Kilroy1988 

Today I saw on Instagram that the new Bob Jackson shop is about to deliver their first new frame to a customer!

While looking for more evidence of their current status, since the website is not back up and running yet, I found this post on the London Fixed Gear Society website:

@BobJackson | LFGSS

We've just sent this out to all of our outstanding frame inquiries, thought it might be worth sharing it here.

Greetings from Kirkstall Road Leeds, the home of Woodrup Cycles and Bob Jackson cycles.

Thank you for your interest in the future of Bob Jackson.

Following the decision being taken by Donald to close Bob Jackson back in 2020, we attempted to rescue the business in the existing location and setup. Due to circumstances out of our control this was not possible. There were reasons Donald had decided to close the business. In the end we bought the name, some old stock and a couple of bits of machinery, we then began thinking about how we could bring Bob Jackson back to life.

The Woodrup and Jackson names go back a long way. On their return from service in WW2 Woodrup founder Maurice and Bob joined forces, with Maurice investing in Bob’s existing shop on Harehills Lane. They then opened a shop together on Burley Lodge Road (5 minutes from our current location) under the JRJ Cycles banner. They proceeded to set up a factory on Hyde Park Road in a big old Victorian house, where the frames were built and enamelled.

Maurice built the frames while Bob dealt with front of house and sales. Over the years, the partnership faltered and they went their separate ways, with Bob keeping his Harehills store and Maurice keeping the Burley Lodge Road shop, setting up there as Woodrup Cycles. Maurice opened our Kirkstall Road shop around 1969 and we've been here, building steel frames ever since.

Since we bought the Bob Jackson name the bike industry has been on a rollercoaster ride, we’ve been doing our best to hold on tight which meant putting the Bob Jackson plans on hold as we focused on the day to day running of Woodrup Cycles.

As the bike industry has returned to normality we’ve been able to begin planning for the relaunch. We have decided to offer 3 classic Jackson frames, adjusted slightly for the modern world. We’ve tried to simplify the pricing structure by speccing each frame with appropriate braze ons and including single colour paint with down tube, seat tube, head tube and tubing decals. All prices are for frame & fork and the frames will be built with 1 1/8th ahead steerers. We are able to offer custom geometry and custom paint options and full builds if desired - price on request.

We’ll be offering a Vigorelli, an End to End / Audax, and an Olympus in set sizes from 50cm to 62cm. We’ll be building in 725 as a default, this offers significant improvements over 631 at a relatively small price difference. 853 will be an optional upgrade.

We are putting together a frame shop team and production will be headed up by Steve Woodrup, these frames will be hand built in Leeds where Bob Jackson belongs.

Audax/End-End in Reynolds 725 with standard lugs and all appropriate eyelets - £1585.
Vigorelli (singlespeed/fixed) in 725 with standard lugs will - £1550
Olympus (road racing) in 725 with standard lugs - £1585
Each of these frames can be upgraded to Reynolds 853 for £150

We have a limited number of Fleur de Lys lugsets (8 sets), possibly the last of these that will make UK shores. We will be doing a special run of Fleur de Lys lugged framesets with a special barberspole and panels paintjob which will add £500 – this can be done on any of the frame models.

All prices include UK VAT but do not include shipping, handling or customs charges.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this update and please respond if you have any queries or would like to place an order. We are currently looking at around 4 months lead time on frame orders however we expect this to increase quickly. We hope to have some new show frames built and painted with the next few weeks and we've already had our first Olympus 853 order come through.

We are really excited to begin this new chapter in Bob Jackson history,

Thanks

Tom

Bob Jackson Cycles / Woodrup Cycles
345-349 Kirkstall Road Leeds
0113 2636212

merziac

merziac

I think that almost makes me two out of three or two for two.

I checked BJ, Mercian and Hetchins, would have posed BJ instead of Mercian had they been online.

steelbikeguy

I'm going to assume that Bob Jackson's business will still be on the edge between survival and failure, but I hope they can make it work! Is the UK economy good enough to carry them? Or is shipping to the USA reasonable enough to make it worthwhile?

