1973 Sovereign Star

Living and working in Mildura in the northwest of Victoria, a lot of people knew that I was passionate about old bikes and that I was restoring them in my spare time. I would sometimes get invited to come and see someone’s bikes or visit their workshop and from time to time people would come up and say, old mate so and so from somewhere in the Mallee or Wimera has got some old bikes in his shed that he doesn’t want, but doesn’t want to throw away. You can have them if you would like them. Well, I always said yes, because you never know what you might get and worst case scenario, you’ve only saved them from having to take them to the tip.

Not so much this time.

I actually ended up with two bikes; this 1973 Sovereign Star and a 1978 Carlton. Both quite high end bikes for their time, but both showing signs of having been sitting in the back of the barn for 30 to 40 years. They’d been covered, but were still in need of a lot of work. Fortunately, it’s pretty dry in the Victoria Mallee, so rust wasn’t really an issue, just dried out grease and baked on dust.

I stripped both bikes and put everything aside while I decided on the best course of action. The Carlton is another story, but for the Sovereign Star, it was in pretty fair condition, just really needed everything to be pulled apart and thoroughly cleaned, greased and put back together.

This is a classic piece of Australian cycling history, being the last frantic gasp of Malvern Star before succumbing to the then behemoth bicycle manufacturing that was Raleigh in the late 1970’s. 

Also historically significant as it came equipped with the first generation Shimano Dura-Ace groupset. There is a really good article on the history of Dura Ace on the Disraeli Gears website.

A really nice collectible bike, one I sadly only rode a couple of times before it was snapped up by a collector from Melbourne who happened to wander into the shop while he was on holiday!

Sovereign Star

By the early 1970s Malvern Star had started losing market share or imported bike brands. Chief amongst these was Raleigh who had been on an active campaign to increase their own market share. Through acquisition and aggressive marketing that were becoming the first multinational or global bicycle brand having bought out Carlton to give themselves a established race marque that could compete at the highest level, they were keenly watching smaller brands in primarily British Commonwealth territories like Australia and Malvern Star had become one of their targets.

Sovereign Star was part of an effort to stem the flow of customers away from Malvern Star to Raleigh but releasing a limited edition, state-of-the-art, road bike that would appeal to high end customers and competitive riders. With this they hoped to see racing success and raise the profile of the brand making it the aspirational brand for all riders.

Sadly, while the bike was, and still is, amazing its impact didn’t meet expectations and Malvern Star continued to struggle until it was eventually bought out by Raleigh.

Malvern Star History & Links

Malvern Star is an Australian bicycle manufacturer that started as a bicycle shop in the Melbourne suburb of Malvern in 1902.

There is a quite good Wikipedia article on Malvern Star as well as a brief history on the current Malvern Star website.