Woodrup Cycles
345-7 Kirkstall Road
Leeds LS4 2HD, England
Woodrup Cycles is a family business. The directors of the business are Stephen Maurice Woodrup (father), Stephen Woodrup (son), and Jean Woodrup (mother). The business started officially in 1952.
Prior to that time Stephen Maurice, whom everyone just calls Maurice to avoid confusion with his son Stephen, was involved in a business partnership with another Leeds builder, Bob Jackson.
Background
When Maurice went into business with Bob in 1948, he was certainly not a novice. Maurice had been building frames for several years. He started building as a young boy in Keighley, a small town located 18 miles northwest of Leeds, in the 1930s. Here in Keighley, Maurice worked for a firm owned by Alex Shuttleworth who produced a frame called "Alworth." Maurice liked working for Shuttleworth, but he decided he would some day make bicycles for himself, with his name on them. He got the opportunity in 1948 when he started a four-year partnership with Bob Jackson.
After the dissolution of the partnership in 1952, Maurice opened up his own bicycle store. Together with his wife Jean, an avid cyclist herself who has held the ladies' national 10-mile record for some 15 years, they operated the bicycle store and in his spare time he would build frames. Business was good and it led to the opening of a second store in Leeds. Today there are two Woodrup Cycles--one on North Lane and one on Kirkstall Road.
The store on North Lane is managed and operated by Jean Woodrup. She sells the "bread and butter" machines--children's bicycles and utilitarian adult bicycles. Maurice manages the store on Kirkstall Road where you'll find a good supply of Woodrup framesets as well as various other makes of lightweight bicycles for touring and racing. Maurice does not build frames anymore but he does the finishing touches on all the top-quality bicycles, which includes cleaning out threads, building wheels, and checking for alignment.
The frame-building facility is located at the same address as the bicycle store on Kirkstall Road. It is to the rear of the shop and up a set of creaky, narrow stairs. In the frame-building shop there are three builders, and one apprentice, who produce from 400 to 500 frames per year.
Maurice and Jean's son is in charge of the frame-building shop. Stephen is a young frame builder of 30, but he is not an inexperienced builder by any means. Stephen has been involved with bicycles since the day he was born. Jean and Maurice regularly rode together and their newest addition joined the rides, at the age of six weeks, in a special sidecar attached to his father's bicycle. Since Stephen's first ride 30 years ago, he has ridden thousands of bicycles.
Figure 10-1: Young craftsmen disassembling a damaged frame.
Stephen rides to work every day and also finds time for training. He is involved in racing in the Leeds area and finds that when he rides, whether it be to work, training, or in a race, he meets many riders on Woodrup frames. Jokingly he says, "We have to build them well, otherwise we'd find a customer running of f the road because we ride so much." When Stephen refers to "we," he is referring to himself, his friend (and employee) Kevin Sayles, who is his regular cycling companion, and his parents.
The Woodrups are a cycling family. Maurice has been actively cycling for 45 years. In 1936, at the age of 17 he won his first race and although he was not able to pursue the sport he loves so much while in the army, upon his return he immediately started riding and has not missed a year since 1946. Both he and Jean can be seen every weekend with the Leeds Clarion Club, of which they have been members for 30 years, riding anywhere from 40 miles in the winter to 80 miles in the summer.
Building Philosophy
When Stephen left school, he thought he would try something other than frame building. He had spent practically his whole life in the bicycle store and he decided that he wanted a change. Having had some engineering courses while attending the College of Science and Engineering in Leeds, he found a position at Mountbank Sheet Metal Engineering Company, where he was exposed to industrial techniques in welding and design.
Although he found the work fascinating, after six years he lost his enthusiasm for working for someone else. He decided that he preferred working with bicycles because it gave him more personal satisfaction and his hours were more flexible to do other things such as training and racing. Stephen returned to his father's shop.
Stephen's friend and riding companion, Kevin Sayles, helps Stephen meet the demand for the Woodrup frame. Kevin is only 21 but he has been building frames full time for six years. He started building frames for Bob Jackson, but now works for Stephen. He likes it better at Woodrup because the work isn't as regimented. It's more relaxing and easygoing. With the help of a couple of apprentices, Kevin and Stephen build around eight frames per week.
