Bates Cycles - Models and frame numbers

Even the Rigida mudguard eyes (another exclusive Bates design) were special – these were very neat and unobtrusive brazed-on fittings featuring a quick-release attachment. Initially they employed wing-bolt fastenings but later they used very attractive chrome-plated round-headed fittings. In the days when racing men rode to events on their cycles before removing mudguards and lights for the race, it was a useful and practical feature.

Most of the craftsmen who built the frames were racing men and, unlike many in the business, they were salaried rather than paid ‘piecework’, so there was no temptation to cut corners. One of these craftsmen was Stan Butler, a master frame builder who raced a Bates himself. After the war he went into partnership with Ching Allin to set up Allin cycles. Stan also built frames for the 1948 Olympic team. Another skilled frame builder at Bates was HR Morris, who later went on to build highly-regarded frames under his own name.

A Bates of London advertisement in a ‘Cycling’ magazine from 1950 describes their Volante track machine as ‘the leading track machine of the century – precision built and finished to your own specification’. Their cycles were advertised as ‘the perfect combination of lightness and rigidity’. The Volante, B.A.R and Vegrandis continued much as before, while a cheaper model was produced in normal Reynolds tubing under the names Vendome, Eucadian and New Club (at different times) . The Vendome model was reportedly produced in Belgium for a short period due to materials shortages in this country. Sales really took off in the early 1950s but by 1954 the boom period was over and the company had to rethink its future. Within a year it had closed all of its London branches and the firm was relocated to Westcliff-on-Sea in 1954.

The new home for Bates brought about a change of name to Bates of Westcliff and there were changes to the model range too. The Volante now featured quite fancy hand-cut lugs and was developed as a road model as well as for the track. The B.A.R model at this time was available in two versions with either the popular Nervex Professional or Nervex Legere series lugs. Nevertheless, production of all Bates models had slowed to a trickle compared with just a few years earlier. The manufacturing side of the business continued to dwindle over the years although both Cantiflex and 531 frames continued to be made in smaller and smaller quantities. Not much more than a hundred frames were built in the period between 1956 and 1963. The business at this time was really centred on the cycle shop rather than making frames.

In the mid-1970s a new catalogue showed the Volante with Nervex Pro or Legere lugs and Cantiflex tubing, while the Vegrandis and Eucadian were specified with conventional Reynolds 531 and the Vendome was produced in basic high tensile steel tube. Few were made during the 1970s and 80s, and yet somehow the Bates Cantiflex design has managed to survive and a Volante with feature-cut lugs, Cantiflex 531 tubes and Diadrant forks is still available more than seventy years after it first made its debut.

Model identification and frame numbering
Different models were sometimes given prefix or suffix codes. This was usually stamped onto the frame, sometimes not, so the model identifying code cannot be relied upon to be there. It’s possible that the prefix was used only for built up cycles rather than frames sold separately (or vice versa), or perhaps by certain frame builders but not others.