Bells Bicycles

2025: Our favourite restorations.

Our top five bikes, where craft and history led the rebuild.

Each earned its place in the workshop — for the design, the innovation, the iconic status, or the story it carried through cycling history.

All restored with period-correct precision — design respected, stories researched, heritage revived.

Swipe the before → after.

Bells Bespoke — Restoring icons.

We finished this project in the dead of winter. The kind of afternoon where shop windows glow a little warmer, and time seems happy to slow down. Apt, as this Phillips tricycle belongs to that feeling.

Built in an era when British manufacturers still assumed their work would outlive them, it carries a confidence you don’t see much anymore. Not loud. Not showy. Just right.

For this restoration, we were inspired by the season. We went for a deep red frame, rich and reassuring, paired with rims finished to match — a detail that’s rare and just right.

There’s something very Christmas about restorations like this. Not sparkle but magic nonetheless, The sense that good things, done well, endure across generations.

Merry Christmas x

If you’d walked past this Raleigh Sprite in the 1970s, you wouldn’t have noticed it. It was the sort of bike that simply existed in the background of British life.

Fifty years on, most Sprites are long gone. But not this one. Someone cared for it exactly as it was, and for every memory it carried.

A full strip-down followed: metalwork rescued, chrome revived, paint returned to that soft metallic green that once caught the sun on weekend rides. Not modernised — respected. Reborn without losing its past.

This Raleigh isn’t special because it’s rare.
It’s special because someone chose to save it — a small act of rebellion in a world that throws things away.

Peugeot didn’t start with bicycles.

Back in 1810, the family business was a small French foundry turning steel into saw blades, hand tools, and kitchen knives—everyday objects built to last.

By 1858, an engraver named Justin Blazer, who lived near the factory, carved a symbol that would outgrow them all: a lion. Strong spine, sharp teeth, steady stride—meant to show the strength of their steel.

When Peugeot finally rolled out its first bicycles in 1882, the lion came with them.
Stamped onto enamel and brass, bolted to head tubes, leading the ride.

A tiny piece of metal carrying more than a logo—two centuries of French industry and family grit.

Badge 1: 1910’s
Badge 2: 1930’s
Badge 3: 1940’s
Badge 4: 1980’s

There’s nothing quite like assembling your brothers, dressing in your finest, and posing with the family’s prized bicycle.

The original bike gang: Victorian Edition

In the 1960’s, if you were small, adventurous, and lucky enough, you might have had a Raleigh Winkie — a pint-sized tricycle built with the same care Raleigh gave their racers. Solid steel, bright enamel, and a rear box just begging to be filled with treasure.

This one came to us from its original owner, who’d kept it since childhood. Inside the box? Still there — the rocks they’d collected sixty years ago. Time capsules in pebbles.

We’ve carefully restored every part: the paint, the chrome, the spirit. The rocks, though — they stayed right where they were.

The Art of Patina Restoration

Not every bicycle needs a factory-fresh rebirth.

In this project we celebrated the aesthetics and stories told by softened paint, faded decals and gentle wear.
Preserving and protecting these details while stabilising the finish and safeguarding its hard-earned character.

With this bike, a classic Bianchi — the worn paintwork on the frame stood out as one of its defining features. Rather than overshadow it, we leaned in, pairing it with polished chrome components and clean, minimal lines to create a balanced, understated aesthetic.

Male Swag

Bikes have always been a stage, and some men turned every ride into a performance — it was swagger on two wheels. Style, attitude, and the kind of cool that never needed an engine.

1947 Holdsworth Cyclone

Seventy-five years after it first left South London, this Cyclone returned home for a full restoration. We stripped the frame back to bare steel, refinished it with a deep enamel bake, and re-created the fine hand-lined lugs and decals true to the originals.

Every detail was about respecting its heritage — not just making it rideable again, but restoring the character that made Holdsworth one of Britain’s most respected names.

A lightweight classic, reborn.

If you were one of the lucky one’s, you had your tribe. Makeshift ramps and cutting across estates. With the bike your colours, your identity - your way into the gang. With only one rule - home before dark.