BSA Wayfarer c.1975
Introducing another £2 bicycle. Well… the frame at least.
This was another bike included in the haul I got last year. So far you’ve seen the Kerry’s (which I built into a single speed), the Rudge “Ulster Sports” and now you’ll get the chance to see the start of the oh so average BSA Wayfarer.
I’ll be honest, this bike had me searching around for ages until I found a post that revealed the identity. I knew the bike was a 70’s BSA from the head badge at first look but seeing the serial number etched into the side of the seat tube threw me. I’ve come to expect that on earlier bikes, around the 50’s, not late into the 70’s. By this time Raleigh had their dirty little mitts into BSA and so the bike should have really had the serial number stamped neatly behind the seat tube.
There are no model references left on the bike. The paint is now almost completely flat with only the faint BSA transfer on the seat tube remaining. However if you look closely you can see the glistening remains of some gold pin striping. To me, that’s a nice detail but something I can’t replicate. I just don’t have the skills to do anything that detailed.
So how did I come to discover the bike was branded a Wayfarer? Well, it should have been so obvious! I actually have a Raleigh Wayfarer that is nearing completion and combing the exact match paint and age wise with the knowledge Raleigh shared models with BSA should have led me to guessing the model. It didn’t. I was nowhere near that train of thinking. Instead I took to the Veterans Cycle Club library and searched the archives. Unfortunately there are no BSA catalogues from the 70s and even the Raleigh catalogues have no mention of the Wayfarer that I can find.
Instead Google was my saviour. Searching for a simple “BSA Ladies Bike” I went through all the pictures until I found one that matched and reading more in to the post I found out it was a Wayfarer. That knowledge unlocks a mass of Wayfarer posts all around the interwebs. It’s far from a rare bike but I wasn’t expecting that. It’s a bike people rode casually back in the day and buy now for those memories or to simply to use as a project (some being better than others…)
For me, it’s just another back burner project that will get rebuilt as and when. I’ll try and rebuild it using a 70’s Sturmey Archer 3 speed (probably taken from my Raleigh Wayfarer) and find some old parts to fill in all the blank spaces. I’m not even going to attempt the pin striping but it will get the original transfers back as I know I can source them.
Now speaking of the Wayfarer… I better go and finish the Raleigh.
Function 88 