1904 Dennis Bros ‘Speed King’ Light Roadster
Truss frame (strut from the back of the seat tube down to the rear fork bridge)
Osmond’s patent back fork end and chain adjustment
BSA Fittings. 25” Frame. 28″ Wheels
The Dennis Speed King has many interesting design innovations. A novel feature is the brace from the lower seat tube to the chainstay bridge that creates a small diamond. A license for this feature was purchased by the Rover Cycle Co (though apparently they didn’t use it) and the same feature was seen again in 1940 on the Sun Manx TT lightweight racer.
Only two Dennis Bros Speed King bicycles are known to have survived, in spite of the fact that the company claimed in an advert of 1897, two years after they were founded, that they had the ‘LARGEST and BEST equipped Cycle Factory in the South of England’.
One Dennis bicycle (frame no 13068) was bought at auction some years ago by John Dennis, grandson of the founder John Dennis, and that is in Guildford Museum. You can see photos of it at the bottom of this page. The other survivor is this one, a Light Roadster with frame no 12007.
