Penny farthing madness

Pennies in the park.

2011-08-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

I've entered a one hour race for penny farthings on 11th september 2011. It's to be held in Matlock and should be a great event.

So far my trainning for the race has been a mix of normal cycling, riding to work on my fixed gear bike, racing time trials on all sorts of bikes. I've used my tt bike, my road bike, my tandem and I've done a couple of 10 mile events on my penny farthing.

I also rode my penny farthing out to a local round of the Rudy project time trial series at the weekend. I really enjoyed watching the event. Some of the performances by the disabled competitors were amazing, really inspiring stuff.

I'm not super fit at the moment but I think I should be able to put in a decent performance in the race. From memory I think I was 4th solo rider in Knutsford, I would love to go one better and get on the podium in Matlock.

The only other time I have raced in Matlock was for the 2008 national hill climb championship (on normal bikes). I wasn't great and finished just inside the top 100 (out of 150).

For anyone who wants to find out some more about the penny farthing race here are a couple of links.

http://penniesinthepark.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pennies-in-the-Park/135193969883205

C2C Cycle route book, by Jeremy Evans.

2011-07-29T00:29:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I rode my penny farthing from coast to coast (c2c) in England. I blogged about it at the time and now a little summary of my ride has made it into this excellent new book by Jeremy Evans.

http://www.cicerone.co.uk/product/detail.cfm/book/649/title/the-c2c-cycle-route

Thanks to Jeremy for putting my ride into his book and thanks to Cicerone, the publisher, for sending me a copy of the book.

I have a bit more free time at the moment so I plan to use the penny farthing more and blog more often to... I've entered another race on it, details to follow.

The Knutsford great race 2010

2010-09-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

As readers of previous posts will know, on the 5th of September this year I raced my penny farthing in a 3 hour road race, an event only held once every 10 years. The following is a brief sumery of the event.

I first found out about the Knutsford great race two years ago when I called in at the penny farthing museum in Knutsford when on route up to the start of the Sustrans coast to coast bike route, which I was riding on my penny farthing. The museum offers riders who turn up on a penny farthing free tea and the owner, Mr Glynn Stockdale, was keen to tell me all about the great race. I left that day thinking, wouldn't it be great to win that, I'd get to keep the trophy for ten years!

At the time I was unsure if I would even be competitive so when I got home I started to research the results of the previous race. From what I could find out It was going to be hard but not impossible for me to get close to the top step of the podium. The previous race was won by a guy called Jim Brailsford, on a horridly wet day he managed to average about 15 mph around the tight lap.

Thoughts of the race largely left my mind for the next 18 months but then earlier this year I received an email from Mr Stockdale asking if I was going to enter, he also said that he had heard I was quite fast on my penny farthing and that he thought I would do quite well. So my entry was sent off and I started riding my penny farthing a little more seriously.

I did a couple of practice runs at my estimated race effort on the Ketch 19.5 mile tt course. My best time was 1 hour 17 minutes, an average speed of 15.2 mph. At this stage of my preparation my legs, heart and lungs were coping fine but the saddle on the penny farthing was really painful after 90 minutes or so. The main problem on a penny is that you can't stand up or freewheel now and again to reposition and get more comfortable. Also as the handle bars are right by your hips all of your body weight is going on to the saddle.

I came up with a reasonable solution to the saddle problem by cutting up an old camping mat into the shape of a standard bike seat. I then taped this to the seat on the penny, it wasn't perfect and it looked horrid but it was a big improvement.

For the final part of my preparation I rode the penny on the broadheath 10 mile tt course and then raced it up Church street in a hill climb organised by Steve Price of Vc Sevale. The hill climb is a great event and I would recommend people try to ride it next year.

So to Knutsford. At the pre race party talk of who had a chance to win the race dominated and one name kept coming up. Josef Zimovcak, a Czech rider with a formidable reputation. In 2005 he rode the entire Tour De France route on his penny farthing, starting each stage just one day before the peloton. On one mountain stage he fell, breaking some ribs and his jaw. He was taken to hospital but discharged himself and continued to ride on, finishing the tour in just 3 weeks! As if this wasn't enough in 2006 he rode the Giro route and in 2007 he rode the Vuelta route. Other riders were basically telling me to keep out of his way as he gives way for nobody! One of the other riders told me a story of how he raced Josef in a track race on penny farthings. It was a mile race and Josef actually dipped for the line in order to secure the win. He dipped so hard he went over the handlebars and crashed, but he did win and proudly picked himself up, popped into the first aid tent and came out bandaged up and smiling to receive his trophy. Basically he wants to win at any cost, nothing else matters.

Josef was clearly the man to beat but there were other riders who had achieved incredible things on their penny farthings. One guy, Joff Summerfield has ridden his round the world, to date he has clocked up 25500 miles on his penny farthing. There were also some serious athletes in the race including people who had done Ironman triathlons. Then there was Jim Brailsford, he won the Knutsford great race in 2000 and he was also one of only 8 riders out of a field of 48 to finish a 3700 mile, off road, coast to coast, mountain bike race across Australia. Even in this company, a few people had heard that I was fairly fast and it was nice to be introduced to Josef and the other fast guys by the organiser of the race.

On race day Knutsford was packed, it was estimated that 5000 people were there to watch the race. As the course was a short lap of less than half a mile the crowds looked massive, 4 or 5 deep most of the way round the lap. After my bike was fitted with a lap counting transponder I went for a few practice laps. The course was quite narrow but I did a couple of laps at a pace that I thought I could maintain for the 3 hours. I averaged 15.5 miles per hour.

Before I knew it I was on the start line, The first couple of laps were to be ridden behind a pace car, so that everyone could get a feel for the course and then there would be a rolling start. The start was signalled by the firing of a Napoleonic Cannon! Word has it that Mr Stockdale had asked the relevant authorities for permission to use this and they had said no. Mr Stockdale used it anyway, good man, there is no place for heath and safety at a penny farthing race!

I rode the first couple of laps next to a friend of mine, Kat, who was one half of a team. I was riding the race as a solo rider. Teams could swap riders as many times as they liked during the race. When the lead car pulled off the pace picked up and I was soon passing slower riders. It was hard to tell exactly what position I was in as the lap was so short and I was soon lapping people. Friends who had come to watch were able to tell me my position now and again as the bikes had all been fitted with transponders so a computer could keep track of the race. After 30 minutes I was in 4th position and feeling good. My saddle modifications were working well and I was averaging 15.5 mph.

Then at about 35 minutes into the race I was about to get lapped. I was also about to move up to 3rd place in the race. As I came past the start finish area the marshals shouted to a rider directly behind me. They were trying to get Josef's attention, they were pulling him out of the race. Apparently he was to blame for causing two nasty crashes. He was going so much faster than anyone else he could have picked his moment to pass people and he still would have won the race by miles. Instead he chose to dive past people in very dangerous places, refusing to back off, he knocked at least 3 riders off in the process. Josef continued to ride round for a number of laps, but the message eventually got through.

With Josef out I kept up a decent pace for the next hour or so and I was not passed by anyone, then friends shouted to me that I was up to 2nd place and only 28seconds behind Jim Brailsford! Unfortunately my seat was now getting really uncomfortable and I knew my second half of the race was going to be slower than my first half. Sure enough 2nd was as high as I got, that became 3rd place with about 40 minutes to go and then 4th place a few minutes later. It wasn't that I had started too fast, it was just that my seat was so uncomfortable that I just couldn't sit far enough forward to create good power. I had to sit back and just hang on for 4th place solo rider and 5th overall.

I just about managed this, finishing 2 laps in front of a hard charging 5th place solo rider. Another 10 minutes and he probably would have caught me.

My Friend Kat and her team mate Charlotte rode an awesome race and finished as the first team, beaten only by Jim Brailsford who won the race for the second time. There was a mix up with the prize giving though and at the time the wrong team were awarded the team prize. A lot has been written about this on the internet and I am not going to go over it all in detail again. I would like to say that Kat and Charlotte have now been credited with the win, the transponder lap counters show that they covered 9 more laps than the next best placed team!

Unfortunatley for Kat and Charlotte they missed out on the glory of the win at the time and offical photos showed the wrong team with the trophy. The press for the next week was also full of reports, pictures and interviews with the wrong winning team, this must have been very hard for the true winners to take, but like the true good sports and great people that they are they didn't loose their cool and they delt with the situation far better than I would have done if the win had be taken from me. The team that originaly were given the team prize were in no hurry to remove photos and press from their web sites, in my view they had plenty of opportunity to do this soon after the event, not 5 days later as it turned out. I can't even be bothered to name the team involved, I have no time for them. Sure they had raised loads of money for charity and the photo and media opportunity with the trophy would have helped them raise some more but I am sure they knew themselves at the time that they had not been the fastest team, yet they still accepted the trophy. They must have noticed being lapped 9 times by Kat and Charlotte who were clearly faster all race, you didn't need transponders and a computer system to tell you that. Anyway, that's just my view of the events but not necessarily the view of anyone else.

So here's a photo for Kat and Charlotte.. It's a cut and paste job of you receiving your trophy. I can't take the credit for making the photo, in anycase I think you both know who did..

Charlottes blog on the race makes good reading and is here.. http://bicycleslut.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/the-knutsford-great-race-2010/

For more photos take a look at this flickr group.. http://www.flickr.com/groups/1546503@N22/

Going back to my race, the 2010 race win was not to be, but all being well I'll try and win in the next race.. in 2020!

prepairing for a 3 hour race on a penny farthing

2010-08-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

In a weeks time I will be making my way to Knutsford to take part in the Great race, a 3 hour road race for penny farthings. For most of the year I have not done any specific penny farthing training, I have been racing my modern time trial bike most weeks and running and swimming as training for my first triathlon. The triathlon was great, I was 11th out of 196 on the bike section, not bad for my first one! I was towards the back in the swim though, about 50th in the run and ended up 77th overall. My time trials have also gone well, I won the first 3 club time trials that I entered, however I think my best result was 18th in the 40 mile Beacon little mountain time trial. This is a really tough race and always attracts a good field. On the day the weather was quite windy too but I managed a personal best time of 1 hour 54 minutes over the very hilly course.

The last four weeks or so I have riden the penny more. I've tried an hour and a half at my estimated race effort which went well. I've done a ten mile trial on the penny and managed to average just over 16mph. At the end of that race I felt fine and I am sure I could have mantained that pace for at least 90 minutes.

Having not been up to see the course for the great race I am not sure how this speed will measure up on the day but I would think that I will be competitive. My target for the race is to stay out of trouble and in contention for the first 2 hours and then see what energy I have left. If I am able to go for the win that would be fantastic but as long as I feel I have given it my all I'm not going to be gutted if I get beaten.

This last week I was interviewed for a tv documentary to be shown after the Knutsford great race. I was asked all about my love of cycling and what I thought of my chances in the race.. To which I replied, I think I can win it..

Veteran cycle club memorial ride

2010-05-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Picture of another chap on a penny farthing, this one is an original bike.

A couple of weekends ago I rode in this event, an 18 mile ride through nice countryside in Worcestershire. I rode my penny farthing and although it's a replica nobody seemed to mind.

Thinking back to the previous post, the Knutsford great race, I am still confident that I can put in a good performance and maybe win the race. I've not been riding the penny farthing much but I have been going well in time trials on my tt bike. I've won 3 out of 4 club events this year and had a good placing in the Beacon little mountain 39.5mile hilly tt. With luck my cycling fittness will pass over to the penny farthing and I can do well in Knutsford!

The Knutsford great race 2010

2009-12-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

Well it's been a while but at last I have some really exciting penny farthing news!

I have entered the Knutsford great race 2010, a three hour road race for penny farthings.

Take a look at the web site for full details, I can't wait.. and I intend to win! http://www.theknutsfordgreatrace.com/

I have spoken to the organiser and so far they have 35 riders entered and the race is not untill September 2010!

On boxing day I will start my penny farthing race practice by doing my cyling clubs 10 mile time trial on the penny.

2 up time trial

2009-09-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I raced in a two up time trial. Normal time trials see riders starting at one minute intervals and racing on there own, against the clock. In a two up riders ride with a team mate and start together. By doing this you can take turns riding on the front, so the rider behind can take a rest from the wind resistance of being on the front. It's calculated to take about 30% less effort to ride as the second rider in a line so if the two work well together they should be able to record a fast time, faster than they would as a single rider.

Anyway, I rode this event with a friend from my cycle club. We are of a similar standard and worked well together to record a decent time of 55 minutes and 55 seconds for 3rd place. That resulted in me receiving some prize money! A whole £12.50! 2 up time trial result...

http://cyclingtimetrials.janet0102.co.uk/Default.aspx?&ge482__geka=zDDQ-6ZV33MzjqeBwbmQrz_ANSkB_T7qN_S6WibhjZTI8y2wcGnNyDpN-nRZsqK4HLTvoFNgxq_eqoFwb3FRVCzy335V6LAUe5s2WzQBllY&ge482__gevi=bkosVTEcmXX5ekdECVvBmA&gv484__gvac=2&gv484__gvff0=54409&gv484__gvfl0=0&language=en-GB&tabid=109

One second from glory!

2009-09-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

DOH! I ALMOST WON!

EVENT:-
10m tt Severn Stoke 27/08/09

Name Cat Time
S O'Toole V 23.50
D Preece SG 23.51................ One tiny second.............
D Evans VG 24.02
M Amery V(F) 24.04
B Boswell S 24.06
J Barnett SG 24.26
N Preece SG 25.08
T Bird S 26.14
S Price V 26.17
G O'Mahoney V 27.00
D Yapp V 27.24
D Burnage V 28.10
H Walker S 28.32
T Knight V 29.58
M Aston L2 30.00

Tour de France, Mont Ventoux.

2009-07-28T05:52:00.000-07:00

I have just spent a fantastic weekend in France for the Tour. I went to watch on Mont Ventoux, the hardest climb in France.

The day before the race came up the mountain I rode up it on the same road. It was an amazing experience. The first few km ar actually not that hard, at one point I was even in the big chainring, but not for long!

The climb is about 21km long at an average gradient of about 9%. I managed to get up it in about 1hr 44mins and felf ok at the end. The outright record is about 55 minutes...... Different class.

Anyway, on race day we walked from our tent, which was on the roadside at about 14km from the top, and watched from about 7km from the top. We had a great spot, The highlight for me was when David Millar came past us. He looked almost dead but when he heard our support he managed to raise a hand from his handlebars and nod his head in apreciation of our support.

Millar had a good tour, he got into a few break aways, almost won a stage, did well in the time trials and road himself into the ground in support of Bradley Wiggins. Wiggins was a incredible, 4th overall and never out of the top 10. Sometimes a rider gets a bit lucky and finds themselves in a breakaway that gains 25 minutes on the main group. They then find themselves in the top ten for a while, but Wiggins started like a freight train and just kept going! Seeing him going wheel to wheel with Armstrong on Ventoux was fantastic, and to finish 4th in the strongest tour line up for years was just ace!

Of course there were other british riders in the tour, Charlie wegelius was there to help Cadel Evans in the mountains, but Evans couldn't stick with the other big hitters. There was also a guy called Mark Cavendish, a sprinter from the isle of man. Cav did ok..... He won 6 stages, but somehow managed not to pick up the green jersey for the best sprinter?! The way the points work for this are a bit silly, so on Ventoux we made our own little comment about this. On the mountain stages people often write words of encouragement on the road for the riders. So we wrote, Cav 5, Hushovd 1. In referance to the number of stages that each rider had won at this point. Cav went on to win in Paris for 6... but Hushovd still won the green jersey!