At Woodrup Cycles, they believe that it takes about six years to become an expert frame builder. "Frame building is mainly experience and it usually takes someone that long to be expert in the brazing and in design," claims Stephen. Since there are not a lot of books on the subject, expertise can come only through experience.
Like most custom frames, Woodrup frame tubes are mitered.
The joints are tacked, but never pinned. Stephen believes it is an old-fashioned method that wastes time: "With a commercial frame builder, you've got to be able to do a good job, but you also have to be able to do it fairly quickly. Otherwise, you're just putting yourself out of the market." All the Woodrup frames are brazed with hand-held torches using Sifbronze. Since the Woodrups have been producing Reynolds 531SL frames, they have started using silver solder-but only on 531SL tubing. Stephen believes that there is no need to use silver on regular Reynolds 531DB and there is a disadvantage-additional cost. On the other hand, Stephen feels it is a necessity to use silver on Reynolds 531SL because of the lightness of the tubing.
Woodrup frames can be equipped with Italian section forks.
These are generally requested on some of the better racing frames.
Stephen doesn't believe that there is any real advantage in using the Italian fork sections: "People just like it better for style. They like the Italian look of frames which I personally do as well. I think some of the best builders in the world are Italians." Most of the lugs used on Woodrup frames are Prugnat because so many people request them; however, Woodrup Cycles have the Roto cast lugs available which Stephen says "are a nicely finished-off lug set. They are stronger. They are stylish as well as make a nice frame." They also use a lot of the Cinelli fully sloping crowns as well as the Cinelli semi-sloping crowns (which Stephen prefers because of their superior finish). He believes both crowns are very strong but that the fully sloping is the stronger of the two. However, the excessive weight of the latter becomes a disadvantage in frames where the customer is interested in light weight. All bottom brackets in Woodrup frames are stamped steel, although Stephen would like to use cast bottom brackets. So far he has been unable to find one with English threading that is acceptable to him. He feels, however, that with the constant improvement of the cast products, he will soon be able to offer a Woodrup frame with cast lugs, fork crown, and bottom bracket.
Frame Selection
The Woodrup brochure describing the models that they produce indicates that they only build racing frames.
This is not true. The brochure, according to Stephen, only indicates the variety of things they can do. They tend to make more racing frames, but that is only because of the influence the Woodrup name has in various clubs in the Leeds area. In fact, in the early 1960s, Woodrup and Ovaltine cosponsored a professional team.
The Woodrup philosophy in designing a touring frame is only to alter the angles and lengthen the wheelbase. The length of the top tube and seat tube should remain the same as if the person was being fitted for a racing frame. Stephen believes that positioning is an individual thing and that if a rider gets his position right, it should be varied only slightly for different events.
The alteration of angles from a racing frame to a touring frame will automatically, however, change the position of the tourist slightly. By reducing the angle of the seat tube, the rider will automatically be sitting behind the bottom bracket a little further.
Woodrup Cycles offers a full range of seatstay attachments: fastback, semi-wrap, and full wrap. Their most popular model is a version of the semi-wrap which is made out of the seatstay tops.
They also do what Stephen terms "the ordinary semi-wrap" which uses a solid top eye. Stephen believes that top eyes are heavy and old-fashioned, but certain customers request them. As far as strength, Stephen doesn't think that there is much difference in any of the attachments as long as they have been fastened and brazed properly. Time trialist, he thinks, prefer the fastback stay because it looks faster and sleeker but unfortunately many of the fastbacks require a heavy insert to give them that sleek, fast look-contrary to what the time trialist actually need.
Many people in the bicycle industry consider the chrome plating and paint jobs on Woodrup frames as good as any available. It is surprising to find that both the painting and the chroming are subcontracted. The frame workmanship is consistently clean and professional since the Woodrups believe in producing top-quality products. Their philosophy is best ex pressed by Stephen:
We try hard, not for numbers particularly, but we try and give quality frames. We're all interested in cycling here. We're not building just for the cash really.
We all race; we all ride the bicycle; we all mix with the people we're selling the frames to. We really take pains in making sure that our frames are good, all the way through, from the mitering of the tube to putting the transfers on at the finish. We try and make a first-class job of everything.