DBMAX Duathlon build up.

It's only a few days untill the penny farthing makes its duathlon debut. My body seems to have survived the Dunwich ride ok, I've just been for a short run which went ok, in fact my legs felt fine. The only slight problem I noticed was that my neck is still a bit stiff after getting cold and wet when it wanted to be dry and warm.

The riding position of the penny should actually be of some advantage to my stiff neck, the last thing you want to be doing with a stiff neck is crouching over a time trial bike. Talking of comparisions between the two bikes, it's surprising how they are similar in many ways. Areo section forks and deep sections rims are not new inventions. The forks on my 2006 Dolan are pretty much the same design as those on a 1887 Rudge. Ok, they are about 18" shorter, almost as many pounds lighter and made of carbon fibre, but if you look at the profile they are almost a mirror image. I can't imagine the lads in the Rudge factory talking about drag co-efficient and the possibility of saving 10 seconds in a 25mile time trial, but looking at the forks you can almost believe they did! However, the areodynamics of rider positioning were clearly not discussed. It's hard to imagine a less areo position. Even with me on board, a man so thin he has to run around in the shower in order to get wet, a penny with a rider has got to be up there with the least areo vechicles ever.

Anyway, I have decided not to use the penny untill the race on sunday as if anything goes wrong with it I might not have the time to fix it. So untill Sunday that's about all....