Anyway, Cav is the fastest bike rider on the planet, Millar was awesome, Wegelius rode a good solid tour and Wiggins was fantastic! Not that they are going to be, but if any of the british tour riders are reading this, thanks for making it the best tour I can remember! In 2010 I want Millar to win a tt, Wegelius to win a mountain stage, Cav to win 7 and Wiggins to win the overall!

Famous cyclists that I have raced against..

2009-06-23T05:26:00.000-07:00

I've not put anything on here for ages, so thought I would try to make an effort to do a bit more. Since my last post I have been cycling quite a bit. I've riden the penny farthing a few times but just don't seem to have the time do use it as much as I would like. The main reason I have not ridden it much is that I have been doing time trials and have been trainning quite hard for these.

I have had a some mixed results, some good some disappointing but on the whole I am pleased with how I am going.

My best ride this year was in the 39.5 mile little mountain time trial. Last year I rode it for the first time and was really pleased to get inside 2 hours as it is a very hilly course with some seriously difficult climbs. This year I went even better and managed to go 4 minutes faster.

I have also bought a single speed cyclocross bike in the January sales. I hope to race this in the west midlands league over the winter.

Cyclocross is fantastic, I love the fact that some really top quality cyclists sometimes just turn up and ride an event. There can't be many, if any, other sports where the likes of me can compete against people at the top of there sport. Running the London marathon doesn't really count as you are never going to even see the fast runners, but in cyclocross you can actually see them and talk to them.

This had led me to make a list of famous riders that I have raced against, and lost....

1) Roger Hammond. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Hammond_(cyclist)Roger is a current full time professional cyclist. He lapped me, but only twice, in a cyclocross race in Solihull in 2008. He came past me on a muddy section where I was strugling to go about 8 mph, Roger was probably doing 15mph....

2) Liam killeen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Killeen Liam has riden mountain bikes at the highest level, in the Olympic games. When he came past to lap me in a cross race he was good enough to advise me on which side of the next climb was easiest.

3) Flavio Zappi. http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/cyclists/flavio-zappi/Flavio was a top quality professional ride a few years ago, he rode the little mountain time trial the first time I did it in 2008.

I am sure there are a few more, but these are the three that stick in my mind.

Lanzarote International Duathlon 2009

2009-02-03T01:08:00.000-08:00

I have recently returned from two weeks in sunny Lanzarote where I competed in a duathlon. The event was organised at Club La Santa, a large sports complex that also holds the legendary Ironman Lanzarote.

A friend, Les Bailey, did the Ironman last year and set an over 70's age group world record,. to read about it see... http://www.tri247.com/article_3461.html

I went to Lanzarote firstly to have a holiday and secondly to do the race. I did the same last year and finished 72nd, so my aim was to finish a bit higher this time. My build up to the event in England had gone really well. I had done a few cyclocross races and really concentrated on doing more running as last year I hadn't really done much and after the first run I was already a long way down the field.

I arrived in Lanzarote nine days before the race. On the first day I rode from the resort I was staying in to Club La Santa to register. The ride from Costa Teguise to La Santa is not an easy one. The two places are on opposite sides of the hilly, volcanic island. Last year I rode to the start of the race, raced and then rode back to the resort... This ment I had ridden 20 hilly miles before the race and worse, had to ride 20 hilly miles back afterwards. Needless to say it turned out to be a really tough day!

This year I was going to organise a lift to the start and back after the race. Then I could race as hard as I could with fresh legs and not have to worry about getting back on the bike to ride back.

I spent the days after registration but before the race riding my bike around the island, doing the odd short run and eating and drinking a less than purfect diet! I didn't do a huge number of miles in the week before as I wanted to do my best in the race. I rode around 250 miles and ran only about 6 miles. The cycling might sound like a lot but it's quite easy to rack up a few miles when you have all day to do so, and I wanted to enjoy riding in the sunshine.

Come race day I was feeling pretty good and planned to run the first leg quite quickly to get away with some of the faster competitors. I've done a few duathlons in the UK but they have always been non drafting events. This meens that on the bike leg you can't ride close up behind another rider to take shelter from the wind. When doing this it really makes a massive difference, the second rider in the line will use about 30% less effort to go the same speed. Non drafting events meen that usually the strongest competitor will win, when you can draft this is not always the case. In this race in Lanzarote drafting was aloud, so I wanted to get away with the faster competitors so that I didn't spend the whole of the bike leg dragging others along.

After a short warm up we were soon underway, the starting gun was fired by Chrissie Wellington, a World class athlete. See http://www.chrissiewellington.org/pages/index.asp for more details.. I started quite fast and settled into a pace that I could maintain. I ran the 5km in 20minutes 34seconds and felt good when I got on the bike. As I am a stronger cyclist than runner I soon found myself passing other riders on the uphill climb away from Club La Santa. I rode all of the climb on the big chainring and felt really strong. Two of the riders that I passed managed to follow me to the top of the climb and then passed me on the down hill run. I then got myself in to there draft for a while and took a breather.

As a group we then caught two more riders and became a group of five. I did a couple of short turns on the front but then found myself going backwards and dropping off the back. I wasn't too worried about this as I knew I could climb well. At the turn I was only about 20 metres behind them, the turn was very tight and was easier for a single rider than it would be in a group so I was soon back with the others and feeling good. I passed them all quite easily on the climb and none of them came with me. By the top of the climb I was feeling great and started to catch and pass other riders on the way back to Club La Santa.

Getting off and running after a big effort on a bike is never easy and when I first uncliped from my bike and stood up I was fairly sure I had overdone it on the bike. My legs were shaking and I didn't feel good. I changed into my running shoes and slowly jogged out onto the running track. Within a few metres of the final run I was being overtaken by others. I tried to follow them but all I could do was to limit my losses. After about 2 or 3 minutes I started to recover a little and was able to hold a gap to one of those who had come past me. The last run was only 2.5km so it was just a case of holding on for a few more minutes. I did the last run in 10 minutes 50 seconds, the guy who finished one place behind me did it in 8 minutes 53 seconds but I had taken 5 minutes and 4 seconds out of him on the 20km bike leg..

I crossed the line in 35th place, 13minutes behind the winner, and world Duathlon champion, Joerie Van Steelant. Last year I was almost 22 minutes down and in 72nd place so I was over the moon with my result. My splilt time for the bike was 22nd fastest, not bad considering I was riding a basic road bike that would have been at least 7lbs heavier than the top guys bikes and for most of the week I had been eating full English breakfasts and drinking lots of Lager.. I can still ride better than I can run, but the gap is closing.

The event was fantastic and very well organised, with a bit of luck I will do it again next year.

More pictures of my holiday are here.... http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/

National hill climb championship 2008, the big day!

2008-10-28T00:57:00.000-07:00

.........................................................................Photo 1. Looking back down Bank street, Matlock from about one third of the way up.

Photo 2. Looking up Bank street from the same spot.

Photos 3 and 4. Me, suffering like you wouldn't believe!

After pre riding the course the week before, and doing some research into the other riders, I was actually really looking forward to the race. I knew that I could get up the climb in reasonable time, as I'd kept a little back and done 3minutes 50 seconds the week before. I also knew that I wasn't going to come last. Not that there is any disgrace in finishing last in a national championship, it's just not a possition anyone really wants to see themselves in.

The day before the race I cleaned my bikes and sorted out what I was going to take with me. I was going to ride the hill on my fixed gear bike, but I was also going to take my standard road bike with me. This was mainly because it's easier to warm up on a bike with gears and a freewheel, and it also gave me the option of using it in the race should for whatever reason I couldn't use the fixed bike.

The drive up to Matlock was straight forward, and I arrived in time to drive up the hill. Mickey and Cassie had travelled up with me to offer me some much needed moral support, when they saw the hill, I don't think they fancied walking up it to watch, let alone cycle up it at maximum effort!

We parked up in a free car park, about one third of the way up the hill and went to find the headquarters. As I signed in and collected my new, unused numbers, Matt Clinton signed in straight after me. Matt was the hot favourite for the win, having gone about 11 hill climbs unbeaten in the run up to the event. He looked fairly nervous to me, I suppose he knew lots of people were expecting him to win it easily, but he knew it was never going to be that straight forward.

Everyone seemed to think Matt would win it, but who would join him on the podium? One thing was for certain, it wasn't going to be me! I thought David Clarke and Lewis Cowley would take some beating, others were saying Bill Bell or Jim Henderson, but nobody seemed to think the deffending champion, James Dobbin would make the top 5. I wasn't so sure, In a recent hill climb on a hill near to me, Dovers, Dobbin started a few minutes after me and when he finished he looked like he was just going for a short ride to the shops. I wondered if he was trying to take attention off himself for the big day.

After a quick walk round Matlock the road was closed to traffic and before we knew it the first rider was off, setting a time of 3 mins 49.6 seconds. I watched quite a number of riders go up the hill as my start number was 141 so I had plenty off time to kill. Watching the riders go up gave me a bit of a boost, quite a few seemed to be of a similar standard to me.. and one or two were clearly much faster! When Bill Bell went past us at about half way, he was flying! It looked as if he was sprinting for the line with half the hill still to go. As it turned out at half way Bill would be almost 5 seconds up on Matt Clinton.. But would he hold on?

I stayed and watched upto number 82, Xavier Disley, as he is about the same standard as me. He looked to be going ok. On the hill climb of Dovers he beat me by about 15 seconds in 5 minutes. I then went to the car park, put my road bike into my turbo trainer, and started my warm up.

Considering this was bar far the most important race I have ever been in, I wasn't nervous at all. I suppose I knew I wasn't going to win anything, and I wasn't going to look too out of my depth. I was much more nervous earlier in the year when I was entered in a local 25 mile time trial. I was trying to go under the hour for the first time, and my time would be there for all to see. As it happens I did 58minutes 51 seconds, but all the way round I was wondering if I would make it. Now I have done it once I think I should be able to go a bit quicker next year as I can afford to start a bit faster and if I blow up it doesn't really matter as I have a decent pb anyway.

Back to the hill climb, Before I knew it, it was time to get to the start. As I swapped bikes Simon Wilson, who used to ride for my club, Worcester st Johns, came over and wished me luck which was nice. Simon had done his ride and would finish in 40th place. I walked down the hill to the start and had about 10 minutes before I was off. I popped in for a last minute toilet stop and had a quick look at the times that had been recorded. Xavier had done 3 mins 30.8 seconds. That was 20 seconds faster than my practice run last week, but I felt quite good and thought I might just beat that.

After a short ride up and down an ajoining road, it was may turn.. As I waited I watched Matt Clinton start. He looked awesome! Fully committed and very fast! I quickly put this out of my mind and concentrated on my ride. My plan was to start within myself and to stay sat down for as long as possible. This was to last for about 100 yards...

As the time keepers counted down from 10 seconds, I concentrated on breathing deeply and I was completely focused on doing the best that I could. 3, 2, 1, GO! I always start with my left foot, I had noticed that Matt started with his right, but stick with what you know. As I pushed down and turned the first few peddle strokes I imediatly felt over geared. Oh, well I couldn't do anything about that now as I was on a single speed fixed gear bike. Besides, I knew my gearing was about right as I'd made the climb on the same ratio last week. I sat down and started to spin as best as I could. On the right hand side of the road was some metal fencing which I had planned to get at least half way along before I stood up on the peddles.

I was feeling ok at this stage and as I got up I felt in control, may pace was about right. Then I got into the Crowd.. I guessed the first person would shouted my name must be someone I knew but hadn't seen. Then when it happened again and again it dawned on me that all these people had programs and were happy to encourage anyone.

I stayed up on the peddles pushing out just off my maximum power, after about 300 yards of this I started to think I'd probably gone out to hard. I tried to sit down, not really to rest, just to regain control, but it was no good. The damage was done. I couldn't turn over my peddles while sat down so I had no choice but to get straight back up and try to hang on.

I got to half way and remember hearing Cassie shouting encouragement at me, I didn't see her or Mickey as I was pushing so hard all I could do was to look at the ground a few feet in front of me. I passed halfway in 1 minute, 24.2 seconds (I only know this from the results print outs, at the time I had no idea how long I had taken). Unfortunatley the second half of the climb was steeper and being tired was going to take everyone longer than the first half.

The crowd was at it's biggest from here to the final bend, every was cheering, it was great, but it did make me push even harder. By the time I got to the final bend I was suffering big time. I sat down as the climb became less steep, my legs were on fire and my arms had gone almost completely dead. I forced myself to stand up again and give it one final push for the line and as I crossed the finish my vision was starting to go very blurred. Two marshals ran along side me at the finish, to catch anyone who had overdone it and were about to pass out, but I was ok. Sort of..

I rode a few yards past the line and unclipped fom my peddles. As I put my foot on the ground my leg just gave way and I ended up sitting on the cross bar, which is where I stayed for about 5 minutes. When my heartrate and breathing returned to normal I begain to ride down to the headquarters. After about 100yards I noticed a rider stoped and slumped over his bike. It was Matt Clinton. I asked if he was ok, which in hindsight was a silly question. After he had finished being sick, he replied, "not really". I stayed with him for a minute or two, but when it was clear he was going to survive, I left him to recover on his own.

As it turned out Matt had just managed to win the event, after being 5 seconds down at half way he won by the narrowest of margins, 1.2 seconds, from Bill Bell, with 5 time winner Jim Henderson in 3rd, only 1.1seconds further back. Defending champion, James Dobbin could "only" manage 21st. Aparently he snapped a carbon crank arm whilst doing his warm up and had to borrow a bike from a team mate.

I'd managed to do a time of 3 minutes 25.3 seconds, 25 seconds faster than my trial run last week and good enough for 96th place out of 139 starters. At half way I was 76th so I probably did start out a bit too fast, but it's hard to say if I'd have got the time back if I'd have started slower. I'm pretty pleased with my ride, I can't say the ride itself was enjoyable, but the day was fantastic. Maybe next year with some specific training I might do a bit better... Maybe top 50?

As I type this on Tuesday night I'm feeling ok, my legs transported me by bike to work today and I'm pretty sure I've not done myself any lasting damage. My lungs still feel a little sore, I've never breathed as deeply before, its amazing what the human body will put up with.

All in all, it was agreat finish to my racing year. I've set some new personal bests, 10 mile tt 22minutes 2 seconds and 25 mile tt 58 minutes 51 seconds. I did a decent ride in the little mountain time trial and I managed to win the clubs time trial points series. It's going to be a tough year to follow!

National hill climb, dry run...

2008-10-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

With only six days to go before I take part in (I was going to say compete in, but that might be pushing it a bit) the national hill climb championship I thought I better go up to Matlock and pre ride the course.

So after a 2 hour drive I parked up and road my standard road bike around to find the start. I parked a couple of miles before Matlock so this acted as a decent warm up.

The climb of bank road turned out to be very similar to my local hill climb course of Ankerdine. The gradient and distance are about the same, although the road surface is much much better up Bank road.

Bank road starts as it continues, on a hill! Mentally it's quite a tough hill too. It's very straight for about three quarters of its distance so it will be best not to focus too far up the hill as it will seem like you're getting nowhere.

It's about 14% gradient average and has a maximum of about 20%...

