CLASSIC REVIVAL

With the popularity of vintage cycling gear on the rise, Tom Thewlis went looking for bargains in Oxfordshire's Golden Age Cycles

If Indiana Jones was more into bikes than crystal skulls, arks of the covenant or dials of destiny, then Golden Age Cycles in Oxfordshire is where you'd find him.

The shop's warehouse is a literal treasure trove, packed to the rafters with bikes from across the ages, all with their own little quirks and stories to tell.

There are bikes from a bygone age, the sort you'd see being ridden in a costume drama, as well as elite-level machines that wouldn't have looked out of place starring in some of cycle racing's most celebrated moments.

All of this is the work of an Oxfordshire-based teacher, Brian Reid (who does not wear a fedora), who summed up his raft of experience in all things two-wheels perfectly when Cycling Weekly arrived on site. "I'm warning you, once I get started on bikes I can't stop," he jokes. "You'll have me here for hours."

Five minutes with Reid shows you that he clearly knows his stuff, something Chris Hoy no doubt discovered when he got hold of a bike through the Golden Age Cycles owner last year. Reid explains that it was a 1959 Condor, belonging to his father, which first drew him to vintage bicycles in what would become a lifelong love affair.

"My father had this beautiful 1959 Condor, which lived in the hall. It had this superb lug work which I passed every day from the moment I was born," Reid says. "I always thought it was lovely. I've been teaching now for 25 years and have always wondered whether there's something else out there for me. So I thought why not? Took a year out of work, bought a few second-hand bikes and went from there.