1911 Gentlemen's Royal Premier (Tall 28" frame)

1911 Gentlemen’s Royal Premier (Tall 28″ frame)

“There are so many different makes of bicycles at the present time, all of which from the cheapest to the most expensive have no exclusive feature, or, in other words, are all much of a muchness, that the public are beginning to look for a bicycle with a structural feature, which no other bicycle possesses. That bicycle is the PREMIER BICYCLE.”

In the first three decades of the safety bicycle, manufacturers worked constantly to improve the strength of their frames. As tubing became lighter, the public needed reassurance that this did not weaken the bicycle. This gave rise to various designs with extra tubes to suggest a strengthened frame. The Raleigh X Frame was patented and introduced at the end of the nineteenth century, and became the most popular model of ‘unconventional’ frame design for the next 25 years.

Other companies also introduced crossframes, with Elswick and Centaur changing the crossframe style to try and avoid Raleigh’s patent. Royal Enfield had great success with their ‘girder’ frame, with added strength from an extra frame tube above the down tube.

With Premier’s ‘truss frame’ design, the extra tube is positioned from the front forks to the seat post, perhaps an attempt to combine the girder frame with the cross frame. This design enabled the company to produce a 28″ model with a strengthened frame instantly recognisable to potential customers – as Premier themselves described it “…a bicycle of such excellence and good taste that cannot be surpassed.”

Since the 1880s, Premier had been in the forefront of tube design, with the world’s first successful crossframe, followed by the ‘trough-shaped or semi-circular steel’ on their ‘Model F’, and the invention of helical tubing in 1892. With the added strength of the company’s patent truss tube, this tall 28 inch frame bicycle model embodies the ultimate in strengthened frame design.