My plan is to start sitting down, and to stay down for as long as I can. For me the hill is just that bit too long to sprint, standing up all the way. Although I'm not going to be winning anything myself, it's fair to say nobody has ever won a hill climb in the first 100 yards, although I'm sure somebody will have gone out to fast and lost one in the first 100 yards..

I aim to stay sitting down for about 30 - 50 seconds. This doesn't sound like much but the hill is so steep that once you have got out of the saddle you are going to have to stay there and the steepest section is about two thirds of the way up, so you have got to be able to stay out of the saddle to get over this part.

The only corner comes after about three quarters distance and is one of the steepest sections, by this time it's really just about survival, but once round the corner the last 50yards or so are a little flatter than the rest of the hill, so I'll probably sit down for a very short while before giving it everything when the finishing line is in sight. When I say in sight, that's assuming I can still see at that point... Hill climbing at maximum effort does strange things to your body..

The photo is a graph comparing the two hills, ankerdine is the slightly longer line. The other photo is of me on my hill climb bike, on my way up Ankerdine in the clubs hill climb a few weeks ago.

After riding up Bank road on my standard bike I returned to the car and changed over to the fixed gear bike. After a slow ride to the bottom of the hill I started my stop watch and started to suffer.. I did the climb in about 3 mins 50 seconds. I was trying quite hard but held a bit back for the big day. The last 100 yards or so I sat down and just rode to the top, and I would think on the day I may be able to go 20 seconds or so faster.

That's going to keep me from finishing last, but I'll be nowhere near the top. A time of about 2 mins 30 seconds will win it... I might just get into the top 100, which I'd be happy with.

So I now have no excuses, I have a light bike, I know the course, and my gearing felt about right at 39 / 20 (51.8"). Talking of gearing, Matt Clinton said, on the cycling weekly web site, that he thought he would be using 42 / 20 (55.8"). I think I could just about turn that over on the last section that is a bit flatter, but I'd really struggle on the steeper parts. That's probably why he is the favourite and I'm just one of the many making the numbers up!

People who I'll be cheering on.. (if I'm able to / not warming up etc)

No. 39 Adrian Bird. past member of Worcester st Johns cc. now rides for a local bike shop, echelon... where most of my bike stuff comes from. http://www.echelon-cycles.co.uk/index.shtml

No. 125 Tejvan Pettinger. Fellow cycling blogger. http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/

No. 126 Alexandra Zebedee. If your knee holds out that is..

No. 135 Jim Henderson. Hill climbing legend! http://website.lineone.net/~jim.henderson/cycling/hc/hc.html

And everyone else mad enough to take on a hill climb!

National hill climb championship

2008-10-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like I'm in! Here's the start sheet.. http://cj.orpheusweb.co.uk/cycling/01clubev/clbev08/ss.html

The photos are of my training rides.. 25% hills on the penny should make the national seem easy! The other bike is my lovely daily ride, nothing too flash but everything works and nothing ever goes wrong with it.

Back to the national hill climb championship...

I start number 141, one minute behind Matt Clinton, who was today named by cycling weekly as the hot favourite! It will be interesting to see how fast he attacks the hill. I'll take a good look as he leaves the line, as that's the last I am going to see of him!

I'm no expert, but I'm not sure he will have things all his own way. In the recent hill climbs I did up Dovers and saintbury I started a few minutes in front of the 2007 champion James Dobbin. I was able to watch him finish at the top of each climb, and to be honest, he came over the line looking like he wasn't even trying. OK, so Matt Clinton beat him in both climbs, but not by much, and Dobbin looked to me to have something in reserve.

While all of the big names are doing as many hill climbs as possible to get fit, I am just riding to work and back. It's not even a hilly route, so on my way home I am sprinting in as big a gear as I can pull, for as long as I can do it for. I did go on a hilly trainning ride yesterday which covered most of the Little mountain time trial route that I did earlier in the year. The toughest sections are Stamford bank and Ankerdine, made even harder by my heavy winter bike!

I guess we will find out whos the best climber soon enough. As for me, I'm going to be giving it everything and if I make the top 100 I'll be over the moon.

Hill climbs..

2008-10-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

I survived the two stage hill climb, and with the weather the way it was survival was the name of the game.. The picture is of my warm up for the second event.. It rainned all morning which made warming up difficult. I rode the climbs on my fixed gear Specialized Langster, but took my winter bike to warm up on. Even with mud gaurds I got pretty wet.. As I understand it, the shorter the event the longer your warm up should be. Well I figured 30 minutes in the pouring rain was enough, I then swapped bikes, took off my waterproofs and leggings and rode to the start.

The first hill was Dovers hill. This has been used for the national hill climb championship in the past, and I think it may be the venue again in 2010. Anyway, earlier in the year I did a club time trial up it, organised by Evesham wheelers. It was the day after my clubs hill climb up Ankerdine where I had tried really hard. On Ankerdine I did 3mins 33seconds which was a pb for me. I'd ridden up Dovers on my standard road bike before but never raced so I had no idea how I would go. I managed 5mins 13 seconds and felt ok most of the way, so I thought 5 mins might be possible on a good day.

The day of the hill climb was not a good day though! I also messed up and sat up about 200yards before the finish thinking I was at the end... I realised almost straight away but it's hard to get going again. Even so I did 5mins 13sec, the same time as I had done before!

The next climb was up Stainbury hill and I had almost 2hours to prepair. I spent this time wisely, sitting in the car with the climate control on maximum, trying to dry my clothes! My warm up for the second hill was the grand total of the 5minutes it took me to ride to the start. I was properly cold and still wet, not nice. Even so I felt like I went better up the slightly longer and more varied gradient of Stainbury. my time was 7mins 57sec. I'd only riden up this hill once before on my fixed bike and did 8mins 15sec so I was quite pleased with my time.

My total time was just over 13 minutes, I had hoped to get just under 13, but as it was such a horrid day a few seconds outside was ok. The problem with bad weather is that some people don't turn up to ride. Unfortunatly the ones who don't turn up are usually the only ones that I can beat, the quick guy still race, so my overall position wasn't up to much, but at least I was there.

The winner, Matt Clinton managed 10mins 7 seconds! and beat national hill climb champion, James Dobbin into 2nd place. Also riding was a guy called Tejvan Pettinger, who also knows how to ride a bike up a hill.. The day before the race I googled Dovers Hill and found his web site. It's really very good.. much better than this blog! If your into cycling, check it out. http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/

Anyway, I really enjoyed the event and as a result I have done something really stupid... I've sent an entry off for the national hill climb championships! 150 of the best climbers in the country going up a big hill at one minute gaps, against the clock. I doubt if I'll get in as they obviously pick the fastest riders first, but I figured I may as well enter as I would have gone to watch anyway.. If I do get in my aim is not to come last, a top 100 place would be fantastic.....

My week off work

2008-10-01T13:56:00.001-07:00

I've just had a week off work, and had a pretty good time. The first weekend was spent at the bmf bike rally, which is always good.

Then I spent a few days with Kat in Wales on our penny farthings. We covered about 70 miles and had a good time. The b&b we stayed in even had an old duke box with vinyl records, cool!

I seem to be having a bit of trouble uploading pictures on here, so take a look here for more... http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/

My final few days off were spent at the Motocross of Nations, which was awesome. Although I did have my money stolen from my tent while I was sleeping in it, which wasn't nice. Some people will do anything except go to work to get money... Although they are not mine, there are some great photos of the motocross here.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jj-pix/sets/72157607595237992/

My next cycling event is on a fixed gear bike, but not the penny. I'm in a two stage hill climb on sunday. Also in the event is a guy called James Dobbin, who just happens to be 2007 national hill climb champion!

10 mile tt pb..

2008-08-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

I've managed to get my 10 time down a bit to.. My pb is now 23mins 22secs. At the weekend I'm down as 10th reserve in a big quality field of riders on a fast course, so if I get a ride I would expect to get a 22min ride.... If it's a really good, warm and still day and everything goes well I may even manage a long 21min... We shall see...

UPDATE..... I GOT A RIDE AND MANAGED 22MINUTES AND 2 SECONDS! A HUGE PB.. REALLY PLEASED WITH MYSELF, BUT CAN'T HELP THINKING IF I COULD HAVE GONE 3 SECONDS FASTER!

25 mile time trial pb!

2008-07-28T00:21:00.000-07:00

I made it! A 25 mile tt, on my tt bike not the penny, in under an hour. 58 minutes and 51 seconds... This was one of my targets for the year. I still have a few left though, one of which is to climb a local hill in a hill climb time trial in under 3mins 30seconds.. My bike of choice for this event is to be my new fixed gear bike. I plan on testing gearing, and my legs, this week. Here's a picture of my hill climb weapon, although not yet geared down for the 17% climb of Ankerdine.

The other pic is of my time trial bike that I used for the 25 mile tt..

pedal in the park worcester

2008-07-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

Photos are , Dave Walker roller racing and Martins time trial tandem

A free cycle event a Worcester! I was on the St Johns cycle club stand for most of the day. There was lots for people to do and see including a mountain bike trials display team, which was awesome!
I rode the penny down and went out on the guided ride, about 10miles through the lanes. All good fun. I met up with Chris Ford from cycle active, the company who I did coast to coast with. Cycle active had a mountain bike skills area to teach kids about bike control. They do loads of mountain bike trips, and a few road ones so if you're after a holiday check out the web site... I've been on a couple of mountain bike holidays with them in the past and had a really good time..http://www.cycleactive.co.uk/

.................................................................... ............................................................. ............................................... ............................................... ..........................Other stuff that was fun was the roller racing, check out this site for the results... I was 10th..

www.rollapaluza.com/?p=99

2008-06-17T03:02:00.000-07:00

I won a local time trial last week! Hardly the national 25, but a win is a win! The route covered some small lanes around the area that my parents grew up. Part of the route went along a road that they would have cycled along to catch the scool bus, on this road my Dad once managed to knock my Mum off her bike and cut her chin open, what a charmer! Anyway, here is the results sheet...

10 mile TT Mere Green
Name Time
Dave Preece 0:25:36
Joe Bloxsome 0:28:05
Gary Davis(Bromsgrove) 0:28:07
Martin Tinsley 0:28:42
Tony Crossland 0:28:49
Hellen Russell 0:29:12
Richard James 0:29:51
Richard Archer 0:30:03
Mike Matthews 0:30:04
Constantin Murray 0:30:13
Adrian Clifton 0:30:38
Alan James 0:30:58
Gary Davis(RRPCC) 0:31:44
Bob Pritchard 0:32:24
Brian Dingle 0:33:43
Nev Billington 0:34:52

national fame!

2008-06-16T12:29:00.001-07:00

Firstly, the picture of the beetle is here as I have just sold it... I'm quite sad to see it go although the guy who bought it seems to be really keen so I'm sure the car is in good hands... Back to the national fame thing... The second photo is a scan of a picture that appeared in the Times on 14th May 2008. It's of the world record attempt that I have written about earlier in this blog. A similar picture was also in the daily mirror, but in much the same way that a royal flush beats a pair in poker, the Times beats the mirror in journalism!

Fixed gear time trials

2008-06-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

....................... ....................... ............................ ....................... 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!

World record attempt

2008-05-12T23:44:00.001-07:00

............................................................................. Saturday 10th May 2008 Beaulieu..

We needed 132 and managed 104 penny farthings, so the record didn't go. It was good fun though and quite a sight to see that many pennys together.

I drove down to the show on the Saturday morning so I had quite a long day. Not half as long a day as Kat had though. Kat had been away in Hong Kong and only landed at 5.00am on the Saturday morning. Most people would have gone home and gone to bed, but not Kat. For one Kat had no home to go to, but that's another story, and for seconds, Kat is not most people! (I meen that in a good way Kat)..

The Veteran bike show itself was a little odd, you could feel a bit of a divide betwen the owners of original pennys and the owners of replicas. It's strange really as we all have the same love of a strange bike, it's just some of us want to ride the things too and have bought replicas. I for one don't trust riding around 8 feet up in the air on 120 year old steel, and it would also be a shame to ride an original bike and watch it fall to bits. If there was no world record at stake I'm sure the replicas would have been asked to stay away.

Some of the owners of the old stuff were quite rude. One looked Kats bike up and down before saying "I used to have a cheep replica as well." Maybe he used to have friends too. We also received no help at all when ever we asked people if we could get some spare spokes from anywhere. I'm sure If we had turned up on original, older bikes, and if we were 40 years older ourselves, people would have been more helpful.

So when the penny stack was over Kat and I went for a ride and then went to a pub as the show at Beaulieu didn't have a bar!

My parents came to the pub too and we all sat and chatted for a couple of hours then Kat had to get the train "home"

All in all it was a fun day, although I'm not sure either Kat or I will be rushing off to join the veteran cycle club any time soon! If anyone wants to take a look at a few more pictures of the event, take a look at, http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/

little mountain time trial

2008-05-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

This is me, a few miles into the hardest time trial I have ever done! The little mountain tt is not to be taken lightly, it's over 39 miles long, has more than 3500 feet of climbing and includes two very steep climbs of over 17%. The first big climb comes at about 20miles the last one at 33miles. So the penny farthing wasn't really an option!

My time trial bike was almost the perfect tool for the job, fast on the flat and light enough up most of the hills, although bottom gear was too high (42/23) for the two big climbs.

My time was 1hour 58mins and 59 seconds, I was aiming to get inside 2hrs so I'm really pleased. Full results are on this web site.. http://www.beaconrcc.org.uk/open_races/lmtt/2008_results.html

Next week I should have some good penny farthing stuff to report on as it's the world record penny stack, so more on that next week..

World record attempt..

2008-04-17T13:07:00.000-07:00

On May the 7th I am taking my penny farthing to the international veteran cycle club rally at Beaulieu in the UK. There is going to be loads of penny's as part of the rally will be an attempt on the world penny stack record. It's hard to explain but it's essentially a record where riders mount there bikes and get in a long line, handle bar to handle bar, all facing the same way. So the line is one bike deep but many bikes wide. It should be good fun and will give me chance to say hi to some of the people who helped me to find my bike.

Other news from me is bicycle related but not penny farthing news. I've started time trialing again this year and over the winter I have tried really hard to get fit. So far my results have been a little mixed. My first race was a disaster, I was about 2minutes slower than I thought I would be over the 10 miles. The next one went much better, it was only a 5.5mile race but I managed a personal best by 2 seconds. Then came my finest hour, well my finest 24minutes 59seconds. I won a local time trial in pouring rain and freezing cold. I usually go really badly in the cold and when I finished I was disapointed with my time, I thought I would do about 23mins 45secs. But as it turned out I was the fastest on the night.

I've got a few local club time trials lined up but my next big race is the little mountain time trial on 27th April..

Anyway, here is the result sheet from my win!

Broadheath 10 Results K46/10B 15.4.08
1st Dave Preece 24.59
2nd Mark Allen 25.48
3rd Simon Rousell 26.03
4th Richard Graham 26.05
5th Ed Dursley 26.08
6th Steve Price 26.29
7th Sean Dyson 26.45
8th Stuart King 27.48
9th Jason Griffiths 28.18
10th Chris Sherratt 28.36
11th Mick Hedges 28.58
12th Andy Johnstone 29.36
13th Jeff Grainger 30.06
14th Ros Hope 30.31
15th Richard Finch 31.04
16th Chri Cox 31.47

Cycle touring

2008-03-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

No penny farthing but hills this steep are tough enough anyway!

