Hetchins Bicycles

>> Thursday 12 March 2009

Ric at Exist pointed me in the direction of Hetchins bikes today, they are identifiable by their truly amazing lugwork, or as my girlfriend called it: "poncy" lugwork. These frames are seriously flashy, check it...

hetchins lug

...they remind me of cowboy boots, but in a good way not in a Topshop boots and shirt combo way.

Hyman "Harry" Hetchin and Jack Denny started selling their flashy lugged bikes in the early 1930's and as well as the swirly bits they also feature distinctive curved rear stays. These things really do look amazing, I'm gonna be rummaging in skips looking for one until I find one, no matter how long it takes!

Here are a bunch of their fixed gear bikes from the last 70 years or so:

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

hetchins fixed gear bikes

Did that whet your appetite? If it did then head over to www.hetchins.org where you will find tons of photos of bikes from the 30's up to the present day as well as loads of information about their production methods. There are even some great old action photos dotted around the site like this:

Hetchins classic track bike

Enjoy! :-)

1 comments:

zach 15 September 2012 at 13:55  

That last photo looks like his buddy is giving him a reach around.