Velo City: Bicycle Culture and City Life

No Quarter Plum Crazy

No Quarter

There’s no mistaking the musical reference in the title of today’s bike. James Langton is a 19 year-old Leicestershireman who recently inaugurated an enterprise restoring steel track and road frames called No Quarter, named after the Led Zeppelin track that appears on their 1973 album, Houses of the Holy.

No Quarter

No Quarter is an online one-stop shop for all your fixed-gear and track requirements. The full Cinelli range is stocked, from components to apparel, as well as Miche, Phil Wood, All-City, Surly and Specialites TA. A full restoration service is offered, of which Plum Crazy is their first — and a fine example it turned out to be. I asked James to explain the background to his business, No Quarter:

Who are you? My name is James Langton, I’m 19 and from the UK. I’m the director here at No Quarter, UK. We’re certainly the new guys in town, joining the cycling business some 2 years ago, but we’ve hit the ground running. NQ is an elite team of cyclists, painters, wheel-builders and a photographer. We are based online but we do everything in-house at our little workshop in Leicestershire, slap bang in the middle of the UK.

No Quarter

What do you do? We do a lot of things! Custom paint-work (both wet and powder-coat), custom wheel-building, plus some really nice road and track components (Check out their range — Ed). Custom frames will be next on the agenda.

No Quarter

What’s the story behind this bike? I stumbled across this frame roughly 4 months ago on a forum I regularly visit. The bike was rusty, pitted, battered and very well used. “Perfect”, I thought. I had been looking for a classic steel bike to completely rebuild to show how handy we are with a paint gun. A few days after sending payment I received a large box in the post, it contained a rather beautiful but hammered 1970s track bike. After ripping the packaging apart I was a little disappointed. “Ah… I didn’t realise it would be this bad.”

I did consider finding another frame to bring back to life due to how externally rusted and pitted this frame was. There’s pretty patina and then there’s this… but I thought it would be a little more impressive if it was a wreck such as this, and here we are.

No Quarter

What’s the next project, where do you want to take this? I’m happy with how this has came out (excuse the ‘N’ of the lettering being hidden behind the chain-ring in some shots, the original plan for this frame was to never be built up and displayed in a local clothing shop).

Our next move with this frame/bike is to use and abuse it on a daily basis. I’m not sure if I’d like to do this myself or send it to a bike courier or fixed tourer to really put it through it’s paces, get in contact if you fancy this task.

We are very busy at the NQ HQ, finalising the details for our very own custom road and track frames. Expect to see rad paintwork and some really intricate and cool detailing. We’ve been designing and developing these frames for quite some time and we are excited to offer them.

No Quarter

Why ‘No Quarter?’ Ah, I knew this one would come up! When I first started building custom fixed-wheel bikes I needed a new name for my business. My father (who is also the skilled man who painted this frame) has a real way with cool color schemes, names, anything creative and unique. I said I wanted a name which was something out of the ordinary and cool because of it. His first answer was ‘No Quarter’. Yup, the Led Zeppelin song.

No Quarter

Keep an eye on No Quarter via the Facebook page and website.