More to follow, I'm off to bed in a bad mood after my first time trial of the year ended with me posting a terrible time..... Probably something to do with these hills...

Kat and I recently went to the lake district on a cycle tour, 3 days lots of hills and 180 miles. We had planned to ride the sustrans route following Hadrians wall but after the first day we changed our minds. The route takes in some of the most scenic sights in the lakes, or that's what sustrans would have you believe. What we saw was Sellafield Nuclear power station, and about 10miles more of Whitehaven when we got lost.. Hadrians wall seemed to be hiding so we got as far as Carlise and then rode into the heart of the lake district. This was much better, nice landscapes, wildlife and big hills. We rode over wrynose and hardnott pass which have gradients of over 30%! All in all it was a really good, if short, holiday.

It's now Thursday and I have just done my first club time trial of the year. After the open tt on Saturday where I had a bit of a nightmare I'm back to somewhere close to the times I expected. Tonights tt was only a short one, 5.5miles, but I did a fairly good time of 13mins 15seconds. This was obviously on my tt bike... I have done the same course on the penny and I think I did about 21 mins..

VC Sevale open time trial

2008-03-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

Well as anyone living in England already knows it bloody cold! Can't believe that on the 29th I will be sucking in lung fulls of freezing cold air doing my first time trial of the year ( on my tt bike, not the penny). I've been riding quite a lot but haven't really done any speed work so no real idea how I will go.

I did do the bike leg of a duathlon as part of a relay team last week, with my dad doing the running, but I find it hard to go flat out when I'm not racing.

Looking at the start sheet Steve Price, a fellow member of my club Worcester st Johns, should have a good chance of a win. Worcs St Johns could have a chance of winning the team competition too as along with Steve we have some quite usefull riders entered. Realisically my aim is to get somewhere near to 25mins. My pb for the course is 24m 2 secs but I'll need the perfect day to get anywhere hear this!

Well I'll update this post later in the week when I've seen a weather forecast for Saturday!...

The time trial is now over, I put in a really poor performance in the worst weather I think I've ever raced in. My excuses for my time are as follows!
1) In the week leading up to the race I went cycle touring with Kat in district and cycled 180 hilly miles in three days, on my road bike with panniers and a bottom gear of 39 / 23... i had a great time though.
2) The weather was terrible, strong winds and rain. I hate getting cold so I made the mistake of time trialing in my water proof, not good for aerodynamics!

Slide show at the Dragon

2008-03-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I was contacted by a local cycle club to see if I would do a presentation about my penny farthing adventures. At the time I was really excited about doing it but now the time is almost here, it's on friday 14th at 8pm in the Dragon on the tything in Worcester, I'm getting quite nervous...

Presentations are not really my thing so I hope my slide show goes ok, I'm told people are really looking forward to it so hopefully it will be alright on the night!

Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes.....

Quick update... The show went well, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The real ale in the pub probably helped though! It's one thing blogging and typing rubbish but it's another to stand up and say it. Not sure I'll do too many more presentations but in the end I quite enjoyed doing it..

I'm not doing much tonight as in the morning I'm doing a local duathlon as a relay with my Dad doing the running and me the cycling. So I'm trying not to drink too much so that I don't let the side down, I expect Dad is having an equally dull night too...

Shimano 24hr road race

2008-02-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

I've just received confirmation that my entry has been accepted for this race, http://www.shimano24.co.uk/

I'm one of a five man team from my cycling club, http://www.worcester-st-johns-cc.org.uk/index.html so I now have the much needed motivation to keep trainning. I find if I am only going to let myself down it's sometimes hard to get out on the bike if the wheather is bad. However, if I feel I'm going to let others down by staying in I am more likely to train. I'm fairly sure the others in my team will want me to leave the penny at home though...

After coming back from Lanzarote I've been quite good and managed a few hard rides and averaged about 150miles per week. I should be going quite well when the time trials kick off again.

The event is also an excuse to start saving for a flash new bike... Kuota KOM?..

Lanzarote international duathlon

2008-02-01T13:09:00.000-08:00

I've just spent two great weeks cycling in Lanzarote. I borrowed a bike bag (cheers Sam) and took my standard road bike. Whilst there I competed in the La Santa Lanzatote international duathlon. I did ok considering I had to ride 22 miles to the start, and 22 miles back again afterwards! I finished 72 / 112 and my bike time was 52nd. The bike course was very tough, climbing from sea level at the start to 800feet in about 4 miles.. If I had tried it on the penny I would still be riding.

I've not used the penny much in the last few weeks, but I am doing a presentation for the local cycling touring club next month. So I'm busy putting together a bit of a slide show of places and events that me and the penny have been to.

Anyway, I've put some photos on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/ if anyone wants to check out Lanzarote.

2008

2008-01-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone! Loads of people make new years resolutions and don't keep them, me included. This year I have decided to put some of mine in print, hopefully this will encourage me to stick with them.

My resolutions are more like targets so here goes:
1) Ride the penny farthing from Lands end to John O'groats.

2) Do a personal best 10mile time trial on my road bike, 23mins 37secs to beat. (on my normal bike) JUST MISSED THIS ONE / 23MINS 39SECS... 30th Aug 22mins 2 seconds.. Come on!

3) Do a 25mile time trial in under an hour. (on normal bike) ALMOST... 1HOUR 3MINS 19 SEC ON A HILLY COURSE 27th july 58mins 51seconds..

4) Do the club hill climb up Ankerdine in under 3mins 30seconds. (deffinately on normal bike) just done 3mins 28secs on my fixie..

If I put my mind to it I think I can do them all......

Anyway, on a different note here is a scan of my favorite Christmas card of 2007. I received it from a fellow penny farthing nut, Pete. Pete lives in Ireland and he goes to Evendale for the world championships each year. I had asked him for some advice on packing a penny for the flight. He sent me back a great letter and this card. Unfortunatly I will not be able to go to Evendale this year but I'm sure the advice will come in handy one day. So thanks Pete and good luck in Evendale.

Christmas on a penny farthing

2007-12-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of me dressed for my commute to work on Christmas eve. The journey was great, I must have riden most of it one handed as every car and person I saw waved at me so I waved back. I even got a wave of a policeman.

I also managed to do the Worcester St Johns time trial on the penny in my santa suit on Boxing day. My time was very slow, but it was great fun. A short video clip of me in action can be seen here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UPz5kmput4 It was taken by Mark, who rode the TT on a single speed mtb geared to 54" the same as my penny. I lost the race Mark did 34mins something and I did 49 mins ! So these new fangled safty bikes are faster, but they will never catch on....

BBC SPORTS PERSONALITY AWARD.

2007-12-03T13:14:00.001-08:00

What a joke! A suspected drugs cheat, someone who has served a ban for missing three drugs tests, is in the final 10 for this, Christine Ohuruogu missed a number of drug tests and served a short ban but is now able to compete again and could win this award.

In my eyes the only reason a professional sports person would miss a test is because they have something to hide. It's a joke. When you know your carear and reputation depend on it, surely you just get tested and then go home. To miss one test is careless, to miss three is unexcusable. It would be like me just forgeting to go to work, three times....

As I understand it she blames her missing the THIRD test on a change to her training schedule, but for me there is no excuse. She is one of the most fortunate people in the world to have a natural talant for sport and all she had to do was to turn up for a few tests. Now the BBC want to reward her for making a comeback!

Not only can she run again in little local events she is also able to run for her country in the Olympic games after she won an appeal to be able to do so.

I suppose the fact that she has a good chance of winning a gold medal in the Olympics has quite a lot to do with her return to sport, If she was just a mediocre cyclist you can be sure the ban would have been longer and the press would have buried her, and taken great pleasure in doing so.

If she is clean and did just forget to get tested or something then sorry Christine, your not a drugs cheat, just a stupid idiot, whose lack of respect for her sport should have seen her banned anyway.
I'M REALLY UPSET BY THIS, PLEASE DON'T VOTE FOR HER! THE END.

Update....
Sports Personality voting:
1. Joe Calzaghe 177,748 (28.19%)
2. Lewis Hamilton 122,649 (19.45%)
3. Ricky Hatton 85,280 (13.53%)
4. James Toseland 84,570 (13.41%)
5. Jason Robinson 67,061 (10.64%)
6. Paula Radcliffe 34,895 (5.53%)
7. Jonny Wilkinson 30,302 (4.81%)
8. Andy Murray 13,242 (2.1%)
9. Justin Rose 10,227 (1.62%)
10. Christine Ohuruogu 4,481 (0.71%)
Total votes: 630,455

Excellent news, the drugs don't work. Last place to Christine, although it looks like Ohuruogu has 4481 friends. I was also pleased that Hamilton didn't win as his team have been caught cheating quite a few times this year, although not with drugs. Oh and well done Calzaghe!

Evel Knievel dies

2007-11-30T14:34:00.000-08:00

I've just found out that my hero, Evel Knievel has died. A sad, sad day. Evel was fantastic I can't really believe he's gone, after surviving crash after crash and a liver transplant I had started to believe that Evel was going to live forever.

It's getting quite late here but I'm going to come back to this post over the next few days and add some of my favorite Evel stories. For now all I can say is thanks for the memories Evel, and take care if you try to jump the gates of heaven!

update 1, Sat 1st Dec

I rode my motorbike to work today, a Yamaha xt660x, a bike that Evel would have approved of. I wore an Evel Knievel T shirt too. My route to and from work was chosen with Evel in mind. On the way I took a detour to go over my favourite hump back bridge..... On the way back I came through the city centre so that I had wheelie opportunities from traffic lights.

Anyway, as I said last night here are the some of the best Evel stories that come to mind, in no particular order, Enjoy!

1, Early in Evels daredevil days he performed a stunt where he would stand facing a motorcycle which would travel towards him at 50mph. Evel would then jump up in the air and the bike and rider would go underneath him. However, it didn't always work. On one occasion Evels timing was off and the bike hit him, as Evel lay on the ground he was covered with a blanket and was presumed dead. In fact he had "only" broken a few ribs. This was way back in 1966.

2, When Evel tried to jump 13 buses at Wembley he hit the last one and crashed. As normal, he broke various bones but he was up faster than a footballer with a slight graze to the knee, and then told the crowd he would never jump again. On the way to the hospital his agent asked him what happened. Evels answer was something like this, "Well my mother always told me to catch the last bus...".

3, That last quotes not bad but my favourite Evel quote has to be this one made as he is about to jump snake river canyon in a rocket powered bike. Evel knew he had no chance of making it to the other side, the three previous unmaned test flights had all failed and Evel had run out of money for further tests. However, as Evel had told his public that he would do the jump backing out was not an option. As Evel pressed the launch button he said, "God take care of me, 'cause here I come!" HERO.

4, I'm going to be doing this post for weeks, there is just so much to tell about Evel! Another good tale is one that landed Evel in prision. In short the story goes something like this. A guy called Sheldon Saltman wrote a book on Evel. Evel said the book contained lies about him and he wasn't happy about the content. To put this right Evel went round to see Saltman and broke both of his arms with a baseball bat. In latter interviews Evel Said things like, "It's hard to type lies when both of your arms are in casts" and also described Saltman as "the rottenest apple in the barrel and he deserved killing." Evel accepted blame and told the courts the truth about what had happened. When sentencing him the judge said he appreciated Evels honesty, but he could not encourage such behaviour. He was sentenced to six months inside. His jail sentence didn't please the toy companies, they said "All American Heros aren't suppossed to go to jail".

5, Evel was the best stuntman of all time and he knew it, he often said, "I don't care about these other so called jumpers. They don't compare to me. I'm the guy who invented car jumping."

6, When sitting in hospital after a failed jump, I forget which one, Evel confided in a friend and told him he knew he was not going to be able to make the jump. When asked why he went through with it Evels response was "What the hell was I supposed to do, give them their money back?" This guy was so tough!

The stories just go on and on. My advice to you is to go and buy the book Evel Incarnate by Steve Mandich. Good bye Evel, I'll miss you.

DBMAX DUATHLON 25TH NOV

2007-11-26T11:55:00.001-08:00

Well the weather was good and I ran myself into the ground to avoid last place. Provisional results can be found on www.dbmax.co.uk . I finished 185th out of 226. So I beat 41 people and my bike split time wasn't the slowest either.

For those who are interested, here are some stats.

winners time 42mins 54seconds.

my time 68mins 28seconds.

last place 89mins 30seconds.

my bike time was 39mins 35seconds, 6 people were slower!

My tactic for the race was always to run the first 2 miles as quickly as posible. This went quite well although I did have a few costume problems. My trousers kept falling down and my stick on facial hair got up my nose so my time of 13mins 52seconds for two miles, including change over onto the bike, was pretty good.

The bike leg was 5 laps of Castle Combe race track, which is roughly 10 miles in total. It's ideal for a bike leg as the circuit is pan flat and as smooth as silk. The other advantage is that it has no traffic on it so it's quite safe. I had some good support from the other competitors and the supporters durring my 39 odd minutes. I was cheered on by Les Bailey who is a family friend and very usefull runner and triathlete. Les had run in the earlier 10k race and had stayed on to give me some support which was great and I really appreciated it. Out of interest Les, who is at least 70 years old, ran the 10k in 46minutes and has won loads of international triathlons in his age group.

The final run was, as is always the case, very hard. For me it was quite good to have slower runners to catch up and I managed to pass about 6 people. I crossed the line in 1hr 8mins and 28seconds. I had aimed for 1hr 10mins so I was pleased with my time and I am sure that I couldn't have gone any faster as by the end I was feeling very rough!

So another event gets completed on the penny farthing, now I am starting to think about doing the big one next year, Lands end to John O'Groats.......

Much Wenlock Olympian games video clip

2007-11-18T12:06:00.000-08:00

I've just found a video clip of me in action at the Much Wenlock Olympian games. The whole video is 11mins 57secs long, the veteran cycle race coverage starts at about 8mins 45 secs. Also on the video is a bit on the 7 mile road running race, 6mins in, which my Dad took part in. Anyway here is the link. http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/shropshire_videos/video-wenlock-olympian-games-2007.shtml enjoy!

The Thai - Burma railway

2007-11-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to watch and listen to a world war II veteran, Fred Seiker, who was a POW working on the Thai Burma railway. I can't begin to describe what suffering this man has been through, It's a miricle that any of the POW's survived at all. Take a look at this link to an article written by Fred Seiker for more details. http://www.bmw.ukf.net/3pagodas/TBRandON.htm

Back on the penny farthing front, my trainning for the duathlon at Castle combe on the 25th Nov is going ok at best. I've managed to do something to my back and riding my normal road bike is quite painful. It doesn't hurt at all to run and I can only feel it slightly when on the penny, so hopefully It will be ok. There are almost 200 people entered in the duathlon now so I may not come last. This time last year I did the event on my time trial bike and finished in 55minutes, Using the penny I think It will take me about 1hr 10minutes. Last year this would have been well inside last place so hopefully I will be ok!

Penny gets the horn!

2007-11-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

I've just come back from a classic motorbike show at Malvern where I managed to buy a horn for the penny farthing. There were loads of nice bikes at the show, I've put some more photos on flickr, so if you're interested take a look. The rest of my weekend has been pretty good, I got a copy of cycling weekly on Saturday and I was listed in the cyclocross results. Only a 10th place in a local event but even so it was nice to see my name on the pages of the magazine. I've been concentrating on improving my running fitness rather than riding the penny so I've no penny stories to tell but hopefully if I can do ok in the two running legs at the duathlon me and the penny will not come last! http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/

Chilly duathlon 25th Nov

2007-10-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

I've just entered this event at castle combe, so far there are 128 other competitors registered and I would guess that all of these will be riding a bike with two wheels that are the same size! I would also expect the other bikes to have gears and brakes that work, but where's the fun in that?

