Vintage Australian bicycle decals

[LG]

I have (or have had) a number of old bikes over the years with interesting decals. Thought I'd post here as a means to prevent them disappearing from memory. I hope these photos may be of use to somebody someday, and I also hope others will post photos of their bikes decals in this thread.

Start with Tassie Bikes:

Cyril Abel Cycle Works, mens roadster from about the 1950s. From a quick google search they appear to have had a shop in Elizabeth St Hobart.
Down tube decal

Seat tube decal


The King! Seat tube decal indicates they were at 125 Elizabeth St Hobart. This bike is a ladies roadster from about the 40s.
Down tube decal

Seat tube decal

Head tube


Kevin McBain "Maxwell Cycles"Mixte from about the early 80s ish
Seat & head tube decals

Down tube decal


Tassie cycles mens racer from about the 40s (ish). Not sure if this is a respray and later decal.
Head & seat tube decals

Down tube

[LG]

More Tassie bikes!
Kinnane deluxe ladies bike from 50s ish. Somebody resprayed it blue over the top of the decals and this is as well as I could clean them up.
Down tube decal

Seat tube decal


Ken Self early 1980's locally built racer bike. I removed the decals for respraying and forgot to take photos before doing so The round rooster decal is from the head tube, the square on the seat tube.

[P!N20]

Hi LG,

Some interesting bikes you have there. I've got got a soft spot for Tassie frames as I grew up there (now living in Melbourne) and although not directly involved, was certainly aware of Tasmania's proud cycling history. I restored a McBain a few years back and am still riding it regularly - it even won a category at a recent show n shine!

A friend of mine's colleague dug out his old Kinnane Special and rode it to work! There was a whole story to go with it, but in short it was used in the 50's (?) on a turf velodrome. Kinnane was a bike shop in Wellington St, Launceston until quite recently. My Dad seems to think they built frames there back in the day.





Anyway, keeping the decal theme going, these are some shots I took of my McBain just after I bought it and pulled all the components off:





I'd love to see some pics of your Ken Self, do you know much about it? I've come across a couple, but they're so few and far between I've come to the conclusion they are just re-badged something or other.

There must be so many Tassie frames stashed in people's garages down there, if only there was a way to uncover them all!

[cotterpin]

Thanks LG and P!N20. Great thread!
I'll try and jump on board with some decal image's in the next day or so.
Cheers
Peter

[RobertFrith]

This thread is gunna go ballistic..
coupla Swansea decals for ya

[LG]

Hi LG,

A friend of mine's colleague dug out his old Kinnane Special and rode it to work! There was a whole story to go with it, but in short it was used in the 50's (?) on a turf velodrome. Kinnane was a bike shop in Wellington St, Launceston until quite recently. My Dad seems to think they built frames there back in the day.

Wow, a Kinnane special is very high on my desire list and yes, the special frames were built locally. Very nice piece of Tassie history there.

I'm hoping to get to a fella's house later next week to take some photos of a 1970s Ken Self track bike sitting in his shed, custom made for his father who raced it and has custom decals on it. Maybe I should have called this the 'Vintage Tassie bike decals' thread

I'd love to see some pics of your Ken Self, do you know much about it? I've come across a couple, but they're so few and far between I've come to the conclusion they are just re-badged something or other.

There are some locally built Ken Self road and track frames of a very high quality, but with a whole heap of bought in frames as well. Mine is a locally built road. I'll post a photo or 2 on the forum at some stage (may already be one here, can't recall).

[Kermit TF]

Arrrgh, its frustrating that this website due to some technical thingy, crops 1/4 of pic ....agree awesome thread.

[Clydesdale Scot]

Arrrgh, its frustrating that this website due to some technical thingy, crops 1/4 of pic ....agree awesome thread.

more to do with you looking at it at on a low resolution setting/monitor. All images look fine to me

[P!N20]

Ken Self tandem:



Mischa's (of Bottles & Chains fame) Ken Self, unfortunately came off second best in a collision:



This dude did an amzing resto job on his Ken Self: