Don Louis

Tom Lewis was a Welshman who moved to London after WW2 and in 1953 changed his name to Don Louis by deed poll. Soon after he opened an eponymous named cycle shop at 123 Dulwich Road, Herne Hill, just around the corner from the Herne Hill Velodrome. Apart from changing his name Don took to wearing a beret and affected a French accent regaling spurious stories of racing in France in his youth

Don did not make frames himself but master frame builders like Bill Philbrook, Jim Collier and Johnnie Monger would use the hearth at the back of the shop building frames (many of them track frames) for Don’s customers.

The shop was a successful business and meeting place for local riders throughout the 1960s and 70s and finally closed it’s doors in the mid 1980s.