I like to have a few events to look forward to in the winter as I find it can be a dark and depressing time. Today was the first day this year that I have had to deal with daylight saving. This is someones bright idea to put the clocks back an hour in the winter so that we can all get to come home from work in the dark. Today wasn't too bad as I finish at 4pm on a Sunday but in the week I will be riding home in the dark at 5.30pm. I really don't like the dark long nights, I can put up with the cold and wet but the dark gets to me....

Sue's wedding, round 2

2007-10-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

My sister Sue has managed to get married to Simon! Take a look back through this blog to see why the wedding was delayed untill now....We had much better weather in October than in July and the whole day went really well. The next day was not so plesent as I had a pretty nasty hang over....

On the penny farthing front I am about to send off my entry for another duathlon and plan to use the penny for the bike leg. I'm not expecting to do a great time as I have let my training slip after doing the coast to coast last month. Even so I've got untill 25th Nov to get myself ready so you never know, I may not come last...

My penny riding days are also about to become a little more difficult as here in England we are about to change the clocks. This means that it will be completly dark when I get home from work so evening rides are over for the next few months... I'll just try to get out on it on my days off.

Penny farthing world championships, Tasmania.

2007-10-11T12:59:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the week I received my invitation to the world championships in Tasmania. I'd love to go but it's not going to be cheap! At the moment I am thinking that I may have to give it a miss as I already have an outstanding credit card bill, my car mot looks like being fairly costly and Christmas stopped being a free religious festival many years ago.

On the positive side, staying at home will keep my carbon footprint nice and small, in fact over the last five or so years I have cycled further than I have driven and have only flown once.

Anyway, I've not riden the penny farthing much since coming back from the coast to coast so this weekend I plan to have a good long ride on it on Saturday. Then on Sunday, I am going to enter a local cyclocross race, but not on the penny!

Coast to Coast!

2007-10-03T01:13:00.000-07:00

Well I made it, full report to follow but for now check out photos on flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/

Coast to Coast by penny farthing!

2007-10-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

What a journey! I managed to cross the country by penny farthing in three days. I'm sure people have done it faster but I really don't care, for me my goal was only ever to finish the journey so I am more than happy with my achievement.

For more pictures see, http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/ So here goes, I'll try to document my long weekend as best as I can.

Thursday 27 Sept 07

I had a really poor nights sleep as I had caught a cold earlier in the week, I was hoping that when the morning arrived I would be ok but I actually felt worse. I'd looked forward to this ride for some time so there was no chance that I was going to stay at home so I just loaded the van and hoped that by friday morning I would be ok.

I stopped for a break at Knutsford and unloaded the penny farthing. Knutsford is the home of the penny farthing museum and anyone who turns up on one gets free tea, so I was off to claim mine! I bumped into an elderly couple on my way and they came with me to the museum. Unfortunatly the penny farthings had all be taken away for cleaning so mine was the only one! There was still lots to see though as the place is full of old photos, signs and penny farthing bits and bobs.

I claimed my free drink and sat talking bikes to the elderly couple and the owners. I learnt that in 2010 there is to be a three hour great race for penny farthings and I was welcome to take part. When they learned about my coast to coast ride everyone wished me well and the old guy told me about how he used to ride over Hartside pass twice a day for months on end when he was courting his wife. Nowadays kids turn 17 and demand a car to get around, when their girlfriends live just round the corner. How times change.

After an hour or so I continued my journey and was soon in Penrith. The owner of the B&B couldn't belive I was going to use the penny for the ride, he'd never seen anything like it. I asked if he had somewhere secure to leave the bike over night and he showed me to his back yard. It was secure all right, protected by the biggest dog you have ever seen!

With the bike locked up I went out for a quick meal then had an early night as I was still feeling a bit rough with my cold.

Day 1 whitehaven to penrith

Friday 28th Sept.

In the morning I did feel quite a bit better so as we loaded the bikes onto the transfer van I was getting pretty excited about the ride. The other bikes going to the start were all mountain bikes so everyone thought I was mad doing it on the penny. I however, thought they were mad for not bringing a road bike.

After a few photos at the start I made my way onto the official route and I was soon experiencing all of the worst things about cycle paths. The drill for the first 10 miles or so went something like this. Ride for 200metres, get off and push around metal gate, get back on for 200metres then get off to ride down a kerb. Get back on for 200metres, get off to cross road junction. Get back on, get off, get on etc. I love cycling but I have to say cycle paths are not my favorite place to ride. You are either on and off your bike all of the time or you find yourself being directed to ride down the inside of traffic and are putting yourself at risk of cars turning left across you. I can't help thinking that the money spent on cycle paths would be better spent educating drivers to be more respectful of the humans that choose to ride a bike on the road, as they are perfectly entitled to do.

Anyway, rant about cycle paths aside, I enjoyed the first few miles. The one thing that I did see that surprised me was a guy flying a falcon of some sort in what seemed to be a school field. Strange.

Something else that I wasn't expecting to see was a red squirrel but I ended up spotting 2, which was a nice surprise.

The cycle path problems continued for me latter in the day. Just before Keswick the offical "road route" directed me up a forest trail. The surface was very rough so even when the gradient was flat enough to ride I found more often than not I had to walk. I must have walked about 8 miles out of the next 10 and I was starting to get really wound up that this was suppost to be a cycle route. The off road route was also giving my spokes some trouble. Two in particular kept coming loose so when I eventually got back onto some tarmac I looked at my map and decided that I could no longer trust the sustrans route, from now it was going to be main roads all the way back to penrith.

The tarmac roads were much better, I had no troble with traffic and found that several other cyclists had done the same as me and given up on the sustrans route.

I got back to the b & b before everyone else which suprised me. I had a quick shower then went out to get some food before having another early night.

Day 2 Sat 29 sept. penrith to stanhope

Looking at the route profile this was the day I had been fearing. The main climb of the day was up and over Hartside pass. On my road bike I would have looked forward to this as I am actually fairly good on hills, but pushing the penny up the hill wasn't going to be too much fun. As it happened the climb was tough but I started early and was soon at the top. The cafe was open and I was now confident that I could complete the c 2 c. People in the cafe couldn't believe that I had riden / pushed the penny to the higest cafe in England, but there I was. I was soon joined by other cyclists, two of which had stopped on the way up the hill to resuce some baby foxes that they had found on the road. The foxes were now in their ruck sacks and on route to a wildlife centre that they had been directed to. The other strange thing about the two fox rescuers was what they had planned on sunday. They were booked in to do the great north run and were going to cycle to the start. It was now about miday on Saturday, the run started at 9am sunday. That gave them 21hours to fit in some sleep and to cycle 50 odd miles to the start.

The descent off Hartside was good and I was able to ride most of it. The day still had a bit of climbing though. At one point my gps told me I was at 2200 feet. The only problem I had today was the old favorite, the loose dog. It came running out of a garage and I was in two minds as to weather to stop and risk getting attacked, or to try to out run it. On a normal bike I would have sprinted away, but I couldn't risk getting a dog stuck in my spokes so I bravely jumped off and faced the beast. Luckly once off the penny the dog lost interest and I was able to continue on my way.

When I got back to the b & b I checked out the stats from my first two days, they made quite impressive reading. 91.46 miles, with a total ascent of 7170 feet! My average speed was less impressive at only 7.4 mph. But considering the long off road walk on day one and todays hills it wasn't too bad.

That night I went out to find some food with Craig, one of the guys doing the trip on a normal bike. We ended up in a small pub which was the only place in the village doing food. In the pub a local guy started talking to us, he was quite interested in the bike ride but seemed even more interested in telling us about his adventures. If he was to be beleived these included a four month road trip through south america, including staying at the highest peak in the Andies. The tales may not have been completly true but I do think they were based on actual events, and to be fair everyone like to exaggerate a little.

As the night went on the pub became very busy and it turned out we were in for a real treat. The locals were having a vegetable auction! These were no ordinary vegies, but prize winning giants. Leaks the width of telegraph poles, Carrots that were more like orange snooker cues and onions the size of footballs. Unfortunatly my camera was back at the b & b, there was only one solution, we would have to buy something! We asked at the bar if we would escape alive if we were to bid for a prize winning leak, the advice we got was to wait untill one of the smaller ones. The result was a winning bid of £1.50 for a fourth placed onion. the photo of which is on the flickr link from this site.

While we were in the pub getting drunk the other members of the group were having some problems of there own. We later learnt that one of the other had gone off ahead earlier in the day and had not been seen since. The others were so worried about him they phoned the police, who in turn phoned mountain rescue.. Luckly, just before the rescuers had been activated the missing rider showed up, a little embarrased after getting very lost.

Day 3

Stanhope to Tynemouth.

Even though today was suposed to be easy I still decided an early start would be a good idea. So after my breakfast I was under way at 8.00am. As it happened Stanhope seemed to be possitioned at the bottom of a huge hill so the first hour saw me pushing the penny more than riding it. The riding then got much better as the road pointed down hill for miles and miles. I did have to come off the offical route at the start of the Waskerley way as, yet again, the sustrans cycle route was more like a section of a mountain bike enduro.

The rest of the ride was fine as the surface on the last few cycle paths was good enough for me to ride. I was a little worried about riding through Newcastle but even the local want to be gangster kids loved the penny. I wouldn't have fancied riding a flash mountain bike alone through some of the estates though..

I got to the finish at 2.30pm, well before anyone else. After a few photos I then did the decent thing and found a pub. Talking to people in the pub they couldn't believe my journey, most people can't imagine riding a bike for one mile, let alone a penny farthing across the country. It was now that the scale of my achievment started to sink in. I realise that I'm never going to win an olympic event or a stage of the tour de france but today I did something that maybe only a hand full of people on the earth have done, in fact more people have probably walked on the moon than have done what I have this weekend, I RODE A PENNY FARTHING FROM COAST TO COAST!

Bmf tail end bike rally

2007-09-17T12:09:00.001-07:00

I've just spent the weekend at the BMF tail end bike rally. It's always good fun but I'm always pleased to come home. There is only so much drinking and sleeping in a tent that I can take, in fact if the rally was any longer it would become a real test of endurance, probably a test that I would fail. As it stands though it's a great weekend, although not something that you would want to do too regularly.

My accomplice for the weekend was Mickey, his weekend was made extra tough as he had to travel up on the back of my bike. Over a long distance the last place on earth you want to be sitting is on the back of an xt660 with loud exhausts, but we made it. The bike managed the journey with no problems, however the lack of luggage space gave us a few difficulties. We had to take a tiny tent, which was described as disposable and cost £7.97.... We also had no room to take drink so I left Mickey at the showground and went back out for beer. I ended up at a small local store and purchased 48cans of lager, then returned to the rally and we started to drink them.

A lot happened durring the first night but my memory of it is for some reason a little blured. At some stage I rode a mechanical rodeo bull, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oan2_i2dNzY we met some people with flashing teeth, ate some alcoholic sweets, rocked to live music and drank lots of lager before stagering back to the tent.

The next day was predicitably tough we both went through bad spells on and off for most of the day, I started worse than Mickey but at about 1.00pm Mickey seemed to have a relapse and we spent most of the afternoon asleep on the grass. We later learnt that one of the people we were talking to the night before came over to say hello but he couldn't wake us up. A sorry state to get in.

We recovered enough to walk round the show and also to check out the bikes in the camp site. When in the camp site I noticed something quite frightening. A guy, who I had seen the night before staggering around drunk, was sitting by his bike with a spanner in his hand, scratching his head with his front brake in pieces. Scary stuff, made even worse by the fact that the bike in question was a zzr1100, and capable of 180mph... We managed a few more drinks on Saturday night but what with having to ride home the next day we took it quite slowly.

When we came to pack up and leave other campers seemed to feel sorry for us, one group offered us a new tent for nothing as ours was the worst they had ever seen, and another guy gave us a rucksack that he no longer needed. What we really needed however was a taxi home...

That's about it for now, my next post will probably be in a couple of weeks time when I am getting ready to ride the penny farthing from coast to coast...

King of the mountain?

2007-09-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

I'd like to say that I rode all the way up Ankerdine on the penny, but I have to confess that I pushed most of it. I probably made the slowest ascent of the day but it was worth it. Loads of people turned out to watch the climb and it was good to see that even the pros found the climb hard, look at the face on the rider in the first photo, he's really hurting.

My day started with a slow ride into Worcester to see the start village. Loads of people showed an interest in the penny, one guy from cycling weekly took a few photos and said he would try to get it into the magazine. Hopefully this will happen as I would love to get a mention in the comic, obviously I would rather be in print for winning the national 25 mile time trial championship but this is also obviously not going to happen, so a comedy picture of me and the penny will have to do!

The whole race seemed to be well organised, we even had a commentary car telling us about the riders in the break and the road closure seemed to work well. Unfortunatly, despite my encouragement on Ankerdine, Roger Hammond didn't quite manage to win the stage but all in all, it was a great day.

The Tour of Britain hits Worcester

2007-09-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Stage three of the race starts in Worcester tomorrow and I am going to ride the penny out to watch the race at Ankerdine. I have decided on Ankerdine as, previous readers of the blog will already know, it's a climb I have first hand experience of. Racing up it as a stand alone event is hard enough, the tour riders will be 60km into the stage with another 90km to go. It will be interesting to see how fast the pro riders go.

Although I'm really into cycling I've not actually watched that much racing live. I did go to watch Armstrong in his last tour de France though, and it was an amazing experience. We rode up some of the famous climbs just before the race came through so the crowds were massive and the atmosphere was amazing.

The first stage that I watched went up the climb of Ax-les-thermes, I can't really explain what I felt when the main riders came into view for the first time. A few hours earlier I had struggled up the climb at snails pace, then Armstrong, Ulrich and Basso came up the mountain side by side, looking almost effortless. The crowds parted around them and I genuinely felt that I was in the presence of greatness, and I'm sure that others watching felt the same. It sounds stupid I know, but I have never felt that before, or since, it was an incredible experience. The other thing that has stayed with me is the support for the riders from the crowd. Most of the fans were French, a fair number of Spainish and then little groups of English, Americans, Germans etc. All of the fans without exception offered their support towards all of the riders. The french desperaply didn't want Armstrong to win again, but when he came though they all gave him a clap and a cheer, the fans appreciated his performance. They would have preferd him to have gone badly but nobody offered anything but applause towards him. Imagine that at a football game...

On another day I managed to get a couple of photos as the riders went by, this one is of Jan Ulrich as he suffered up the climb to St lary Soulan. Jan was unlucky enough to be competing against Lance Armstrong and some of the strongest teams in history. In any other era Jan would have ruled.

Anyway, tomorrow I will cheer on all of the riders at the Tour of Britain, I'll just try to cheer a bit harder when I see anyone British! I'll update this post later in the week...

Worcester pedal in the park

2007-09-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

Today I rode the penny to Gheluvelt park in Worcester for a cycle event held as part of the Tour of Britain promotion. My cycling club, Worcester St. Johns had a stand so I was going mainly to make up the numbers on our stand.

