A smashing manufacturer

The sound of breaking glass leads Rick to a supplier that brings hope for the future

I’D ONLY LEANED the Martinsyde against the wall to unfasten the gate, but it rolled and slipped, the handlebar whipping round and smashing the tank-top oil sight glass.

Great. These glasses have been unobtainable forever; I once heard you can grind down (somehow) the rear numberplate light glass from a scrap Rootes car to fit, but you don’t see many Hillman Minxes in breakers these days... Thank goodness for Rod Lloyd. Rod’s company, Lloydhansa Ltd (07973 259319, lloydhansa@gmail.com) make perfect reproductions of these domed Enots glasses and others including the cylindrical Best & Lloyd with its whitened panel. The glasses are a very reasonable £35 each including gaskets – and while you’re there, for under £15 Rod can sell you a superb replica of the graduated celluloid drip-feed setting disc and pointer, in both pre- and post-world War I fonts.

The detail on all these parts is fantastic. Rod admits to being “a fussy bugger”, but this is perhaps explained by his background as a chartered electrical engineer – he’s expanding the range all the time, with reflectors currently on the way for acetylene lamps. A vintage bike owner himself, Rod spotted a need for these parts and developed the means to satisfy it – it’s certainly ‘niche’ and he doesn’t expect to become a millionaire, but I believe this kind of ‘cottage industry’ is one of the most positive aspects of old bikes.

The UK may no longer be much of a manufacturing nation these days, but thankfully it hasn’t been stamped out altogether.

‘THIS KIND OF ‘COTTAGE INDUSTRY’ IS A POSITIVE ASPECT OF OLD BIKES’

Rick’s broken Martinsyde oil sight glass was replaced by a perfect repro part from a UK company

WHO IS RICK? Rick Parkington has been riding and fixing classic bikes for decades. He lives and fettles in a fully tooled up shed in his back garden.