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Jonny69
Confession
I chickened out of doing my Oxford ride on the Duckett.
The re-assembly went well and I got it into a condition that made it reasonably good to ride, but after doing quite a few miles on it, I came to the conclusion that, with the addition of twenty pounds of luggage, it just wouldn't be much fun to do the ride on it. I'm confident I could have managed to get there and back, but I owe a duty to my hosts not to arrive speechless through exhaustion. Also I had in mind my clubmate Martyn Roach's comment that " a racing man's greatest asset is his enthusiasm". As you know, I no longer claim to be a racing man, but I want to nurse the enthusiasm I still have, so struggling back through the western suburbs of London could easily have been a damaging experience.
So I took the (relatively) easy option and used my Sunbeam (see pic below). This unlikely looking machine has proved to be a surprisingly efficient mile eater over the past few years. It's a long way from perfect and it has no pretensions to speed, but you can just put your leg over it and go.
The only preparation I did, apart from a general check, was to change the wheel with the Sturmey AM for one with an AW to give a bottom gear of 48" as opposed to 57" with the AM.
Originally I had thought that I could cope with the climbs on fixed (carrying luggage remember), by walking where necessary and blaming my age. Possibly this wasn't a great strategy since walking isn't much fun whatever age you are, but I found that in practice it would not have been all that practicable, because there is no provision for it. After West Wycombe on the climb up towards Stokenchurch (which is a category one climb for me!), there is nowhere to walk except in the road - walkers are directed to take to the old road, which is much steeper and obviously unsuitable for tired old blokes pushing laden bikes. I didn't particularly notice what provision there was on the other climbs, but I don't suppose it's any better.
So, originally the combined rider/bike age was going to be 170, if we can be permitted to take the age of the Sunbeam from the age of the frame (not really correct in view of the kit) we still can boast of a combined age of about 150 years.