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!

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

....................... ....................... ............................ ....................... 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

............................................................................. 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

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..

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

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..