Identification help please!

[Cavalol]

Evening folks, just acquired another old relic! Now, details sketchy (mostly because I'm daft and can't remember what the seller said!] so any help gratefully received.
It's believed to be pre-war (2nd World War, that is) and the white tip on the back mudguard reportedly from blackout precautions. It's a lovely old bus but sadly no markings that I can see. I was hoping one of you clever people may know what it is from the chain ring thingy, as was hoping they were all different around that sort of era:

Thanks in advance!

 

[raindog]

I like that.

 

[Cavalol]

Thanks. I also got an unidentified frame whilst I was there, so I may as well extend my luck by asking if anyone can identify this as well please!

 

[Trail Child]

Do I ever love this bike! My cruiser/commuter looks very close to this but it's a 2012, made to look vintage from this era.

 

[Cycleops]

Could be a BSA which would fit in with time frame. Very interesting bike. Be nice if it had some history to it.

 

[Chris S]

One of the 'arms' in the chain-ring is clearly an 'A'. Is there a 'B' and an 'S' before it, like this one?

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Could be a BSA which would fit in with time frame. Very interesting bike. Be nice if it had some history to it.

Looks like a good shout - here's a BSA crank off the web and the visible parts of the B and S look to fit the overall pattern.

EDIT: Whoops, Chris S got there first!

 

[Cavalol]

Wow, great stuff, cheers! I know it sounds daft but I'd not looked that hard at the bike and had just photographed it in a rush when I got home. I'll have another look tomorrow or the weekend, I'll look and feel a right twerp if it does say BSA but I won't mind!
I'd been chasing a couple of other bikes (from the same place) along with some quite interesting spares for a couple of weeks on/off, so when I finally had the nod to go back today I was quite excited at the prospect of doing so.
The bike and the frame were sort of unplanned, the other bikes were accounted for so I wanted to come away with something and the bike really appealed when I saw it.
I suspect it's been where it was for quite some time, possibly ten year or more, and I will speak to the former keeper about previous history. I'm hoping it's the one that was from a village not far from here as we discovered a pump that he thought had come with the bike and it contained a partial address from the said village.
Anyhow the two boxes of spares I bought with it included some quite nice pumps (I'm starting to try and polish one up a bit) one of which at least looks like it's brass, plus random other bits like some mudguards, a couple of really nice lights, bits of dynamo sets and what not.
The loop frame is really light weight, has previously been powder coated or blasted/hastily painted and seems to contain a number of some sort, if I'm lucky there will be some sort of clue in that so I'll trawl the web at some point. Half tempted to make it into a sold of olde worlde hybrid bike, perhaps using modern lightweight rims etc. That said I'm not 100% certain what I'll do with it so I might just (literally) shelve the project for now and come back to it at some point in the future.

 

[mickle]

Is it too late to point out that its a BSA?

 

[biggs682]

nice and what looks an easy id . well done guys

 

[sidevalve]

Nice old machine ! You may well be right about the rear guard as a white patch was a regulation during the blackouts.

 

[Cavalol]

Many thanks.
Have done a little digging and found a couple of pictures of a similar looking one on the net. Handily the one I found (pictured) shows what I think are the original decals and replicas seem to be available on an internet auction site.

Only pulled two (out of about 5) pumps out of the magic box of spares, and cleaning one which I think is brass up reveals it's a Vindec. Quite a nice bit of kit, it's obviously seen a bit of action in it's lifetime but some elbow grease and an hour or so and it's looking lots cleaner.

 

[bobg]

BTW, boring bit of info ..... the white mudguard law actually came out before 1939, I believe it was sometime between 36 and 38.... just in case anybody relies on the misconception to date their bike .... returns to geek mode.

 

[sidevalve]

BTW, boring bit of info ..... the white mudguard law actually came out before 1939, I believe it was sometime between 36 and 38.... just in case anybody relies on the misconception to date their bike .... returns to geek mode.

True but like many cycle related laws it was often ignored. Only when the blackout regulations came into force was it enforced with stern regularity. No reflector or patch would mean a fine and no excuses. It did carry on after the war but again it was seen less and less often.

 

[Cavalol]

BTW, boring bit of info ..... the white mudguard law actually came out before 1939, I believe it was sometime between 36 and 38.... just in case anybody relies on the misconception to date their bike .... returns to geek mode.

Not boring to me, I find this sort of thing fascinating so thankyou.
Not much of an update [sorry!] but ordered some tyres for it today. One of them is possibly saveable but I can't really be arsed messing about if it's not going to last much longer anyhow.
Therefore I've gone mad and splashed out a rip-roaring £4.95 EACH for a couple of tyres that are probably Ching Sheng Winky Wanky Woo Ditchfinder specials.
They're all black, I reckon whitewalls and that sort of yellowy coloured style from the 1970s/80s would look horrible on this bike. That's the best excuse I have for buying rubbish tyres anyhow. Tubes I'll score locally as I think they're only £3.50 a pop which I can just about live with!
Plan for now is just to get it rolling and useable, cosmetics can wait but I would like to have this stripped and painted at some point.