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Post by velolars on May 31, 2019 12:02:09 GMT 2
![]() Dear Members, Allow me, as a new member, to introduce myself. I am 54 years old, father of two beautiful girls, father substitute to an orphan boy, and 3x grandfather. I live in Denmark. My interest in bicycles started out as a child, where I practiced bicycle acrobatics. Later, as a teenager, when my interest in the opposite sex rose tremendously, I'd rather ride on fast and "smart" racing bikes. As an adult, the interest in bicycles disappeared until, approx. 15 years ago, when I found an old racing bike (1983)a scrap hill at the local scrap dealer. The bike was mounted with full Campagnolo Super Record, which turned out to be largely unused. Since then, I started looking for old lightweight bikes at rubbish/trash depots and scrap dealers, and the number of bikes in my shed grew while I didn't show what to use them for. I then started making bikes for orphans (young mostly boys). One day I found the most beautifully crafted bicycle frame at the dump. The frame was provided with a frame number, and after some research I found that the frame was made in Denmark by a person with the family name Grønning, and sold under the brand "Skandsen". This was the start of small approx. 10 years of research, as it turned out that there was virtually no publicly available information about the cyclist ‘Skandsen’, and even in vintage cycling circles, Skandsen was largely an unknown name. I was surprised when, after all, I judged the frame be the finest Danish frame work I had ever seen. I found out that Skandsen was a Danish cycling business in Odense (the home town of fairytale writer H C Andersen), which had existed for generations since the late 1890s and well into the post-war period. Right from the start, Skandsen Cycles was engaged in cycling sport, and they built bikes for the country's leading riders and also foreign riders up to about 1960, when Leopold Grønning (the 3 gen.) died. Among other things. Rick Van Steenberger and Van Loy several other foreign ryders had some frames built at Skandsen Cycles. Skandsen was also behind the establishment of Odense bicycle track forum, which exists today, and finally several later known danish frame builders, such as Schrøder and Banani (built frames for Freddy Maertens, among others.) were taught at Leopold Grønning in Odense. My research resulted in a website, skandsen.dk, which, however, was taken down last year, when I realized years pas quick, and I had spent some 1000, - EUR on general operation of the page. I thought it was too expensive. However, I plan to establish a new site ‘ danish steelclassics’, which includes some additional Danish ‘forgotten’ frame smiths / manufacturers. In general, my drive to find and renovate the old "fine" bikes, is to keep alive the best best things/tools from our materialistic history. It is no secret that in the Western (capitalist world) we are living in a time where it is consumption that pulls the economy grows further up to the skys ... A buy-and-throw-away culture that I believe leads civilization to the abyss. We have to look back and stick to some of the things from our past history that were good. Today we throw out ‘the old gold’ to buy something new shit that loses its value almost as fast as it gets out of the store. As you know, there is no such thing as getting what you want, there is only wanting. I do all the restoration work myself, except from chemical electrolytic work. For repaint, I mostly use old enamel paint from the ‘dump’, preferably from the same period as the project it concerns. Many of the old enamel paints were made on ‘natural’ pigments / not as modern base paints, and they have some properties/qualities that I find attractive for restoration work. Please find a selection of pictures with some of my Skandsen projects.  AL4W6
 Skandsen, 1962 by Velofiks, on Flickr  AL4W6714 by Velofiks, on Flickr  AL4W6770 by Velofiks, on Flickr  Skandsen frame, 1959. (In proces of restoration) by Velofiks, on Flickr 849 by Velofiks, on Flickr  04AL4W6640 by Velofiks, on Flickr For additional pictures see : Best regards, Velolars |
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Post by bduc61 on May 31, 2019 12:13:36 GMT 2
Welcome Lars ;-)
And - guys - you must blame me as I was the one who told Lars to do his posts in english ( excellent exercise for the frenchies).
VRC can only grow with an international audience.
French demanding "retrocyclists" and hairsplitters are obviously in short supply !
