closeups, really. But the hardware is noticeably different from episode-to-episode and season-to-season.

The show's story lines are pretty amusing, especially how they tend to incorporate fin de siècle celebrities like H.G. Wells or Nikola Tesla, but also how Detective Murdoch tends to invent useful things like the fax machine, or sonar, or the bicycle derailleur, for example, during the course of a tawdry murder investigation. My wife and daughters are all totally in love with this guy. I'm kinda in love with the lovely Dr. Ogden, myself.

The episode from which the photo above was taken had some bike racer dude named "Major Taylor" or something like that in it. Anybody ever heard of him before? And it had blood doping as part of the plotline.

Pretty far-fetched eh?

markk900

He probably invented alloy cotterless cranks and aluminum rims while fiddling with his derailleur invention. My family finds great amusement in the names given to his nifty inventions that are just a little different than what they actually became to be known by.
@David Newton: That was his racing cycle - he rides a government issued tig-welded unicrown normally.....with upright bars.

dwightisright

Would love to use the bike during a tweed run. just wish I could have one.

Bad Lag

Just for reference, that racer is not the bike I was referring to. In fact, I've never seen that on the show.

I have a bike that could be made to look like that by flipping the bars over and removing the brakes (which I do not plan to do).

Murdoch normally rides around town and to crime scenes on in an upright seating position. As I said earlier, it is possibly a Pashley, Flying Pigeon or an older Raleigh or,... well, which it is, is really the question, isn't it?

Wulf

Major Taylor was a famous bicycle racer who won the 1 hour record in 1900

Lascauxcaveman 

Never heard of the guy.

katsrevenge

I am so glad I'm not the only one wondering about Netflix programing bikes.

My bugaboo is Murder She wrote. The lady has a number of bikes. I'm thinking th black one with the low step through frame, lights and keylocking fork is a Raleigh? Maybe? And one might be an old Schwinn...

egadgetguy

Anyone else notice this? his bike has a light, and then it doesn't.

rhm

They can bounce off... so maybe he noticed its absence, and went back for it?

allend

Well I'm sitting here after spinning at GoodLife, eating spaghetti, watching Murdoch mysteries and low and behold turns out it is a topic on Bike Forums! I think it is a great series for us old guys interested in days gone by. I did see the show with the bike race and Murdoch managing to keep up with his new derailleur thingy - hilarious! Some guy was given the wrong blood and promptly died (murdered). Interesting, often very topical story lines. I've just been reading the book Wheelman exposing Lance et al. Haven't got far but describes how blood doping was done and Landis describes being paranoid about receiving someone else's blood - a real concern. Anyway on CBC Murdock mysteries is followed by Coronation Street - time to turn it off and continue fussing over Claud Butler Super Torino build.

J T CUNNINGHAM

"Anyone else notice this? his bike has a light, and then it doesn't."
Egadgetguy.

I never even noticed the light, as the Homburg hat kept my thoughts!

BTW, and this should be within the Canada East Section, do checkout The Royal Canadian Curling Club's site; it having begun as

The Royal Canadian Bicycle Club at the end of the last, last century.

(Lots of racing and trophy pics, including that of The Dunlop Trophy; it actually sitting within the club's vestibule in all of it's splendor.)


Regards,
J T

tntbicycle

Hello Murdock Mysteries fans (and critics). Mudock apparently has a storage unit full of bicycles. Some talk here about his amazing racing bike with its alloy rims, and cotterless alloy cranks. Don't forget the alloy hubs. He should have invented quick-release too. If you pay attention to his bike, it will go from a more authentic vintage replica, to striped down more modern frames with alloy components and flat bar. I actually found this forum because I wanted to know if there was any buzz about disc brakes. In season three or four (I think) there was a bike chase scene. Murdock road a bike with a rear rack (tan top) and flat bars. As it flashed around the scenes (one of which he rode down a large, narrow, steep, flight of stairs) I swear his bike had disc brakes. I can't believe that I am the only one that saw this, which makes me think I didn't really see them. I didn't have the energy or interest at the time, and after finishing the 7th season, it is still gnawing at me. I will try to find which episode. - not one to watch anything twice. and this show, though entertaining, is not that great. In fact, if you watch other shows like Bones, it had many strikingly similar plots.

tntbicycle

OH, I forgot..... and the alloy body "bear claw" style pedals. ... and .... and. .. and check out the microphone they set next to the bike. and made a sorry attempt to disguise it with some sort of fuzzy stuff tape on with tape that only Crabtree has conceptualized.

redneckwes

The faux fur cover on the microphone is a diffusion device to cut down on wind noise when recording sound. I'ts not a disguise at all, the shot would be framed so as to not show the microphone.

T-Mar

It's quite obvious that the producers have to make some concessions and use modern bicycles, yet the faux pas cited aren't nearly as bad as claimed. Commercially available aluminum rims first appeared circa 1893. An aluminum pedal had been released by 1897. Cotterless, two and three piece cranksets were very common prior to the turn of the century, as were unicrown style forks.

Unfortunately, a lot of the 1890s innovation disappeared when the market crashed, just prior to the turn of the century. The high grade bicycle all but disappeared, almost overnight. The USA government instituted high tariffs to protect the remaining bicycle industry. This largely kept out European innovations and the American manufacturers settled into a rut of single speed roadsters until the 1950s when the government eased off tariffs on English manufactured bicycles, to help them the British rebuild their cycle trade.

dweenk

There are at least a couple more PBS programs featuring classic (or classic looking bikes). The best is "Call the Midwife" and the other is "Father Brown".