10 mile tt pb..

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!

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

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

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/