Bates B. A. R.
The post-war speed machine with a fork that was ahead of the curve
Sheldon Brown said “the diamond frame is one of most nearly perfect pieces of design known,” but that hasn’t stopped bike designers and framebuilders from trying to improve it ever since Starley’s safety bicycle set the template.
The approach of Baines Brothers in Bradford was to dismantle the diamond frame, chop up the tubes and put them back together in a different configuration for their Flying Gate. Bates Brothers in London, however, decided to look at the tubes themselves. Even in the 1930s it was recognised – and proven – that oversized tubing was stiffer, so Horace Bates came up with doubled-butted Cantiflex tubes, which in their centre had a larger diameter and thinner wall thickness, tapering at the ends so that they could be built with standard lugs. He patented them and had them made by Reynolds.
Offsetting the stiffness was the Bates Diadrant fork that was radical, instantly identifiable and actually improved comfort. Instead of the standard single raked curve, the Diadrant fork had a double curve before the dropout, an idea that allegedly came from a butcher’s bike that had a fork designed to create more space for a front rack – and which rode surprisingly well.
This Bates B. A. R. that we photographed at Golden Age Cycles has both of the famous Bates trademarks and is a lovely example of one of British bike racing’s best-loved ‘speed machines’ from the 1930s through the 1950s. The classic round-arm Chater-lea chainset perfectly recalls mid-century time trialling.
Bates B. A. R. frames with Cantiflex tubing were still being made by Ron Cooper in the first decade of the 21st century and a Bates built by the great Ron Cooper, who died in 2012, is every bit as desirable as one of the originals.
Improvement on a nearly perfect piece of design? You bet.