# When did bikes stop being manufactured with rod brakes?



## Chris S (3 Oct 2011)

I've just watched an episode of The Sweeny from 1974 and there was a policeman on a bike with rod brakes. The bike looked fairly new.


----------



## Bobtoo (3 Oct 2011)

Vans like the Commer Spacevan and Bedford HA were kept in production years past their sell by date (by the time they stopped making the HA the car version had been replaced four times) by fleet sales to the public sector, I imagine it was the same story with bikes.


----------



## slowmotion (3 Oct 2011)

My very first proper bike, bought third hand when I was about seven, had rod brakes. I'd completely forgotten about them. It seems they are still being used by _fashionistas. _Good stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(bicycle)


----------



## peelywally (3 Oct 2011)

at a guess id say mid 70s ,

i remember my grandad had an old raleigh bike to go to work on, that had a front rod brake not sure about the rear brake actually ,




he bought it new from halfords when they used to have bike only shops in high streets , that shop closed down in 76 so he must have bought it around 74/5 .


----------



## XmisterIS (3 Oct 2011)

I think they stopped producing them when they realised they were sh1t!


----------



## mickle (3 Oct 2011)

They didn't stop making them:






Sorry, picture doesn't show them very well/at all. But they do have rod brakes honest!


----------



## Globalti (4 Oct 2011)

They must have been expensive to manufacture and fit and heavy too. 

I was brought up with rod brakes and I can remember seeing my first bike with cable brakes and thinking how flimsy they looked.


----------



## Jezston (4 Oct 2011)

mickle said:


> They didn't stop making them:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh my!

More of these photos please!


----------



## numbnuts (4 Oct 2011)

my first two wheeler had rod brakes that was in the 60s


----------



## mickle (4 Oct 2011)

Jezston said:


> Oh my!
> 
> More of these photos please!



Your wish is my command.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.245392295501983.54956.100000936421951&l=7aa5beaba6&type=1


----------



## Jezston (4 Oct 2011)

mickle said:


> Your wish is my command.
> 
> http://www.facebook....a5beaba6&type=1


----------



## Moss (4 Oct 2011)

My first bike had rod brakes! But that was in the 1950's by the time I had my second bike in the early 1960's almost all bikes were fitted with cable brakes!	You could still buy bikes with rod brakes, but they were not as prevelant as the modern bikes of the day, that had cable brakes.


----------



## byegad (4 Oct 2011)

My Dad bought a new Phillips to ride to work on in the late 1950s. Fully equipped, even down to a saddle bag, with cable brakes, steel rims, SA 3 speed hub and SA dyno hub up front powering the lights. IIRC it cost him £21 19s 6d. Which was about a weeks wage for him at that time.

In the shop there were cheaper kids bikes with rod brakes and a few years later when I got a new bike to pedal to Grammar School on they were still there. I ended up with a Dawes, similarly equipped to my Dad's Phillips at around the same price.


----------



## GrumpyGregry (4 Oct 2011)

Most bikes currently manufactured for the south asian and sub-saharan african markets still have rod brakes, so to answer the OP's question; never.


----------



## growingvegetables (4 Oct 2011)

Still being made - Flying Pigeons; and being imported as "iconic". 

And still with rod brakes!

I rode one for a couple of years in Egypt in the late 70's. Comfortable - YES; elegant/stylish - well, there weren't any others; fast - wtf; reliable - well, I did learn a lot about being a reliable cycle mechanic; tough - that bike took me to places in the Nile Valley and out into the desert that would have been hard to reach without a full-scale expedition.

Wonderful, indestructible machines - and a real tribute to the sturdy technology of 1940's Raleighs; how they came to become an icon of Maoist China ......... well, there has to be a story there somewhere!

And by-the-by, good as a tool for learning communication in Arabic. One of my colleagues did go into a cycle repair shop and explain very carefully, in words of one Arabic syllable, that he had "a hospital in his strawberries"; not a great help to anybody. What he really meant? He had a "problem with his brakes". Over two years, said guy did learn the Arabic numerals from 1-10 - just not necessarily in the correct order.


----------