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Post by Munny on May 31, 2019 16:08:58 GMT 2
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Post by Munny on May 31, 2019 17:53:04 GMT 2
Lars,
I explained to Bruno (BDUC) how to share your Flickr pictures
If he didn't get to you yet, when you hit the share button, make sure to choose "BBCode", then copy/paste the generated code
Your painting are of a very high standard
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Post by Munny on Jun 1, 2019 9:21:23 GMT 2
When, like you did, you discover an unknown jewel brand, there are allways mixed feelings to show it or to keep it for yourself.
When you disclose it on internet, speculation and searching starts.
People will understand the rarity and their eyes starts to display $$$
You will start to see them for sale and usually with a price that match the current old bike frenziness
You will see ads pointing to your work, as reference to try to convince the potential buyer
I can disclose them when either I know that finding another one is extremely unlikely, or when my appetite for that brand is satisfied.
As example, the Wallon cycles.
I now own 4 examples and given that I also have one of my size, I could even think of decreasing the number owned
Another example in my bikes, the Cocquyt. I don't believe any other of this bike will show up and never will it be my size
Maybe should I do the same with other belgian makes but I'm reluctant
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Post by velolars on Jun 1, 2019 12:49:51 GMT 2
Munny, I understand your considerations / concerns ... I have actually recently seen an ad for a Skandsen bike, where an ignorant seller demands nearly 4000, - EURO for an early Skandsen in a very poor rusty condition..with no original equipment . When I contacted the seller, he said he had heard that the price level for a Skandsen was at this level. I knew that information had its origin from myself. Long time ago, I have told a person that the price level of a mint copy, in my view, schould be at that level ... and that information has then wandered across the country.
As far as Skandsen is concerned, in the period 1942-1964, around 2300 frames were made, distributed on tracks, roadracer, Tandems and so-called semi-racers and even some Touriste / gentlemen models in Reynolds 531 were made (There were also football cycles for the Danish national team once in the 1950s. Of these aprox. 2300 frames some were sold under other labels by the most exclusive bicycle dealer in DK..It seems some even in Germany) Overall, very few frames may still exists. Personally, I think the right thing is to share knowledge, knowing it is not necessarily in one's own (financial and personal) interest. I know that many fine Danish hand-built frames and bicycles has been thrown out as cheap garbage in all ignorance. By providing knowledge and information to the public (via the Internet), one can only hope that fewer fine things end up as garbage for remelting. Further, and this not only applies to bicycles, it seems to me that in general there is a colossal ignorance of the substance of the material things, and also a great limitation to our way of looking at material quality. Sharing product information could help on this, and improve our qualifications as consumers and users of material stuff. Finally, there is the whole historical dimension. The story about an object is in our time actually detached from the object itself. The whole vintage flow - also within bikes - I see as a reaction to this, I think. Things with a long history and historical grounding have potentially a strong identity...and they can make us feel some sort of deep belonging in the historic continuum.
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Post by velolars on Jun 1, 2019 13:16:01 GMT 2
Also, personally, it is my experience that the best things I have done in my life, i.e. The things that have given me the most joy / meaning / feeling of being happy are when I have neglected myself/ my narrow interests and shared my wealth (money, time, knowledge and information, know how i.e.) with others without demanding anything again. It often happens that I subsequently discover my happiness over having made a good difference for some other people..So, I'm actually very egoistic as this most often brings me good. I think thats my approach ... I can also sometimes be crazy about all these strategic considerations in social interaction, most often about the fear of risk of loosing money / power loss. But that's how I think about it.
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Post by Munny on Jun 1, 2019 13:18:12 GMT 2
Let's this inflation guiltyness aside.
You need to explain us the Skandsen forks !
They are so special.
I had a strange feeling with the picture that I posted from your Flickr but now... what is this design?
Is it unique?