When I got there I was pleased to see there were a number of other stands and quite a bit going on, I had a go at the roller racing and posted a time of 21.57secs., at the time good enough for 4th spot. I only had one go, and according to the girl running the stand I started slowly, but being so short it was more a test of pedalling speed and style rather than fittness, so I was pleased with my time as I have always thought that I can't spin. The people running the rollers were http://www.rollapaluza.com/ , I've not checked out the web site yet but apparently they do parties so it might be worth looking at if you are after something different to a bouncy castle.

The other penny farthings in the photo belong to a fellow club member, Martin, and are both for sale. One is an original from 1888, the other is a replica. Both are ridable, I had a quick go on the replica and it rides really well. The purists out there may not be too keen on it as the join between the backbone and forks is quite bulky, but if you're after a penny for fun or to learn on you could do a lot worse, e mail me if you're interested in either bike and I'll pass your details on. (more photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/ ) There is also a trike in the photo, this was used by a club member, Gordon, to ride from Lands end to John O'Groats. Gordon did the ride to celebrate his 70th bithday!

A couple of select club members had a go on my bike and also a guy from the try a bike stand, everyone got on ok and the bike survived fine.

The mountain bike demo was pretty cool too. My photo doesn't do it justice but these guys seem to defy gravity!

All in all a good event, congratulations to the organisers.

I stayed untill about 1.00pm I think, I don't wear a watch at the weekends so that I am not a slave to time! Then I rode off to Vanfest at Malvern. Vanfest is a VW Transporter show and as a bit of an air cooled VW fan I thought I'd pay it a visit. It was a great ride over in the sunshine with lots of people cheering me on from their cars. Once at the show I checked out a few trade stands and chated to a few people about the bike. I also had a quick look round the vans for sale area but came to the conclusion that £10000 buys a lot of B&B, besides I think Split screen vans are too small to get my bike in and the later larger vans just aren't that cool. I had a T25 camper for a couple of years and it was fun but, sorry T25 fans, they are not cool.

The ride home was also good, I did notice that a couple of spokes on the penny had started to work loose, but the wheel still seemed true so I'm not to worried about it, I'll give them a quick tighten later. The only negivite thing about the day was a real rarity, a negivive comment. I was riding along in a dead straight line in full control when a car pulled up along side me, the lads in the car then shouted, "F*!KING IDIOT" to which I replied "F*!KING IDIOT? YOU'RE THE ONE DRIVING THE ROVER 213!" I mean, a Rover 213, why even entertain the thoughts of buying one? The only surprising thing about Rover going bust was that it didn't happen years ago. I don't swear that often, but I think he deserved it, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones..

Penny farthing time trial

2007-09-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

Back to the penny stuff at last! I've just done a club time trial on the penny, the course itself was only 5.5miles but after riding to work, then to the start, doing the event and then riding home I'm really tired. In total I must have riden about 35miles. This in itself is not that far but what with the hill climb a couple of days ago and last week I raced at the track and did two time trials, I'm glad the season is coming to an end.

The ride to work was fine but I was late leaving at the end of the day so I had to push on to get to the start. I was in time but lots of people had already signed on so I asked if I could go as number 0 so that I could ride at least some of the way home in daylight.

The event itself was good, I did a time of 21mins 6seconds. I had done this course once before on the penny and managed 21mins 10seconds so to go a bit faster was a surprise after the rush to get to the start. After the event I had a quick drink in the pub with some of the other riders then made my way home.

The first part of the ride was fine as it was still light. Then when the sun went down it become harder. To start with it was good, with just enough light to be able to see and owls and bats starting to fly around I really enjoyed it. Then when it became very dark it was just a case of surviving the journey. You really need to be able to see the road when on a penny and my front light was not really good enough, I made it home but riding in the dark is not something I plan to do too often.

With the coast to coast ride coming up I think I may have to do some early morning starts to make the most of the daylight. This weekend I plan to get a few daylight miles in on the penny and take a few more photos....

Ankerdine hill climb

2007-09-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry, yet again nothing to do with penny farthings! I'll make up for this at the end of the month when I ride the penny from coast to coast, I promise!

Back to Ankerdine, anyone who has ever riden a bike will know how hard it is to ride up a steep hill. Well Ankerdine is properly steep, with an average gradient of 17% and each year at the end of the time trial season my cycling club holds a time trial up it.

I have prepaired my bike in the usual way, by taking off anything that adds weight like lights and mud gaurds and I'm confident that I will do a decent time. Last year I got up the climb in 3mins 41seconds. I'm not sure if I will go faster this year as I changed the gearing on my bike earlier in the year and my lowest gear is now a bit higher than it was last year.

I have also had today off work as well so I should be nicely rested. While I was sitting arround today I had the idea of attaching my camera to my bike to make a video clip of the climb. So I have now added back a few grams of weight, well it's always handy to have an excuse lined up!

Anyway if the video works I'll put it on you tube so that you can experience the pain of a hill climb... (seems to have worked ok, going up = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSHRznVQnlc going down = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIxEl8HPnxs the first one is quite long so it's still processing, should be ok by 5th sept though).

For now I'm trying not to think too hard about the prospect of getting my heart rate to maximum and holding it there for 4 mins, actually I've just thought about it and that's going to be about 760 beats! If I was watching tv 760 beats would take about 15minutes.....

Well I survived the hill climb but went slower than last year by about 7seconds I think. I'd like to make a special mention to two fellow riders though. Firstly Ed Dursley, he tried so hard he was sick at the finish, good effort Ed! And secondly Steve Price, who flew up the hill in 2 mins 56 seconds! An incredible performance, I'm quite a fit bloke and half decent up hills but Steve took 53 seconds off my time, to use a word that is often used but rarely deserved.. Awesome. I am truly in awe of that time and so should you be..

Almost a winner

2007-09-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

Nothing to do with penny farthings, but I almost won a club time trial this week. My pb for this course is 24.02 so I was pleased with 24.08 considering I spent the weekend before drinking 24 cans of Lager, sleeping in a tent and eating rubbish.. If only I was more dedicated.....

10m tt Severn Stoke 30/08/07
Name Cat Time
R Graham G 23.51
D Preece G 24.08
B Boswell S 24.16
C McSweeney S 24.24
J Barnett G 24.35
S O'Toole V 25.26
A Taylor V 25.40
E Dursley G 25.49
D Evans G 26.11
B Whatton G 26.25
E Garton S 27.25
D Yapp V 27.32
G O'Mahoney V 27.59
W Douglas V(F) 28.35
D Burnage V 28.42
C Connell G 28.52
T Knight V 29.17
A Sims S 29.30
P Jolley S 30.24
D Morgan V 31.24

I also made my track debut this week at Halesowen. Although I didn't finish with many points I didn't crash so I was quite pleased. My best performance was in a 500m sprint, which is strange as I have always thought I couldn't sprint. The bigger bunch races were a bit to cut and thrust for me so I sat at the back of the bunch to stay out of trouble. Again I was quite pleased to finish them without incident and still in touch with the main group. With a bit more practice I can only get better...

The coments people make

2007-09-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

Virtualy all of the coments people make when they see a man on a penny farthing are positive. This makes a refreshing change as fellow cyclists will know this is not always the case when out riding.

In this section of the blog I have tried to list the best coments that I have received whilst out on the penny, I will add to as and when I get any variations on the coments received.

Best comments to date. 2/9/07 (Aston Villa 2 Chelsea 0) sorry about the football reference but I'm so pleased Villa were the first team this season to wipe the smug grin off Mourinhos face, as for Drogba what a big girls blouse. Anyway, back to the penny stuff...

1. "Nice bike mate, Halfords?"

I was out riding the penny when a fellow cyclist caught me up and offered the above question. At the time it made me laugh, lots. Thinking about it, although I still find it funny, he would have had some time to think of what to say, Still brilient though.

When people have less time to think about what to say they typicaly seem to come up with one or more of the following.

2. "Do a wheelie!" I've tried, it's not possible.

3. "Nice bike, can you juggle as well?" For whatever reason people seem to think I must be part of a circus.

4. "Hey, penny farthing." For those who know what one is.

5. "What the f*!k." For those who don't.

6. "What the f*!k, what the f*!k." A coment made by a suprised lad in London when first Kat rode past on her penny then me on mine.

7. "No way!"

8. "Jesus Christ!" No, it's just me.

More to follow as and when people coment...

British motocross GP

2007-08-27T10:20:00.001-07:00

I know it's got nothing to do with penny farthings but I've just come back from the British MX GP at Donington. I love motocross and a camping weekend at a GP takes some beating and this time all of the vital ingredients were present. We had sunshine, a British winner, Lager, decent food, more Lager and all in all we had a great time. As well as the current crop of riders there was a masters race which was won by the ledgend, Dave Thorpe. Tommy Searle won the mx2 overall, and one of the motos, and Billy Mac did his bit and led the first mx1 race for a number of laps. Anyway, from what we can remember, we all had a great time, I promise to try to get back to the penny farthing stuff soon!

you tube link

2007-08-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

I've just opened a you tube account, at the moment I've only uploaded one video clip for a test to see if it works, so heres a link. The clip is of me riding the penny and filming myself so It's not the best clip out there but I'll do some better ones in the future if it works ok. Anyway, here is the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsB4isELibY

Penny lane

2007-08-13T08:11:00.001-07:00

I've just been out for a penny ride to Malvern. I chose this route for a number of reasons, the first photo is one of them, I knew of this lane and thought it would make a nice photo. The other photos show my second reason, a quick visit to a gallery called riding high. In the window is an original penny farthing and inside there is loads of cycling memorbilia. The owner seemed really pleased to see me and my bike, to the point that he didn't charge me for my drink! After a few photos and a quick chat I continued on my way home. The profile of the ride itself was my third reason, as I am now only 7 weeks away from my coast to coast penny ride across the pennines I have started to work some hills into my riding. I was able to ride almost all of the uphill sections. I didn't quite manage Church street in Malvern, but this is seriously steep so doing two thirds of it could be viewed as a triumph anyway! The other thing I was going to mention is a link to my flickr photo page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/10804338@N06/ on here you will find other penny farthing pics along with my other photos.

Duathlon result and report

2007-08-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

The distance should have been easy but the combination of the heat, my fancy dress and the penny fathing made the event quite tough. I travelled down early to watch my Dad do the 10k run and then waited around until my event. Dad went well and did a time very close to his target but it was already obvious that the heat was going to be a problem for me in fancy dress. I spent the time between races sheltering from the sun and drinking water, lots of water.

I was pleased to get booked in and get the penny into the transition area, all I had to do now was get going. I managed to meet up with Will, who had agreed to let me enter the event ,said thanks and he gave me a bit of a plug durring the briefing, cheers Will. Looking around the other competitors it was obvious that I was going to have to put in a big effort if I wanted to avoid last place. Everyone, young or old, looked fit and almost everyone had a proper lightweight time trial bike. My bike however was 45lbs of steel, with no gears, a riding position that can only be described as ridiculous and not an ounce of carbon fibre in sight. My only advantage was that with solid tyres I wouldn't need to worry about punctures.

I was glad to get started and the first run leg went really well. I was aiming for about 24mins and ended up doing 23mins. So at this stage I was up on my target time of 1hr 30mins and I was also not too hot.

Next came the bit I was waiting for, the Penny Farthing bike leg. Finding my bike in the sea of low profile carbon fibre machines was easy, I also performed my quickest ever change over as I didn't have to change shoes! Once on the bike the support of the other riders and of the spectators was great, I started the first two laps at a fast pace, fast for a penny farthing that is, that I thought I would be able to maintain for the whole distance. About half way through the third lap I started to overheat and with no water bottles on the penny I had to slow down a bit. On the far side of the circuit it was really hot, the wind was blowing into your face and sitting high up on the penny I found it really hard going.

Each time I passed the start line the crowd gave me a big cheer and Mickey counted my laps, I definitely did the full seven, although we have our doubts that everyone did. Anyway, when I came in for the last run leg I had to stop the penny in the box to dismount. I stopped somewhat quicker than I had planned and performed a penny farthing stunt by lifting the back wheel off the ground, Mat Hoffman (bmx rider) would have been proud! When I started the final run I was fairly sure I was now in last position. I could see a few other competitors in the distance so it was now or never, I was going to give it all I had in an effort to avoid last place. Getting off a bike and then running is not an easy thing to do and getting off the penny and then running was very difficult. The first 200 or so metres were very painfull. My backside had pretty much gone to sleep and each time my feet hit the ground it felt like mike tyson was punching me in the bum cheeks. It got slightly less painfull after a while and as it happened I caught the first person quite quickly, then another couple and then I couldn't see anyone else so I backed off a tiny bit to avoid blowing up.

When I came over the line to finish I was seriously hot, but I had made it and was only 6 minutes off my best target time. The heat must have been worth most of those 6 minutes, it was so hot the glue holding my fake moustache on had melted!

All in all I was really pleased with the day and with my performance. I'd just like to say Thanks to everyone who gave me a cheer, it really does help and thanks to everyone who sponsored me. I now feel ok, my legs aren't even stiff and I am looking forward to getting back to normal time trialing duties tomorrow night .

DBMAX Duathlon build up.

2007-08-01T11:48:00.000-07:00

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....

Dunwich Dynamo, 200km in the dark!

2007-07-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

First photo, the start. Second photo, the middle. Last photo, the end!

Well we survived the ride, it was touch and go at times but we made it. I've tried to block the ride into sections for this post but it's not proving too easy as I can't remember at what stage various things happened. Lack of sleep does strange things to your mind, or as someone pointed out to me at work today, it can actually kill you....

Pre ride.
I travelled down to London for about 2.00pm, managed to park ok and unloaded my stuff into Kats flat. Shortly afterwards we rode off, on our penny farthings, to meet some of her friends for a picnic. This made for a nice relaxing start to the weekend, and helped to take my mind off what I was about to attempt.

The ride.........

0 to 10 miles.

The ride got off to a good start, with no offical start time we made our way down to the meeting place nice and early to ensure that I could get a return bus transfer. Kat had already booked hers but I was less organised! The atmosphere at the start was great, looking around there were all sorts of people and all types of bikes. My bike was probably a typical example, standard road bike, half decent lights and small mudgaurds. Others were less standard, from recumbants to track bikes, complete with a total lack of brakes! We decided to start at about 8.30pm so that we could get out of the city in day light and hopefully without too much drama. As it turned out our biggest problem for the first 10 miles was the stop start rain. Waterproof on, waterproof off etc, but by about 9.30pm it was raining quite hard so on they stayed, as it turned out, for the next 10 hours...
The only other thing that sticks in my mind from the first few miles is watching a rider chase after and catch up with a bus which he then held onto for a free ride! I'm not sure if this is normal in London or not but it certainly didn't seem normal to me!

10 miles to 25miles

It was pretty much dark after the first 10miles but at this stage we still seemed to be in a big group of riders and as we were not yet tired visability seemed ok. nothing much happened really, the route seemed easy enough to follow and it was nice to be pretty much clear of London. Then at about 25 miles we had our first problem...

