skinny-
I wish place to place records still existed
They do, they're just very hard to schedule and route in a way which would make beating the old ones possible in the light of all the traffic control measures which have been built in the past 30 years, and the increase in vehicular traffic which has driven those changes.
-
'I wish place to place records still existed'
Tester is right, the records certainly exist, and so does the RRA:
and even most of the regional associations for example:
Although their continued existence may be limited by the age of the committee members and general disinterest from the cycling public.
The questions to be answered are: can they still be beaten and, perhaps more importantly, would anyone care if they were.
Can they be beaten?
The Hounslow has two club place to place records: Hounslow-Worthing and Back, and Hounslow-Newbury and back. Until a couple of years ago neither had been attempted since before the war and the Racing Secretary wanted to scrub them off the books, but along came the remarkable Loz Wintergold who duly broke both records, the first by nearly an hour and the second by twenty minutes, in spite of twenty eight sets of lights into and out of Newbury. I did manage to get him some media exposure, but one can't expect too much for a club record. He now has his eyes on at least one of the regional records.
My feeling is that the national level records would mostly be tough, partly because they would involve getting in and out of big cities, and also because they are held with very competitive rides. However, some of the regional records are ancient and held by riders who, redoubtable though they were, would seem a bit slow by current standards. I'm not including T.K. Morley in this category, but lfgss aspirants may like to consider his Barnet to Bedford and back record since it is rather old (1958) and does not involve London roads while it is fairly local to many forum users. Tom is still very much around and I expect he would want to help and advise anyone going for this record.
Here's the history of a record which has been broken relatively recently ( certainly within the 30 years mentioned above):
Winchester- Wantage and Back
1969 Phil Liggett 3hours 48minutes 40 secs.
1987 John Woodburn 3 39 35
1998 Glenn Longland 3 36 59.Possibly some of these names are familiar to you.
The national and regional records are one thing, but many clubs have their own place to place records, and these are obviously easier to organise since you can make up your own rules as you go along. lfgss could certainly have a set of records.
Would anyone care?
Well, I doubt that Cycling Weekly would give much coverage now to anything other than Lands End - John O'Groats, but there's the whole world of internet magazines which effectively have unlimited space and like to get copy - so long as it's free. It seems to me that anyone considering these rides would need a press officer. If people read about these things I feel sure they would be interested in them.
Finally, before we all get too carried away, let's remember that these rides would have a significant element of danger since the rider would be by himself mostly on busy roads and without the elaborate signage that normal time triallists have for their benefit.
You are reading a single comment by @skinny and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
gbj_tester
clubman
Just heard that John Woodburn died today
Requiescat in pace.
This was not altogether unexpected.
I'm not going to attempt an obituary here - I'm sure others are better qualified.
Woody had a great career as a time triallist starting in the fifties and continuing until recently. I think the one thing that really finished him was the revision of the vets' standards, which meant he had only a limited chance of winning. And talking of winning, he won our (Hounslow) open 25 on scratch when he was into his sixties.
There is one detail of Woody's career which is especially relevant to this forum, and that is his victory in the 25 championship of 1961. It was the first time this most competitive championship had been won on gears and it was generally believed that this marked the end of time trialling on fixed.
Naturally, we would say that was only for the time being. However the fact is that before '61 fixed was normal, especially at the shorter distances-subsequently there was a rapid decline.
We didn't always follow Woody's lead in choice of kit: his Cardiff-London RRA record on a Moulton produced zero imitators.
Still, however you look at it, his passing is a great loss to the world of cycling and particularly to time trialling.