....................... ....................... ............................ ....................... The penny farthing is the ultimate fixed gear bike (no freewheel) but when my local cycle club decided to organise a fixed gear time trial league, I decided that if I was to stand any chance of winning it I'd have to use a different bike!
So this is what I came up with, It's a Fuji track bike with a few modifications.
- The standard front wheel has been replaced with the carbon one from my time trial bike.
- An old front brake from my first real road bike, with new cork brake blocks.
- Cut down handlebars from the same old racer.
- Added an old set of areo bars.
Appart from that its just a cheep steel track bike, but it rides really well. At the moment the gearing is 50 / 15, about 90" in old money.
The league is now well underway and I'm going quite well in it. The first race was a short 5.5mile tt, where I did 11mins 28secs came second by 2 seconds.... Next was a 19.5 mile tt ( 48mins 34sec) where I was 2nd again. I've just done the 3rd race in the series (10 miles 24mins 34sec) and finished..... 2nd again! With only one race remaining my only chance of an overall win is if Steve, who has beaten me three times, fails to turn up!
It's been fun though and has opened my eyes to fixed gear tt bikes. Even with a basic effort like mine it's possible to post some decent times. I'm probably slightly fitter this year than I was last but even so on the fixed bike I'm only about 20 seconds slower over 10miles than I would be on my 20 speed areo, carbon time trial bike.
So drag that old roadbike out of your shed, convert it to fixed for a few quid and start showing people what a waste of money there flash tt bikes have been!
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