25 miles to 40 miles

We had not looked at our maps for about 15 miles and we were now just trusting the lead rider to go the right way. Decending a slight slope a car slowly aproached our group, the road was very wet, quite narrow and the enevitable happened, a crash. I was towards the front of the group and missed the action, Kat, however, wasn't so lucky. It all happened so quickly we are still not sure what exactly did happen, but it happened anyway. Kat and her bike hit the tarmac along with two or three other riders. The first I knew of it was the noise, Metal against tarmac is quite a disinctive and unwellcome sound. As I was still upright I slowly came to a halt to see if everyone was ok. When I turned round I could see Kat picking herself up out of the hedge and the first thing that came to mind was that I have no idea where we are. As it turned out noboby was too badly hurt, Kat had a few scrapes and bruises but luckly nothing too serious. Her bike came out of it about the same with bent leavers and ripped bar tape but nothing broken. we went quite sowly for the next few miles, hoping that none of Kats injuries stiffened up and after a quick stop for some jelly babies and a check on Kats war wounds our confidence slowly returned.

40miles to 64 miles

The only good thing you could say about the rain was that it was probably helping to reduce the swelling on Kats injured hand. All I can remember about this section of the ride is the rain. I was now wearing all the clothing I had and it was all wet. My waterproof was ok for about 35 miles then either the rain came through or I was sweating and getting wet from that. Either way, not a plesent experience at any time let alone at 1.00am with over half the ride still to do. Up untill about 55 miles and 1.00am I felt ok. Then, all of a sudden, I felt really bad. The novelty of taking part in the event had now worn off, I was cold, wet and really wanted to go to bed. We stopped at about 60miles, I felt really hungry but when I tried to eat a cereal bar I couldn't make myself swalow. Things were not looking good and I was starting to go a bit dizzy. I managed a few jelly babies and we carried on to the food stop at about 64miles. We went inside, the room was nice and warm and we found a seat. Kat, injured or not, was now looking far more likley to finish the ride than I was, The last time I felt this bad was at about mile 22 of a Marathon. I was really concerned, it was 2.00am and we had over 50 miles to ride, the time had arrived, DRUGS were my only option. While everyone else in the room looked to be doing fine I felt like death. I couldn't belive my poor performance so out came my secret weapon, PRO PLUS. With a turn around almost as dramatic as Vinos in the tour after a blood transfusion I got back on my bike and, although freezing cold, almost imedately I felt fine.

64 miles to 80 miles

After the drugs stop I felt like a real cyclist again, sure I was suffering but in an enjoyable way and I almost wanted the rain to get worse so that I would have a better story to tell. Once the peak of the pro plus had gone I came back down to earth and started praying not to have a mechanical or get a puncture. We saw quite a few riders fixing flats in the dark and in the rain. Every time we rode past somebody we asked, somewhat tentitivly, if they were ok. Luckly for us nobody asked for our help. We later learned of people not only having flats but running out of spare tubes and having to use repair kits in the rain. Not nice when you would rather be tucked up in bed asleep. At one stage around this distance we got talking to another rider who had cycled 40 miles to get to the start. He also claimed that when he reached the finish he was going to turn round and cycle back! I can only assume that this guy was on something stronger than proplus... It was also somewhere around this distance that we started to get a bit lost. We tried our best to read our wet and now almost unreadable maps but ended up going the wrong way. Fortunatly a car driver stopped and gave us some directions, he looked like a decent enough guy so we trusted him and turned round. As it happened he was right and we were soon back on track.

80 miles to 94 miles.
Somewhere around this distance it stopped being dark and became light. Dawn was a welcome sight, the increased light made the visability better and downhills safer. I also started to feel less tired in the daylight Unfortunatly it was still raining and overcast so we didn't get to see the sunrise but it was good all the same.
Why 94 miles? Well up untill now 94 was the furthest I had riden a bike in one go. It was durring My lands end to John O'Groats trip with Mickey in 2003 and up untill now I had not been further. Nothing magical happened as we rode our 95th mile, at this stage we both just wanted to get to the finish, have a cup of coffee and a sleep.

95 miles to Dunwich.

Durring the ride I had been motivating myself by setting mile targets were I could stop and eat a jelly baby or two. This worked untill 100 miles when I ran out of sweets. Then it was just a slow grind to Dunwich. For the last few miles we found our selves riding with a couple of others whos map had somehow survived the rain. It was reasuring to know we were going the right way and before we knew it we were at the finish. The cafe on the beach was open and we were glad to get into the warm, where we started to dry off, drink tea, coffee and eat cakes.

Recoverory.

We sat in the cafe for a while, chatting to other riders and generaly marveling at the durability of the human body. Now it was daylight and I had stoped riding I felt fine, my legs didn't hurt and I was even feeling that tired. We then went out to sit on the beach and watched some of the riders swim in the none to tempting sea. Some people just have to go one step further! The sun gradually started to shine now so at least we could dry off before the bus transfer back to London.

Bus ride.

The bikes got loaded into one set of trucks and the people into buses, where I had hoped to try to sleep. Unfortunatly the space available on the coach would have had the RSPCA involved if had we been talking about transporting animals and not people. I did manage a bit of sleep but nothing to speak of. By the time we got to London I was really hungry and ready for bed. We unloaded the bikes and headed back to Kats flat for some food. When Kats bike came off the truck it had a flat front tyre, as we couldn't be bothered to fix it we pushed the bikes home. Once there James cooked us some food, and in doing so probably saved my life! After eating and yet more coffee I decided now was a good as time as any time to head home.

The drive home.

I didn't start to feel tired untill about Oxford but when I did there was only one thing for it, PRO PLUS. Unfortunatly it didn't seem to have that great an effect this time so I got off the motorway and carefully made my way home on less borring roads. To say I was pleased to get back is an understatement similar to saying that Nelson Mandella was quite happy when he was set free. It's great to go away, but there is no place like home.....

Thanks to...

Continental bike tyres. The thought of getting a flat in those conditions still makes me shudder.

Pro plus. Drugs and cycling, the two go together like nothing else.

Jelly babies. So easy to eat.

James. For the food, the best soup I've ever tasted, and as for the chocolate brownies....

Kat. For the idea to take part, not everyones ideal weekend away, but now it's over I'm really pleased we did it. Don't get any ideas about doing it next year on the penny farthings though Kat!

Tony. For the loan of the van, I didn't fancy a 120 mile ride to the start.

Dunwich dynamo

2007-07-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

It's only a week on sunday untill the Castle combe duathlon and while the other competitors are probably tapering down I am about to undertake the longest single day ride of my life! http://www.southwarkcyclists.org.uk/dunwichfaqs.htm When I say day I really mean night, as the ride starts from London at 9.00pm on Saturday night and ends 200km later at the seaside in Dunwich.

I'm really not sure how I will deal with the lack of sleep as sleeping is one of my favourite things, a normal night will see me snoozing for about 10 hours. On Saturday I will substitute sleep for cycling. My plan is to ride untill about 2am and then take as many pro plus caffine tablets as I can. Hopefully this will get me to the finish, then all I have to do is drive home...

While my drug of choice is to be caffine the Tour de France riders continually try to out do each other. First we had someone kicked out for good old testosterone, then Vino failed a blood test when someone elses blood was found to be in his body! And today the race leader has been kicked out for, along with other things, missing out of competition tests. Of these results I find the blood transfusion that Vino must have had to be the most disturbing. What sort of doctor has done this to him? Or is it something you can do to yourself, with the help of a "my first blood transfusion manual"? Either way Vino must be mad, and he's probably lucky to be alive. I feel sorry for the clean riders who happen to be on the same teams as the guilty ones, as they also have to leave the race. I understand if nobody watches the rest of the race but I will stick with it as I still love cycling.

Back to this weekends ride, my accomplice for the ride is going to be Kat, who also owns a penny farthing. The idea for having a go at the ride came from Kat, I think I was the only person she could think of who was daft enough to agree to it! I should point out that we are going to ride normal bikes, we might be mad but we aren't stupid! We did think about using the penny farthings, but when we did the maths and worked out that 200km = 120miles we quickly decided against it!

I'm actualy really looking forward to riding through the night, I've tried to sleep as much as possible this week and decided to rest rather than train so I haven't done any time trials or hard training for the 12 days leading upto it. I figure that I stand a better chance of enjoying the ride if I start it fresh and training in the last few days doesn't gain you too much fitness anyway.

The only other piece of news I have is that I now have a track bike. I have borrowed it of Mark, through the Worcs st Johns cycle club (cheers Mark!). So far all I have done is set the seat height, put some peddles on it and riden it down the road. As it's a fixed gear bike I think I will have to ride around on it for a while to get used to it before I take it to the track. Talking of the track, the photo at the start of this post is of Halesowen track after the recent floods, I think I'll give it a miss this week...

My sisters wedding......

2007-07-21T11:48:00.001-07:00

Well today My sister, Sue, was supposed to be getting married to Simon. Unfortunately the great British weather had other ideas and they have had to postpone the event. Theses pictures are of port street in Evesham 21st July 2007, the middle of summer. The first picture is of the river bridge, the white thing in the water is a boat, Latter in the day a mobile home from a camp site somewhere up stream joined it. The church is about a quarter of a mile away. The best mans house is about half a mile away and is also under water. At the time of writing his wife had still not made it home from work on Friday!

Yesterday I had to put up a work collegue, Chris, as his village was cut of. Our night was better than my mates Daves as he got stranded on his way home and spent the night in his car. This morning I dropped Chris off at work then made my way to Evesham. On my motorbike this journey should take about 25minutes, today it took the best part of 2 hours. I had to go down the m5 as Pershore was impassable. The motorway was like a scene from a sci-fi film. Cars were abandoned everywhere, all three lanes of the m5 were full of cars going about 10 mph. It looked like the whole of the midlands was heading south to avoid a nuclear holocaust. I was able to filter through the traffic on my bike but had to watch out for rocks and gravel washed onto the carriageway. The a road into Evesham was no better, in several places I passed through water that was about a foot deep but managed to get to Sues house.

At this stage the wedding was already called off, Sue and Simon seemed to be handling things really well, although they were both obviously very dissapointed. I stayed for a while, helped phone round a few people, drank coffee and then came home, again battling through abandoned cars and floods. I am now watching sky news while typing this and there are pictures of caravans floating down the river avon, people being resuced by helicopters and boats, pictures of huge holes in main roads, and talk of bridges collapsing. I can't be bothered to go and look at the river in Worcester for myself as I've had enough of it now. The rest of my night is going to be spent drinking Lager and listening to music, I'll just have to pretend I'm at the wedding reception.

All in all a bit of an unbelievable weekend, oh and by the way I haven't ventured out into the floods on the penny! Also looks like Tuesdays time trial is off as a bridge on the course has collapsed.....

Wenlock Olympian results

2007-07-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

My Olympic dream has come true! After competing in various cycle events over the years I have at last won something. I came home with two golds and a silver. The racing took place on an athletics track and as well as the mile race I competed in two other events.

The first race was for all pre 1930 machines so I was up against a mixture of bikes including one other penny farthing and several safety bikes. A safety bike looks pretty much like a modern road bike, they were called this as they are a lot safer to ride than an Ordinary (penny farthing). The race was a kind of a knock out, with the last rider each lap being eliminated. After a tactical start I moved up to second to ensure I at least stayed in for a few laps. As the laps went by nobody came past and it was down to a sprint for the line. In the wet conditions I felt my only chance was to stay second round the final bend then go for it on the finishing straight. I won the sprint by about half a bike length and with it my first gold!

I hadn't got my breath back when we set off for the second event. Again open to all bikes but this time a set number of laps, I think five. Anyway I decided to try and time trial my way off the front of the bunch but after two laps I still had a rider on a safety for company. I then changed my tactics and slipped into second place to try and recover and stay in touch for the last lap. Entering the final bend I was certain that I was not going to get the win as I was losing ground on the corner. I got the bike upright as soon as possible and sprinted, giving it everything I had. If the finish line had been a metre or two earlier I wouldn't have made it but as it happened I led the race at the only point that matters, over the finish line. Gold number two....

The third and final race of the day was just for penny farthings. It was a bit of a shame that there were only two of us. For me it was also a bit of a shame that it was decided that the other rider would be given a head start of one and a half laps. I think I may have been taking the event a bit too seriously for some, but to me a race is a race and if you're not aiming to do your best then there is little point taking part. Anyway, I was unable to pull back the gap so my final prize was silver.

I should mention that most, if not all, of the other riders had chosen to do a 25mile reliability ride in the morning so they may have been a little tired. I didn't do this ride as I didn't know about it untill it was too late, I got to the event at 10.30 to find it had left at 9.00. In truth I probably wouldn't have done it anyway as the weather was truly appalling and I came to race. However, I truly believe that if I had done the 25 miles as well it wouldn't have changed that much. If I ride at a sensible pace I can ride the penny all day and I do quite a bit of cycling so 25 miles, and then a rest of over an hour,wouldn't have taken that much out of me, even so the other riders deserve a round of applause for doing the ride in the worst july weather I have ever seen.

Just before I go I would like to say congratulations to my Dad, he also became an olympian today when he completed the 7 mile road race. Also thanks to Mickey, Cassie, Mum and Charlie for braving the elements and coming to watch and offer their support.....

Pre Olympic nerves!

2007-07-14T10:09:00.001-07:00

Well, for an event I have entered for a laugh, I'm all of a sudden really nervous! I was going to do a bit of sprinting practice on the penny today but decided against it in case I crashed or broke the bike. I then started to get paranoid about injuring myself so I sat inside all day, on the best summers day we have had for about a month, and watched the Tour de France. The tour was great though. A little known German rider, Gerdemann, rode away from everyone on the first of the mountain stages and by the time he went over the top of the climb and down the stupidly fast descent he had gained enough time to go into the overall lead. Even if he does nothing else in his cycling career he will be able to look back on today with pride, he wont care that his whole body hurts, he has completed the dream of all cyclists the world over. He leads the greatest race in the world and tomorrow will be wearing a huge smile on his face and the yellow jersey on his back.

Anyway, after the tour I became even more nervous. I don't really get nerves before races so I can't really explain it. I really don't expect to win anything either so quite why this has happened I don't know. I've decided to go out tonight to take my mind off it, I don't know, the pressure of becoming an Olympian is just something I never thought I'd have to deal with!

Well thats about all for now. Next stop the Olympics!

Much Wenlock Olympics update

2007-07-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

I am definitely in the Ordinary race! The race starts at 1.30pm on Sunday 15th July. I'm not sure if I will do any good as I have no idea of the standard of the other competitors. The distance is also not exactly my favourite as it is more of a sprint rather than an endurance event. The race is over 1 mile, ideally I think my best distance would be about 20 miles as I can mantain a constant effort for long periods but I don't have much of a sprint. Anyway, come Monday, win or lose, I will be an Olympian! I have just riden the penny farthing to the Worcester news offices, the staff all seemed really interested in the bike and they are going to run an artical on it and the event in the next few days. I wasn't really expecting them to take photos today but they did. So that's why I am in jeans and an old t shirt. I am going to try and video the event and, if I can work out how to, I will then post it on you tube. I am still going to time trial tonight with Worcester st Johns but I will be taking it steady on the fast down hill sections so that I don't crash and end my Olympic dream before it has started. That's all for now...

Much Wenlock games.

2007-07-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

I have just found out about this event which is on next weekend. http://www.wenlock-olympian-society.org.uk/ Full details are on the link but the bit I am interested in is the veteran cycle racing. I am awaiting an e mail from the organisers to let me know if I can take part. I am really excited about the possibility of becoming an Olympian! I was sent the information about the event by Scotford who I know through the VC Sevale cycle club .http://www.sevale-malvern.freeserve.co.uk/ He also does some work for the national cycle muesum http://www.cyclemuseum.org.uk/ . Scotford is a really nice guy and is always full of encouragement when he hears of my Ordinary (penny farthing) plans. With a bit of luck I will be able to take part in the games and even if I get soundly beaten it will be a great experience.

