A Hard Morning in February?

Sunday 22nd Feb. Another February Morning.

I’ve just watched, mostly from behind, one of the most impressive displays of fixed wheel riding I’ve ever seen. Normally I wouldn’t trouble you with an account of a mundane training run, but I think the fixed aspect here makes this one worth recording.
The rider in question is my clubmate P.H., one of my companions from the Petersfield ride (see ‘A Hard Day in January’). The two pictures with this post are from that occasion, but the bike and rider looked just the same on this ride – in the photo of the group on the road P.H. is the rider at the front right hand wearing sunglasses, in the static picture note the front tyre.

We set off from Staines Bridge with ten riders: nine on good quality, mostly state of the art road bikes and one on a very basic fixed machine. Although P.H.’s bike is based on a well made 531 frame there is nothing special about it. The wheels have fairly heavy rims and very heavy ‘tractor’ tyres, gearing is 42 x 17, about 65.5 inches.

Our route was Staines, Gerrards X, Beaconsfield, Hazlemere, Askett, B4009 back to the A40, Stokenchurch, Marlow, Cookham, Staines (total distance 73 miles). For those who don’t know the area, it is hilly. The average speed, according to our computers, was 18mph, although the true average must have slightly less since we did have a brief pee stop.

What impressed me was not just that P.H. could stay in the group on that bike, but that he was the one making the pace, doing about three quarters of the distance at the front. On the climb up to Stokenchurch (nearly two miles in length, the major difficulty of the day) he was first to the summit. We had a tailwind home from there and according to my speedo we were mostly doing 22mph on the flat. Easy enough following a wheel and using a biggish gear of your choice; completely different at the front on a 65 inch gear.

The moral seems to me to be: the bike makes very little difference; it’s the rider that counts. This is something one reads all too rarely in the conventional cycling media but sees over and over again on the road.

I expect these rides to continue until the end of March. Our open Road Race is on the 29th, and I would expect most people will be racing on Sundays after this. Forum members are invited to try these runs and I suggest anyone wishing to come should contact me beforehand.

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