Scotland was home to some fine lightweight bicycle framebuilders for much of last century. Unfortunately, those great names, led by Glasgow’s Flying Scot marque, no longer feature in the cycling world. Some simply went out of business in the 1950s and 1960s when the bicycle as the main form of mass transportation, inexorably gave way to the car. Some other framebuilding businesses disappeared when the man at the head of what was often a one-person operation died.

Sadly for those who value old lightweight bikes as much for their historic relevance as their engineering qualities, only the firm of David Rattray appears to have gone as far as to produce brochures of their products. Some of these catalogues can be see at Bob Reid’s great Flying Scot website.

This lack of literature makes it difficult to piece together the stories surrounding the other great bikes such as those produced by George Elrick, E & S Worrall, the McNeil Brothers, D.W. Lindsay, et al.

All Contributions welcome!

The aim of this website is to put in the public domain as much as is known by me about Scottish lightweight framebuilders. At the moment, it has to be said that this isn’t a great deal! For that reason, it would be great if anyone who can contribute something to the collective knowledge bank, no matter how small, could contact me to pass on their information.

I’d love to hear from anyone who worked in these businesses or supplied them with materials*. From people who bought their products and can shed some light on the bikes and from club cyclists who have memories of the cycle shops and workshops in question. It would be especially nice to hear from cyclists who still have a Scottish lightweight bike or pictures of the machine. Everything received will be credited to the contributors.

Bruce Robbins 

Carnoustie