Men of Steel
/Reynolds tubing are about as iconic as it gets in British bike building. A while back I dropped in to hear all about buts and brazing from Keith Noronha, the current head of the company.
ST - When did Reynolds first go into business what was there game?
KN - Even though I’ve been with the company since 1980 (and am now the CEO/owner) I don’t know the full history of the company – it’s all a little bit foggy. We do know that the Reynolds family have been in Birmingham since the early 1800’s, and we believe that they were first involved in nail manufacturing in 1841 in Aston, Birmingham.
We do know from looking at the patent that Alfred Reynolds and Thomas Hewitt, for some reason, decided to try making a butted cycle tube in 1897, when cycling had only been around for 20-30 years. We have no idea why a nail maker would try to do this, but that fundamental mechanical process they invented is basically how tubes are still butted now.
ST - So, butting was developed way back then for bikes?
KN - They intended that these tubes would be for the cycle industry. Back then they had a wide range of what we would now term mild steels. The first real alloyed steel was Reynolds 531, which came out in 1935 and was also used in the aeronautics industry.
So butting has been around since 1897/8, and was aimed at lightening cycle frames, that were typically brazed and lugged.
Highly alloyed (mild) steels have been in use since then, and high end butted tubing has been in use since around 1935, and was invented by Reynolds.
ST - During this period Reynolds sold to the TI group?
KN -Around about 1928 the Reynolds family sold out to Tube Investments (TI), who also owned Raleigh Cycles. The family stayed involved with the company until sometime during the 1960’s. Although the tube drawing was moved to another factory, the original Reynolds factory continued with cycle tubing as their main business, but they also produced tubes for motorcycle frames, and even built high end motorcycle frames themselves, but not bikes.