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Post by velolars on Jun 1, 2019 19:41:12 GMT 2
As fare as I know, it is a danish contribution (one of very few!) to the bicycle history...so, unique! Well, I have not yet been able to find full documentation on the story behind the 'design’ of the bow wheeled front fork. From my research, the idea for the bow wheeled fork started in 1935, when Leopold Grønning (Skandsen) one day (according to an article at the time in a local news paper) noticed a man on the street in vain trying to push a tow wagon over a curb. When the man afterwards tried to pull the wagon over the curb, he succeeded. Grønning’s observation led himto the assumption that force seems to be better utilized by drag than by push, and he thought (according to an article in the local newspaper Fyns Stiftidende) that this principle could be transferred to the frame geometry. Same year, when he was to build a frame for the competition cyclists, Leo Nielsen, (who won silver at the 100 km team race at the 1932 Olympics), he build the fork angle more steep/vertikal in order to get the front wheel further back along with the saddle tube's angle being moved further forward vertically to the crankshaft. It was, after all, convincing, in connection with this task, to let the fork joints weld side-out before they were led into the hub axle. In this way he was able to maintain both tensioning / resilient properties (the road surface at that time, not as today!) As good steering properties, while at the same time the front wheel came backwards. So fare I haven’t been able to find any documentation for when he first made the bow legged fork. The earliest "wheel-bone fork" I have knowledge of is from 1938. But I actually expect the first user model was made in 1935. Although one may term Denmark as a cycling nation and as a cycling sport nation with long traditions (Got our first open air velodrome in 1888.), we have not made remarkable contributions to the bicycle history. It should be Mikael Pedersen's bicycle, the Long-John bike and Skandsen's bow legged fork. By the way, In 1949 Leopold Grønning sold the license to use the name ‘Skandsen’ and ‘the bow legged fork’ to N. C. Bang, a bicycle company in Odense. I wouldn’t be surprised if this deal, made it economically possible for him to continue his little workshop running, without economic trauma, as they must have spent a lot of time on 'hairsplitting'..(I like this 'hairsplitting'!). At the Skandsen workshop, they called the files for 'the eels' because they were used until they were thin as small eels. Below, a sample from 1938. (Picture taken from an add on the net)  Skærmbillede 2019-06-01 kl. 18.44.36 by Velofiks, on Flickr |
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Post by Munny on Jun 1, 2019 20:58:54 GMT 2
Do you have a picture of a frame side, so that we coud see the geometry ?
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Post by velolars on Jun 1, 2019 23:58:11 GMT 2
Yes!...I don't recall to have seen two bow legged Skandsen forks (from the Skanden workshop) with identical design...And same with the frames. ..But It must have occurred! I found a picture i my library with side perspective of a Skandsen with the bow legged..and the owner Hans Christian Nielsen, behind. The photo is taken in 1937 probably at the Ordrup Velodrome. The bicycle could be older than 1937. Sorry, I had al forgotten that picture! Unknown photographer! I'm not able to see this particular Skandsen geometry, I guess you have to compare with the typical geometry from the time. For some reason many of the danish frame builders used old-fashioned frame geometry, with good slope in the fork..long wheelbase distance, far up in the post-war period.  HansChrNilsenSkand37 by Velofiks, on Flickr |
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Post by velolars on Jun 2, 2019 7:48:33 GMT 2
Below a picture from 1936 with a Toni Merkens on a Köthke Gold-Rad track frame...(unknown photographer) To me the geometry looks alike..so so.!??  Stollenwerk_GoldRad1936-kopi by Velofiks, on Flickr |
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Post by Munny on Jun 2, 2019 7:49:10 GMT 2
Not obvious that it has a bow legged fork.
To me, the curved design of a fork is to provide damping and the well designed older race bikes that I have do combined more curved fork blades with changes in geometry that still makes them vivid
If I think of the bow legged, it seems to me that the damping is much reduced.
This because the movement of each legs with contrevene the other leg.
Resulting like a straight fork and I find these straight forks less confortable
In the end, I don't understand
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Post by Munny on Jun 2, 2019 7:58:15 GMT 2
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Post by bduc61 on Jun 3, 2019 16:10:02 GMT 2
awsome forks !
happy to have "recruited" lars ;-)
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