Waiting for the Sun

In September 2020 an email arrived into the OldVelos HQ from someone who came across our website when he was looking for someone to restore a bike: ‘Hi , I hope you don’t mind me  contacting regarding a query I have. I have recently found an old sun bicycle ( it belonged to my father when he was ten). I was hoping to have it restored fully but it seems there isn’t anyone in Dublin. A lot of shops not interested. I saw that there’s a place outside Dublin but its very far away. I was hoping you may know of someone in Dublin through your network. Thought it would be a lot easier.
I appreciate any information’

As we always do we got to the person making the enquiry to get more background and have a look at the bike to see if it was ‘do-able’. Sometimes the ‘metal-mites’ have been left spend too long feasting on the bike. I thought it might also be a way to keep Brendan busy over the winter as he only had about four other projects on the go.

The owner (or to be more precise the son of the owner) brought the bike to me for assessment, I took the photos below and sent them off to Bren.

The answer got back didn’t surprise me: ‘I said I would never do a roadster again but I will take on this one’ . He can never turn his back on any bike that might might be near the end of his days. Patina to most people is just rust, but, to him it is just an oxide that is possibly hiding something of rare beauty. He gave a rough outline of the type of restoration he proposed which was agreed an we got the bike down to his laboratory in Cork. I knew that soon he would have it stripped down and it would soon be (to quote Jim Morrison of the Doors) his ‘Time to live in the scattered Sun’ with the parts spread all over his floor.

The brief we got from the owner was that he wanted as much of the original bike preserved. This can make the restoration more time consuming but I know Brendan loves Scotch Brite and Autosol, despite his protests.

When the bike was stripped the frame, mudguards and carrier were sent to Ger Conlon for paint.

The finished bike was recently returned to the happy owner, the restoration took nearly a year but the owner thought the time (to quote JM again) ‘Waiting for the Sun’ was worth it.

The images of the finished bike are below:-