Major Nichols
Encyclopedia
Major Albert Nichols was the last of the craftsmen cycle makers of the West Midlands of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He was born in West Bromwich
West Bromwich
West Bromwich is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands, England. It is north west of Birmingham lying on the A41 London-to-Birkenhead road. West Bromwich is part of the Black Country...

 in his father's cycle shop at 5 Reform Street. Major was a frequent name in Birmingham and the Black Country.

He trained in the electrical industry and served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. On the death of his father in 1947, he took over the business and taught himself lightweight cycle-frame building, which he carried out in West Bromwich from the early 1950s until 1971 when the area was redeveloped.

Nichols moved to a former shop at 48 Durban Road in nearby Smethwick. His last frame was built in 1995. He was a vice-president of the Hill Top Cycling Club and at its 21st anniversary dinner in 1956 he presented one of his early track frames to the first Briton to finish the Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...

, Brian Robinson.

His cycles were ridden to success by Anthony Taylor , Paul Carbutt
Paul Carbutt
Paul Anthony Carbutt was an English professional racing cyclist. He died in May 2004.Carbutt has an exceptional range of achievements - from a silver medal in the short-distance national hill-climb championship in 1975 to breaking the near-1,000 miles of the Land's End to John o' Groats road...

, Roy Cox, Ray Ward, Phil Bayton
Phil Bayton
Philip Bayton is a former road cyclist from Great Britain, who was a professional from 1973 to 1989. He represented the United Kingdom at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, where he finished 5th in the road race, just before teammate Phil Edwards...

and others.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK