mickle
innit
- Location
- 53.933606, -1.076131
Dotter number two's big brother just gave her an old Nigel Dean frame to replace her now sadly crunched FORT track frame (so she now has a fixie hack but still wants a track bike at some point. So anyway).
Nigel Dean made was a former professional road racer who went on to manufacture hand-made bikes in what had been Humber's Beeston factory.
Then he went out of business and I've read that he eventually popped up as a coach for one of the African national teams. 'Cept this was all before the internet so there's not much info out there.
What I know about him is that at one point he was making 'own brand' frames for many reputable shops. Evans Cycles sold Nigel Deans rebranded as Evans cycles, as did Condor and perhaps even (IIRC) Bike UK and Mosquito too. This was fairly common at the time, The London Bicycle Company in Floral St Covent Gdn sold Claude Butler Dalesman's rebranded as 'Londoner'.
I met him a couple of times when I worked in Evans in the eighties when he came to schmooze with the owner, and he seemed a nice enough geezer. It was a real shame that the business failed, he made some very nice bikes. Evans were still pretending that the Evans branded bikes were theirs - milking their reputation as a custom frame builder even though they hadn't had an actual frame builder on the premises for years. (After Nigel Dean stopped they turned to Orbit for their 'Evans' frames and they were terrible.)
So that's all I know. What do you know? Anything?
Nigel Dean made was a former professional road racer who went on to manufacture hand-made bikes in what had been Humber's Beeston factory.
Then he went out of business and I've read that he eventually popped up as a coach for one of the African national teams. 'Cept this was all before the internet so there's not much info out there.
What I know about him is that at one point he was making 'own brand' frames for many reputable shops. Evans Cycles sold Nigel Deans rebranded as Evans cycles, as did Condor and perhaps even (IIRC) Bike UK and Mosquito too. This was fairly common at the time, The London Bicycle Company in Floral St Covent Gdn sold Claude Butler Dalesman's rebranded as 'Londoner'.
I met him a couple of times when I worked in Evans in the eighties when he came to schmooze with the owner, and he seemed a nice enough geezer. It was a real shame that the business failed, he made some very nice bikes. Evans were still pretending that the Evans branded bikes were theirs - milking their reputation as a custom frame builder even though they hadn't had an actual frame builder on the premises for years. (After Nigel Dean stopped they turned to Orbit for their 'Evans' frames and they were terrible.)
So that's all I know. What do you know? Anything?
