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Transfer worn by a Meteor Franco Suisse ca. 1964.
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Views of balance of machine -
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Interesting story here anent this cycle, the marque and a personal connection for me to the shop.
Machine is a Carlton under another name. The Meteor of Britain marque had been defunct for a number of years by the time of this cycle's manufacture. Rights were held by Raleigh and it was relaunched in order to push more product into a given crowded market. There is an account of how this came to be given here -
"Since Raleigh Industries of America already had a west coast distributor, shops outside its dealer network were now cut-off from buying Carltons through WCCSC. It was one of the few regions in the country where the demand and number of dealers overtaxed the existing arrangement so in a perfect example of TI "branding", a solution was quickly found. One of TI's long dormant marques was the Meteor brand, originally made by Starley & Sutton of Coventry and dating to the late 1880s. It was arranged for WCCSC to import Carltons badged as Meteors, but otherwise identical to the stock machines sold as Carltons. As with Raleigh initially, the model used would be the Franco-Suisse and it was decalled as such and sold as a complete machine with Campagnolo components."
The shop was begun and operated by Irish immigrant Charlie Harding. Westwood, where the shop is located is in Los Angeles, and is best known as the home of the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1965 I was a student at the university and went in to the shop to get a bicycle. Purchased from Mr. Harding a new white Peugeot model U08 - me first "tenspeed."
IIRC Mr. Harding closed or sold the shop about 1991 whereupon he moved back home to Ireland for his retirement.
In recent decades when one strolls the streets of Westwood, or visits a cafe, it is just as likely to hear Farsi spoken as English. The community has become the centre for the Iranian immigrants of southern California.
As appears today -
https://www.google.com/maps/place/1...cbfe2cc421464!8m2!3d34.0543807!4d-118.4413523
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