Well, they do have a couple of their own frames hanging up usually. But not easy to see. Not actually 'on display', you might say.
I called into Woodrups today. They now have the belt drive bike on prominent display and a couple of hand built Woodrups frames in the arch way in the half of the shop that's furthest away from the till. The flagship fram is called the Maurice Woodrup with hand cut lugs and some nice stainless steel detailing like the head badge and cable rubbing strips to save the paint work.
I've been offered a test ride of the belt drive bike and I'll be taking up the offer really soon.
Ooh, please give us a report when you do - am sure there are plenty folks curious/interested in the Chimera.
Frere
A bit late but there again I am not a frequent visitor to YACF...
I was lent the Chimera for a weekend test ride in the first weekend of October which surprised me as when I called in the shop to arrange a test ride I was expecting them to lend it to me for a ten mile or so ride.
I was sceptical about the claims about Rohlhoff hubs by evangelical owners and my first surprise was how light the bike was when I lifted it to put it into my car. My intentions were to pedal it up to Darlington from Leeds on Saturday before catching a train back to do a 100km Audax on the Sunday. Tony Woodrup was keen for me to put the miles on it as he wanted feedback about the ride quality and the perceptions of a rider who enjoys touring.
My ride to Darlington was uneventful mostly. I explored the gear range of the Rohloff hub and found the gear range to be fine and I found myself changing gears more frequently than I did with derailleur bike possibly because of the evenly stepped ratios and there being no need to make do with a derailleur gear for longer than is wanted because the next gear up/down isn't quite right. As widely reported, the lower gears are noisy but the silence of the hub in gears eight and upwards was unsettling at first but became a pleasure.
The 26" wheels and fattish tyres didn't appear to offer too much rolling resistance and when in the higher gears, the silence of the hub and belt drive meant that the tyre/road interface was the only source of noise coming from the bike. The handling was very stable and the the ride was very comfortable. The pleasure of being able to change gear while stationary made itself felt in Northallerton where I got caught up in heavy traffic and an Orange Order parade. It was a strange experience seeing Orange Order marching bands marching out of season in a North Yorkshire market town but it turns out that Northallerton has the largest Orange Order Lodge in England. What a surprise!
Back to the bike. I didn't really get to test the lower gears until reaching Croft and the short climb into Hurworth on Tees. The silence of the bike was shattered by the whirring of the hub but the pedalling was effortless. The top gears are a bit low but I don't have any quibble with that as I enjoy coasting downhill rather than pedalling and am not too fussed about 'pedalling out' at a lower speed than I would do on a road/audax bike.
The Sunday ride didn't happen. I woke up feverish which was the opening shots of a staph infection which developed into cellulitis in my lower left leg and I was too unwell to ride. I returned the bike reluctantly to Woodrup Cycles on the Monday having resolved to purchase one when the financial circumstances were right - there was an off chance that I could wangle a lenient deal from the Cycle to Work scheme arrange by my school heavily supplemented by me. It was not to be - the administrator crush all aspirations to a 'deal' with a pre-emptive draconian email which threatened all sorts of repercussions including the seizure of any bike purchased under the scheme at the end of the scheme which resulted in all but one potential participants deciding to not bother but I digress...
In December I came into tidy sum of money, enought to buy the frame and I was offered an interest free - OK there's a 3% charge on a cash advance from my credit card over a year so I trooped into Woodrup Cycles and placed an order. The frame is now complete and the wheel components have been ordered to be built while the frame is at the painters.
My bike will have braze ons to: guide the dynamo cabling up the fork legs and along the cross bar to the lights, accommodate three bottle holders, a set of spoke holders for rear wheel spoke only.
It will be ready towards the end of February and I'm ready and willing to get some miles in on it.
Here is a picture of my frame being built:
A studio shot of the Chimera prototype:
