This Barb’s owner writes:
“My first memory of “The Mighty Barb”, as my father called her, was as a passenger being dinked over potholes to the Trentham Primary School in the 1950s. My father worked at a local factory and took me to and from school at lunch times. I don’t know when he bought “The Barb”. He rode it back and forth to work two times a day (about 8 km) until well into the 1970s and at that time I remember him respectfully giving her a new coat of paint – the colour it is today. The Barb rested for a few years but was reactivated in the 1980s when our kids were young to accompany them as they learnt to ride and in the 1990s she moved to Brisbane with us. Since then she has roamed many kilometres around the terrific bike trails we have here.
In more recent times I have become very sentimental about the bike and searched the web for any references to “The Barb” and Finlay Bros. It is my intention to restore “The Barb” so that she can live on into the future. What a great bike to ride and she certainly turns heads.
The Barb is from a time when things were hard to get and once acquired were well looked after. I am sure that my story will be typical of others of my generation who were sentimental enough to hang on to these bikes as a memento of happy times past.
It is amazing, considering that the bike has endured over fifty long, wet, slushy, winters in country Victoria and just on twenty years in a near coastal environment in Queensland that corrosion has been minimal. Also, the Perry free-wheeling rear hub is still working well and there are no noticeable mechanical problems. I think we might get another couple of generations of use yet.”
With many thanks to the owner of this bicycle for help in preparing the description and providing the great photographs.
 |