A tribute to Graham Attwell.

Graham Attwell, who died recently, was a Club Member for over 30 years.

The following is a tribute from Tim Evans:

Many Moultoneers will have bought wheels built by Graham Attwell.  Their high quality is legendary.  He was a very clever man who loved solving problems.  Graham shared his knowledge through masterclasses at several BOA weekends and his contributions to the Yahoo discussion group were always worth reading and keeping.

I bought my first wheels from Graham at BOA 2002, they were 16” alloy rims with a Dynohub in the front and in the rear,  a 4-speed Sturmey Archer that he’d converted to 2-trigger 5-speed.  It was for a 1963 deluxe I was doing up for my daughter. 

The next wheels were for a Speedsix that its previous owner had relegated to 16” steel rims when its 17” Milremo alloy originals split between the spoke holes.  On that occasion I had the privilege of being admitted to Graham’s garage.  It was stuffed full of bicycles and bicycle-related things with a narrow passage just wide enough to walk through.  Also for the Speedsix he had some pretty authentic looking alloy-look mudguards that I got.   

Graham helped find the APB which is the basis of our Moulton tandem. Over the years I bought several sets of wheels from Graham, often 2-trigger 5-speeds, which I really like.

He didn’t charge for the time he put into building wheels and sold them simply for the cost of the components. If he found a new rim was a bit oversize he would separate it at the pins and file it down so that tyres fitted easily.  That’s attention to detail. 

Often we met at Ripley cycle jumbles where he was looking for suitable hubs.  One of his sayings was “this spins well and will give good service though it might not carry you all the way round the world”.  

He enjoyed building wheels and hub gears, so inevitably he had to sell them so he could build more but he saw no reason to profit from his enjoyment.  Once somebody had the temerity to try to beat him down on price to which Graham’s response was simply to increase price to him!

Westminster City Council in London kept Graham after retirement as a consultant for siting bus stops, which is a very tricky multidimensional problem, as is wheel building and hub gear conversions.  Bendy-buses were a particular problem (I found them scary when cycling) but for Graham getting them round the streets of Westminster, on to and off bus stops and not offending residents was an interesting challenge to exercise the “little grey cells”. 

Graham was a good friend in whose company I enjoyed several dinners at BOA.  I and many Moultoneers will miss his knowledge, wisdom and dry humour but his wheels will roll on, which reminds me that I have a couple of worn out 369 rims to replace.