# Any Insight into this Alex Kay Please



## Brian R. (May 31, 2018)

I just bought this Alex Kay "The OK" track bike, or wanna-be track bike.  Alex Kay Cycle Company was located in a tiny building at 320 Queen Street East in Toronto, Canada from 1899 to 1947. The building is now a pizzeria. I would call it mostly a bike shop, but in the Toronto City Directory it was always listed in the manufacturer category, not retail, so presumably they made their own frames. I like to think this frame was welded together by Alex Kay in his little workshop and assembled with British parts, but who knows. A search for "Alex Kay" on the Cabe brought up zero hits, so it must be a rare bike. A fellow collector has a chainring with the letter K A Y on it (see bottom of post).

I say track bike because it has a fixie hub, racing bars and saddle, and Major Taylor stem.  I added "or wanna-be track bike" because of three things, the fender mounts, the frame angle, and the weight. The seller was himself a frame builder from 1969 until present. His comment on the fender mount was that it means nothing because guys would take their fenders off on the track and maybe put them back on for training on the open road. He said the frame angle of the down tube and head tube is not steep like a racer, but more relaxed like a regular bike, and finally of the weight he said "it's not particularly light." He thinks it was probably made in the 1930s.

Any information or insight anyone can offer on this bike is welcome. My questions include: What do you make of the forward drop-outs? The seat stays are white for safety on the road, when did they start doing that? Does anyone recognize the chainring - British origin? Do any features of the frame or the components give an indication of year or decade?

Thanks in advance,
Brian R.

P.S. I learned that Alexnader Kay and Thomas Lewis Southam patented a Bicycle Frame in 1896, patent number 54023, which lends weight to the idea that they did build frames in their shop.

Here is a very cool early photo of the Southam and Kay shop, later Alexander Kay Cycle Co..:





And a chainring:


----------



## Brian R. (Jun 5, 2018)

I received this reply in a different site's forum, and thought I'd share it here:
-B.R.

There is one feature that is a big clue to both age and intended use. That is the white paint on the stays. Circa 1936, it become law (in Ontario, Canada) to include a white tip on the end of the rear mudguard, as a safety feature. Road bicycles manufactured without fenders had their seat stays painted white. Track bicycles were not intended for road use and did not have to comply with this requirement. Furthermore, a track bicycle would use rear fork ends as opposed to dropouts and would not have mudguard eyelets. It would also be more likely to employ a drive system with 1" pitch, while a road model would use 1/2" pitch. 

The crankset appears to a Williams and, if so, will have date codes on the back of the crankarms and chainrings. 

Basically, what you have is a circa 1936-1941 road racer. I suspect it was originally intended for a flip-flop hub, as the rear dropouts make the gear change easier and would be superfluous on a fixed gear or roadster model.


----------



## Brian R. (Jun 5, 2018)

I checked the crankset. It is a Williams, and on the back of the chainring there is stamped a little sword with the letters E B W. Under the sword is the letter W and under that the number 48. The "W" is the year code and states the year of manufacture was 1934. The number 48 refers to the number of teeth in the chainring. I conclude therefore, that I have a bike that was assembled with all its parts for the 1935 or 1936 model year.


----------



## bulldog1935 (Jun 5, 2018)

thanks for keeping us updated - and show us some more Canadian bikes when you get there


----------