Steve in Peoria
(very happy with my Hetchins built by Bob Jackson!)

repechage

I do not have good memories about my Bob Jackson Vigorol track bike. Was attractive but dreadful, only good to come from it was I was able to buy it on time payments, fortunate for a 13 year old.
back then the market was quite imperfect, new frames or bikes were scarce, the used market was almost invisible.

it did prompt me to get an order in on my second track bike, I still have that one.
a different universe of performance.

mhespenheide 

They're charging a lot more for these frames than they used to. Granted, everything is more expensive now that it was a few years ago. But the Bob Jackson frames right before they closed up shop were significantly less. Just from memory, the (Reynolds 531) Audax was under $1000USD.

circle23

very nice

georges1

Very interesting thanks for sharing

merziac

This is very great news, the more tradition that stays in place, the better off we'll all be in the long run.

Welshboy

I really do wish them all the very best but just hope they do not re-employ the same framebuilders and staff who were there in 2004-2007. I had three custom-built frames and only one was acceptable the other two were poor (on one the lug points weren't even touching the tubes). At this time, I was a 'steel is real' fanboy (I still am at heart) so despite these problems I ordered a fourth frame specifically to ride PBP. They screwed up that order by initially quoting me a 3-4 week turn around time but within a month this had become 16-20 weeks meaning I could not have it in time for PBP. The cherry on the cake was then the glacial speed with which they returned my deposit cheque.

Regarding Woodrup then I must say that a friend of mine raced on a Woodrup and always regarded it as the best frame he ever had, regretted selling it and eventually bought it back!!

Kilroy1988 

My impression of the situation is that there will be little in common between the last iteration of Bob Jackson and the new one except for the names on the models. The specifications that have been chosen suggest that Woodrup is essentially taking advantage of the name to create a "production" quality line of Woodrup frames with the Bob Jackson name.

-Gregory

Kilroy1988 

Some more photos and details regarding the first build were posted today on the Bob Jackson Instagram page. I've kept the description provided attached to the last photo. Cheers!

-Gregory

Doug Fattic 

Ellis Briggs Cycles where I learned how to build frames in 1975 is located in Shipley West Yorkshire in the same metropolitan area as Jacksons and Woodrup in Leeds. There was about 15 miles in-between. The city of Bradford is in between. As the article mentions, Jackson and Woodrup started out as partners and had a falling out. If I remember right it was a pretty bad falling out. When Woorup went out on their own, Jack Briggs helped Maurice get started. E-B was an older business. When I was there they also painted Woordup Cycles. I visited both companies while I was there.

The business plan of Jackson frames was to keep their price as modest as possible - which means that they had to be made as fast as possible leaving no time to fuss with details. Their paint work was nice to compensate. Woodrup took more time and as a result did a better project. At Ellis Briggs when I was there we took 3 or 4 times longer. EB frames were designed to add prestige to the business and weren't attended to be moneymakers.

Paul Gibson bought Ellis Briggs from Jack's sons and is the frame builder now. He - about 10 years ago - came over to the US to take one of my frame building classes to learn anything new I learned from when I was there. Kevin Sayles started at Jackson about 50 years ago and went to Woodrups and finally this year went out on his own.

Welshboy

Crikey! Kevin Sayles was at Thorn Cycles in Bridgwater, Somerset and I think he made my Thorn Cyclosportif frame that I used on my PBP in 2007. The fillet brazing was amazing as was the 'sunburst' spray job (seen here with 84 hours worth of road dirt from possibly the wettest PBP on record).

Bad Lag

Like MASI, the name is still out there but the original product is not.

My Bob Jackson does not have brazing problems of the type Welshboy alluded to, however, it is from 1974.

My attachment to my Bob Jackson derives from the nearly 50 years of riding this same bike. I have done everything from fully-loaded bike camping to long distance solo rides, touring California's coast, fast Club rides, family rides on vacation, to daily rides around the Beach Cities. It has been my only real rider for a long time.

