Lee Cooper LA Cycles Retro Steel MTB Frame and Forks like Chas Roberts DOGSBOLX 18.5. Here we have a very rare beast. In fact it’s the only be ever built. Lee Cooper is a master frame builder based in Coventry. He’s done contract building for most of the British frame manufacturers and for a time in the 1990′s he and business partner Al, ran LA Cycles behind John Atkins Cyckes on Far Gosford Street. Lee was the builder and Al was the painter. Their bikes were fully custom in the vane of Dave Yates, Chas Roberts et al and on the rare occasion their bikes were tested in magazines, they loved them. In the late 80′s and early 90′s, spurred on by the popularity of mountain biking in USA, most of these British builders started adding MTB frames to their traditional road bike offerings. This is a prototype that Lee built for himself to test ideas. It uses a combination of fillet brazing and lugs for the high end skinny steel Columbus and Reynolds tubes (he can’t remember exactly what model they are). You can see where Lee has experimented with tyre vs crank clearance by heating the tubing and “manipulating” with a heavy object! It was originally built around the chrome-plated steel threaded fork but Lee also used the suspension forks seen in the photos which are SR Suntour 8500′s in a very similar (but not exact same) yellow shade with matching graphics. This has not been used for many years. The stanchions are good, the adjusters work and there is no excessive slop of play but they will need a full service if you intend to ride them. Please note these are threadless for aheadset systems and have a long 180mm 1 steerer. Both forks are included in this sale. The yellow frame paint is original and although there are quite a lot of chips, it’s deep and glossy. The chips could be easily touched in if required. I know Lee quite well both from bitd and from doing a lot of frame repairs on my retro MTB fleet and so when he was moving his workshop he offered me his old frames. All but three are now gone and this is the last one to be listed. I’ve got too many bikes so it’s time to move it on to an appreciative collector. Bring fully custom, it’s not a “size” as such but I guess you’d call it a 18.5 based on seat tube length centre to top. The actual dimensions are. Seat tube centre to top: 18.5. Seat tube centre to centre: 15.75. Top tube effective horizontal with the rigid forks: 23. Head tube end to end: 5. Seat post diameter: 27.2mm. Front mech diameter: 28.6mm. Headset: 1 threaded (rigid) / threadless (suspension). Fork axle to crown: 39cm (rigid) / 440mm suspension. Rear axle spacing is 130mm but you can splay them slightly to get a 135mm wide hub in if you like. Frame mass: 1915g. Rigid fork mass: 920g. Suspension fork mass: 1750g. Will be well packed and delivered insured to value by Parcel Force or you are welcome to collect from CV47 0HZ. Any questions, please ask.
