1924 All-Black Golden Sunbeam for Gentlemen
Tall 30″ Frame
Sunbeam 3-Speed gear
28 x 1 3/4″ Wheels with Roman Rims
Sunbeam patent aluminium pedals
Brooks Model B90 saddle
In their catalogues, Sunbeam offered frame sizes from 22″ to 28″. A catalogue, however, only presented suggestions. Customers could actually order whatever took their fancy, any combination of specifications, and a frame size to suit their inner leg measurement.
Priced at 24 guineas, the Golden Sunbeam for Gentlemen with (Sunbeam’s own) three-speed gear was the company’s top model. The cost of the optional extras fitted to this bicycle are as follows:
Special frame size: 10/- 6d
Aluminium pedals: 5/-
Aluminium rims: 12/- 6d
Brooks B90 saddle: 3/- 6d
SUNBEAM REPAIR OUTFIT HANDLE
SUNBEAM OPTIONAL EXTRAS
THE HISTORY OF ALUMINIUM ‘ROMAN’ RIMS
Dr Reinhard Isidore Romanoff was a pioneer in the application of aluminium, and experimented with the production of aluminium-tubed BIcycles. His company was the ‘Roman Cycle Co’ of 31 Lombard Street, London. He perfected a jointless rim made from a new alloy – aluminium, tungsten and nickel – which he patented in 1897 and displayed at the National Cycle Show. He named his unique alloy ‘Romanium’, and his new lightweight wheels were called ‘Roman’ rims. A manufacture date appears inside all rims, eg 0813 for August 1913.
Bicycle ‘novelties’ such as aluminium wheels were welcomed by the cycle industry, cycling press and public alike. In 1904, the Marston Cycle Co decided to adopt Dr. Romanoff’s famous ‘Roman’ rims and offer them as an optional extra when a customer bought a Sunbeam. By 1909 Roman rims were fitted to all Sunbeams, until steel rims were introduced in 1916.
PHOTO LOCATION: Stanmer Park Well House
Stanmer village is first recorded in about 765 A.D. when (if the document is authentic) land there was granted by king Ealdwulf of Sussex to Hunlaf in order that he might found a college of secular canons at South Malling. It was for long a closed village ruled by the resident lords of Stanmer, with a population static at just over 100. From the eighteenth century onwards the lords were the Pelham family, who lived at Stanmer House.
Stanmer has a working farm at its centre. Near the church is an unusual survival, a donkey-wheel, i.e. a treadmill formerly operated by a donkey. There are 18th-century lodge-houses at the upper and lower ends of the park. The village was incorporated into Brighton in 1928, and the park passed into the hands of the county council in 1947. It is now a major public space.