I wish the new owner well. If I crashed or lost my Bob Jackson, I'd buy a new one from them. (knocks on wood)

Bad Lag

A couple of questions -

In the 4th picture there is a small rod brazed to the side of the head tube. What is that for?

What is 853 and how does it compare to 531?

79pmooney

Pretty cool. I've never lusted over Bob Jacksons (though my brother's was a very nice; sadly too small for either of us. But getting near custom frame with my initials pantographed on the seatstay caps - for free! Now passing on that is tough! And it looks like the cap is a plug. Good, It won't pull the Trek crack across the lettering the pre '85 or so Treks were famous for. (BTDT. I have a "T EK" in my collection, the "R" being filled with braze.)

Ben J (not kidding)

Kilroy1988 

I'm not sure about that thing on the head tube/lug in the fourth picture but I assumed it was something that will not remain on the frame... Maybe I'm wrong. If it is staying I assume it's to protect the paint from cable rub but that strikes me as excessively excessive.

There have been so many threads around here about the different grades of Reynolds tubing (and Columbus, etc) I'm not sure whether to take your second question seriously. Here's the official Reynolds page for 853:

853 Steel - Seamless Air-Hardening Heat-Treated Steel (reynoldstechnology.biz)

It's the highest grade of tubing that Reynolds produces sans stainless products. Heat-treated 631, which is itself a slight derivative of 531 (and advertised as having 10% greater tensile strength). From 531 to 853 on a larger frame like the ones I'm used to riding you can shave about half a pound of weight and have a stiffer frame to boot.

-Gregory

79pmooney

I bet that rod is to hold the brake housings off the HT. A paint saver. Yes, that edge will suffer, but that is all.

And 853 was the last, best, strongest of the Reynolds alloy development before the 9-hundred SS series. Very good stuff. You can make a very light frame from it. Not easy to work with and Reynolds (at least used to) requires builders to get special training and certification to buy it.

Kilroy1988 

I'm pretty sure the special training/certification applied to 753 back in the '70s. Haven't heard about such a thing for 853, which was developed in the 1990s after most frame builders using it were already backed into a pretty niche market. I have a 1999 Schwinn made in Taiwan with an 853 frame, from just a few after the tubing was released.

-Gregory

52telecaster

I bought a world tourist new in 2017 I think. Excellent frameset. I paid 860.00 with shipping.

juvela

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wonder if ownership of the Bob Jackson marque includes rights to the little kestrel one as well...

likely they are content to let it sleep...

a possible source of confusion in any event


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Kilroy1988 

Merlin? I'm sure it probably does... I've been involved in a recent conversation in which some British gentlemen confirmed that right up until Bob Jackson shut the doors in 2020 you could still order a frame with the Merlin name on it if you asked, but they weren't advertising.

-Gregory

Piff 

I don't want to split hairs too much, but I think what you meant is stronger rather than stiffer? From what I understand how it works is that the extra strength of fancy tubing allows for thinner walls and lighter frames, but with less stiffness since the tubing is thinner.

Kilroy1988 

Well the 853 frames I've had flex significantly less than my 531s have. They don't necessarily draw the tubing so thin that you end up with the same stiffness at the end of the day. Depends on frame angles and tube lengths and standard vs OS and all kinds of other things too, but that's been my experience in general.

853 is supposed to have much greater tensile strength than 531 but generally you only save about 10% of the frame weight with the thinner tubes. The rest of that strength difference accounts for an increase in stiffness (assuming the frame is designed to accentuate that strength).

As the Reynolds website advertises:

"This heat-treated version of 631 is the pinnacle of Reynolds ferrous steels.
It allows frame builders to make very strong, stiff frames with a low frame weight
It can be used in a pure 853 frame to produce a very stiff, light frame with excellent performance for a pure road bike."

853 Steel - Seamless Air-Hardening Heat-Treated Steel (reynoldstechnology.biz)