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The workshop

A corner shop in Beeston with a brazing hearth out the back

Sid Standard Cycles was a corner shop at 35–37 Chilwell Road, selling tyres and doing repairs at the front while frames were built by hand in the room behind it. 287 of those frames have a sheet in the register, 1981–1999.

A red-painted corner shop at a road junction, signwritten 'lightweight cycles — Sid Standard — accessories repairs'. Sid stands on the pavement outside with balloons tied to the railings.
Sid outside the shop on his 65th birthday, 1996
The shop

The window had the Superbes in it, hand-built frame sets, built on these premises, using modern low-temperature hearth brazing methods. The premises came before the frames. Sid took over Arthur Panter’s shop at number 35 in 1975, and at first the workshop stood across Chilwell Road; no frame was ever built in it. Brazing began only once he had taken on the launderette next door at 37 Chilwell Road, knocked the two together and made the room behind the extended shop his workshop. Every Superbe came out of that workshop, which is why the head badge carries two street numbers instead of one.

Inside, rims went up the wall in rows and tyres hung in loops off the ceiling. Most of Beeston learned to ride on something bought or mended in that room, the shop was a community hub as much as a bike shop.

“It’s all rideable”
From the blue plaque on Chilwell Road. Sid Standard, 1931–2003. Cycling enthusiast. Inspired youngsters from this shop for many years.
Who built them

Most of the Superbes were brazed by Pete Riches, who had been chief frame maker at Mercian before he came to work at ‘Sid’s’. Frames built by Pete carry a “handbuilt by Pete Riches” transfer on the down tube, which is worth looking for on your own frame. Sid himself built the others.

Kev Jackson started at the shop straight from school and is still there, more than forty years on. Where a sheet has been signed off, it’s usually one of the three of them who wrote them.

A man in a pale blue coat working at a bench in the back workshop, a finished bicycle beside him and tools racked on the wall.
Pete Riches in the workshop
Since

Sid died in 2003. The shop is still on Chilwell High Road, run now by Jamie Ireland and now called Cycle Inn, and there are reminders of Sid all through it including the blue plaque on the wall outside.

The frames went everywhere. This site exists to find the ones still out there, which is what the register is for — a number stamped on a bottom bracket, and the sheet that was written the day it was ordered

Open the register57 photographs
The transfers

The head badge names the shop and the street; the down tube carried the wordmark, gold with a black keyline, over the world champion stripes or the more contemporary block wording with its unique font. There was a white and red version of this block font too.

A gold diamond head badge with a dark brown border, lettered SID STANDARD, SUPERBE over rainbow bands, LIGHTWEIGHT CYCLES, and around the four edges 35-37 CHILWELL RD, BEESTON NOTTS, HAND-CRAFTED, FRAMESETS.
Head badge — 35–37 Chilwell Road, hand-crafted framesets
The word SUPERBE in heavy gold capitals with a black keyline, set over five horizontal bands: blue, red, black, yellow and green.
Down tube transfer
The word SUPERBE in heavy white capitals, shown against black.
The white transfer, for a dark frame
The prints

£15 from every framed sheet goes to the Lincs & Notts Air Ambulance

Any sheet in the register can be printed and framed at £110. The order panel sits on each frame’s own page, next to the sheet it prints.

Prints come off the 600 dpi scan of the sheet itself, at the size the page was written, so what arrives is the document rather than a photograph of it.