Talking of being soundly beaten, Fabian Cancellara handed out a beating of epic proportions to the rest of the field in the prologue of the tour de France on Saturday. Fair play to David Miller in the interviews afterwards. He didn't claim to have a bad day or make excuseses, in fact he said even if he had had the best day of his career Cancellara would still have beaten him. I kind of like Miller, even if he is a self confessed drugs cheat (at least he confessed), so come on Dave win a stage for us.

Back to penny farthing stuff, I haven't had too many opportunities to ride the penny over the weekend, but I have managed a couple of rides. In the end I didn't ride it to work on Friday but I did do a bit on Friday night. After work I went for a run of about 5 miles then took to the penny and rode about 10miles with Mickey and Cassie and ended up in the Huntsman pub (again!). We stayed untill closing and then rode home in the dark with quite a few pints on board! I'm fairly sure athletes training for the real Olympics use a different sort of energy drink after exercise but beer seems to work for me! When in the pub we were joined by other friends, Andy and Mary, Who had just come back off holiday in France (again!) so we had plenty to talk about. Anyway, we all got home ok.

That was Friday, on Saturday I had a really busy day with no opportunities to ride. I was at work all day then in the evening I was at my parents ruby wedding party. My job was DJ and barman. The bar was easy enough as I just pointed everyone in the right direction and they helped themselves, it's never been a problem getting the Precce family to drink. The DJ duties were not much more difficult as I just made a playlist of old 50s and 60s music and left it to play. By all accounts the party was a success, My uncle Jim apparently said it was the best one he had been to as he enjoyed being able to talk over the music rather than being deafened by it. However, I did make up for the quietness of the party on the way home by playing ac/dc at huge volume in my car.

Unfortunatly I was at work again on Sunday but I did manage a quick trip to the British VW festival in my VW Beetle. I had hoped to be able to find an 80's bmx to buy to relive my youth but there was nothing worth having. Anyway, after work I went out on the penny and ended up in another pub, if only beer was a performance enhancing drug, I'd be a world champion!

Well that was my weekend, this week I have a tough week of time trials on my normal bike. On Tuesday I will ride a 14mile hilly with Worcester st Johns then on Thursday I will have a go at a 25 mile with VC Sevale. I tried this combination last year and went well in the 14 but fell apart in the 25. Hopefully I will be able to have the Thursday off work this time to help my recovery...

Donate to sands on line

2007-07-05T13:28:00.000-07:00

The good chaps at SANDS have set up a donation page for me so that all of you generous people can donate to charity from the comfort of your own homes. the link for this is www.justgiving.com/davepreece Any donation, big or small will be greatly appreciated. Also, if you are a uk taxpayer the government has to add an extra 28% to your donation which is great. For example if you donate £10.00 SANDS can claim an extra £2.80 from the government, giving them a total of £12.80, which has only cost you £10.00.

Other less important news from me this week includes a return to form for my time trialing with a better performance on Tuesday night. I could tell at the time I had done better than last week and then when I woke up at about 1.00am and my legs were having a major twitching fit I was sure that I had given 100%. I did nothing training wise on wednesday but this morning I went for a run and felt fine. I haven't had chance to ride the penny this week but all being well I think I may commute to work on it in the morning.

My weekend

2007-06-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

Firstly, check out this picture of what looks to be a time trial penny farthing... I don't know anything much about this bike, I just stumbled across the photo on the internet the other day. What I do know is that I want it, although it would have to be a very still day to risk riding it, that big front disk is going to be hell in cross winds!

Well I had a busy weekend, what with Simons stag do on Saturday and then the Halesowen track day on Sunday.However, I did manage a couple of rides on the penny farthing. The first was a short ride around the lanes on Friday night and I ended up in a local pub. Once there I had the usuall penny farthing questions put to me, how do you get on / off? Is that a solid trye etc. The one thing the bike does is get people talking to each other. I find it strange that people from all walks of life seem interested in it. It really does seem to bring people together. At one point I was talking to an old couple, who must have been at least 75, about the tensioning of the spokes. Then the next minute a group of kids on bmx bikes wanted a demo and soon the bmxers were talking to the old couple about the recent bombs found in London and the threat of terrorism! These groups of people would never have exchanged plesent words normally but now they seemed to be chating like old friends, weird, but quite cool!

The stag do was also pretty cool, First we went go karting, then we did the normal stag do activity, and went drinking. As the weather wasn't too bad I decided to ride the penny to the karting track. This ride was only about 7 miles from my house so that presented no major problems. In fact in many ways the penny farthing makes things easier. Car drivers actualy give you room, and wait for you at roundabouts and junctions. Rather than seeming to aim for you when on a normal bike they actually give you an extra wide birth when on the penny. This is probably for no better reason than they think you are sure to crash at any moment and that you might damage their car when doing so, but it's still nice to be given space on the roads. The one thing that I did notice on the way to the karting was the unsuitability of some of the local cycle paths. The council has done a good job round here with the surface, on most paths it's better than the road. However, the council had clearly not envisaged someone riding a penny farthing. At several points I had to get off the bike to go under overhanging road signs and trees. I suppose I can't really complain too much about this as I am riding a bike that was outdated over 100years ago! The go karting turned out to be fun. The rain made the conditions pretty slippery but if anything it added to the fun, oh, and by the way I won! The rest of the group then took a minibus to my local pub, the ketch, for food and beer. I joined them for this, again traveling by penny farthing, and then went on to a real ale pub,, the huntsman, in a neighbouring village. The rest of the group went in the bus and I was again the odd one out and went on the penny. At this stage the riding was still under control as I had only had a couple of drinks. One thing I did notice on this ride though was the amount of road kill, either headgehogs, badgers and rabbits are really stupid and can't help but get run over, or there are just loads of them and proability means that some of them are bound to get run over at some point. Either way it's a shame so many get squashed. Anyway, the drinking started in earnest in the huntsman, and after another 4 or 5 pints we moved on. I must admit I was glad to have an excuse to go home as I was already three sheets to the wind, being a skinny cyclist may have helped me when go karting but it was doing me no favours now we were drinking, and the others in the group had the luxury of the bus transfer to the next pub. This pub was some distance from my home, so I made my excuses and cycled home. I had an audience as I mounted the penny, so I concentrated hard on not making an arse of myself and rode off out of sight as quickly and as safley as I could. Once out of sight I must admit I begain to wobble and weave down the country lanes as I made my way home. I obviously managed to get home ok, as I am writing this, but I can recomend that drinking and penny riding do not mix! The journey home was quite hard work. Being drunk in charge of a penny farthing is not good for your life expectancy. I found every hill extra difficult and the amount of effort needed to peddle over 40lbs of steel had my heart and lungs working overtime. My control of the bike was fairly limited and it seemed to be going pretty much where ever it wanted to, I hit a few pot holes and at one point even strayed onto the grass but somehow I made it home.

The next day, complete with a hangover, I cycled to Halesowen cycle track. I really enjoyed the track day, the ride over was interesting as a number of the lanes we rode down were still under water from the recent floods. When we arrived we looked like we had just finished Paris Roubaix, rather than 26miles of English country lanes in summer. We were all covered in spray and mud but it was nice to get a few laps in, all be it on my standard road bike, complete with mudgaurds and lights! Hopefully I will soon get to borrow the st Johns track bike and have a go at some racing.

On a different note, one of the other things that I am interested in is motorcycle racing and this weekend there was a moto gp and motocross mx1 and 2. I wasn't that pleased with the moto gp result as I want Rossi to be beaten, and he won, but Stoner once again scored good points with a second. I've not got anything against valentino rossi, he is a fantastic rider and is arguably the best in the world, but I really want him to be beaten. My problem with Rossi is more with the commentaters. They seem to think he is the only person who can ride a moto gp bike, when in actual fact all of the top 20 riders are brilliant. Anyway, it would be nice to see the underdog do well so come on Stoner and the rest, get after him!

In the mx2 motocross the british had a winner with Tommy Searle, hopefully Searle will continue to progress and I may get to see an English world champion one day. That's about all for now, I seem to have rambled on a bit anyway.........

Penny farthing national championships

2007-06-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

The other event I really want to do is this one, check out this link. http://www.evandalevillagefair.com/current.html The only problem for me is the location. I live in England and the event is held in Tasmania! I've looked into going and it is possible to fly with a penny, in fact Kat flew her penny back to England from Australia, but it's not going to be cheap! At the moment I am thinking that I may go in 2009. It seems a long way off but with my plan to ride the end to end in 2008 I will not have enough days holiday to do it in the same year. On a different note, I did a fairly quick 6 mile run this morning and am really looking forward to the duathlon in a few weeks time.

Halesowen track day

2007-06-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

All being well I think I may ride to Halesowen cycle track on Sunday with a few others from Worcester st Johns. A couple of factors may influence my decision, one being the English climate and the other the fact that I am at a stag day all day on Saturday! I'd like to check it out, as if I enjoyed it, it would be a good excuse to buy another bike! Other news from me, I have now booked my place on the coast to coast ride and, as this photo of new road cricket ground shows, I can conferm that Worcester city is still pretty much under water!

DBMAX DUATHLON

2007-06-26T04:04:00.000-07:00

I have just realised that I forgot to put a link to the db max web site, if anyone wants to give the duathlon a go check it out. I've done two of them before on a normal time trial bike and really enjoyed them. The event is well organised and the best thing about it for me is the fact it is traffic free. The surface on the race track is also very good so the bike leg is quick, unless it's blowing a gale and raining hard, like it was for the last one I did! Anyway, heres the link. http://www.dbmax.co.uk/

Other plans, continued

2007-06-26T00:09:00.000-07:00

I Forgot to mention that I am about to book a short cycling holiday for me and the penny. I am going to have a go at the coast to coast, about 150miles in 3 days including going over the pennines. I'm not too worried about going up the climbs as I can just ride as far as I can then come to a halt and walk. Going down the other side could be more difficult as past a certain speed it becomes very difficult to slow the bike down and just getting off is not really an option as you are sat 5 feet in the air and going 20miles an hour! Fortunately, I have private health care through my work... Anyway, I will not be riding the penny today as I have a club time trial tonight, http://www.worcester-st-johns-cc.org.uk/index.html and my time trial bike is starting to gather dust. If anyone wants to turn up and have a go at a time trial new riders are always welcome..

I've just got home after the time trial. I'm freezing cold and disappointed with my time. All the penny riding seems to have slowed me down, either that or I just had an off night. Hopefully summer will return soon as I seem to go better in the heat..

Other madcap plans

2007-06-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Well the most ridiculous plan I have is to ride the penny farthing from Lands end to John o'groats, possibly in April next year. At this stage the plan is slightly more advanced than pub talk but I have yet to make any firm plans.

I did the ride in 2003 with a friend, Mickey Davies, we used a couple of ill prepared mountain bikes, some zip ties and the cheapest panniers we could find. Somehow we made it to the finish in 14 days, much to the suprise of all our friends and ourselves!

If anyone is thinking of doing the end to end, give it a go. We ended up having the best holiday of our lives.

I am also trying to organise meeting up with Kat to have a go at a crazy night ride of 120miles. Check out this link, http://www.southwarkcyclists.org.uk/dunwichfaqs.htm

We have conceeded that the penny farthings may not be the ideal choice for this so we will probably use normal bikes.

Castle combe duathlon

2007-06-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

As you know I am doing this event and using the penny for the bike leg. The charity that I am raising money for is called SANDS, it stands for stillbirth and neonatal death society, here is a link if you would like to learn a bit more..http://www.uk-sands.org/ I have chosen this charity as they do a great job helping people through a very difficult time and have helped people close to me. If anyone would like to donate you can either see me at the event, I will be there early as my Dad is running the 10k the same day, or e mail me and we can sort something else out. I have also just set up a web page with SANDS so if you just can't wait to donate you can do so online! http://www.justgiving.com/davepreece

I would also like to thank Will at Dbmax for firstly letting me use the penny farthing for the race and also for putting a link on his web site to this one. I hope I can meet up with him at the event to say thanks.

I will be adding to this blog as and when I have time so please come back and check it out now and again. At the moment I seem to have a few problems signing on to create new posts so if nothing much happens for a few days that's why. Hopefully I will get the hang of it as I go!

My plans for Penny

2007-06-24T13:55:00.001-07:00

As you may have guessed, I have a bit of an interest in cycling and this has somehow led me to the penny farthing, I'm not sure why this is but now that I have a penny I intend to use it. So far I have done a few local club time trials on it and on the 5th of August 2007 I have entered a duathlon at Castle combe. The photo here shows the choice of bikes that I could use for the 12 mile bike leg. 44lbs of penny farthing, or 17lbs of low profile carbon and alloy. It's a bit of a no contest really. The Dolan will be staying at home, I mean, two wheels the same size? It will never catch on! When I first entered the duathlon I did it for a bit of fun, and to raise some money for charity, but now I am determined not to come last. My job will be made a bit harder as I am also doing the event in period fancy dress provided by Sarah at Masquerade Worcester http://www.fancy-dress.uk.com/contact/contact.htm I should be fairly easy to spot if anyone wants to make a donation! I've spent a bit more time running recently as I think if I can do a couple of half decent runs I may be able aviod last place.

Penny farthing records

2007-06-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

After doing a few time trials on the penny I started to look up penny farthing records. The outcome is almost unbeivable. Try this one for starters.. Lands end to John O'groats in 5 days 8 hrs and 15mins! Thats 168miles per day! The record was set by a guy called Alec Baxter and will never be beaten. I say this as firstly I am sure that it can't be and secondly because the Road records association no longer accepts attempts by penny farthings. I can only assume they don't want anyone being killed whilst trying! Other impressive records seem to be less well documented but various people in the know tell me that a penny farthing has been peddled at over 20 miles an hour average speed for a twenty mile time trial. Thats not bad going on a modern road bike, let alone something that was designed 120 plus years ago.

Big Ben and big wheel

2007-06-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

This is me and penny in London. I travelled down to London to meet up with Kat, a fellow new penny rider. We rode around the city and even managed to make a few Londoners smile! London is actually ok for penny riding as the parks have wide surfaced areas and, on the day I was there, there was a complete lack of dogs. I'm not sure if you can't walk dogs in the parks, or if we were just lucky. The last thing you need when on a penny farthing is a dog in your spokes!

Learning to ride

2007-06-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

Well I'd love to tell everyone how difficult it is to ride a penny and how I am supremely skilled but I have to say it's actually quite easy! Getting on is just a matter of holding the bars straight, putting your left foot on the step and scooting the bike along. Then you just stand up, find the seat and then the peddles. You have actually got quite a long time to do this as a 54" wheel just wants to keep moving forward, unless you are pushing it up a hill that is!

My first rides were up and down the close that I live in, getting off to turn round. I then ventured to the pub, using footpaths and now I ride the thing almost anywhere. I have even started to do time trials on it! so far my penny farthing pb for 10 miles is 39mins 40seconds. This is obviously much slower than my pb on a more suitable bike, but it's not too bad considering. On the left is a scan from a local paper with the full tt results, sorry about the quality of the scan but it's the best I could do!

Finding a penny

2007-06-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

After I decided to get a penny farthing I found out how few were available. To cut a long story short I got mine second hand from a guy who decided he was getting a bit old to risk falling off it any more. I travelled about 120 miles to pick it up and drove home not knowing weather I could actually ride it.