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I will not be referred to as a 'bugger', and I will do it on 70", or 65" in the winter :p

Yes, and you're probably the sort of rider who's still in the group at the top of the last hill before home!

To answer some other points:

Whatever I say I only ever claim to be my opinion; it's up to readers to decide whether it has any validity. I never claim to be scientific, modern, or quoting from some holy writ.

I certainly did not intend to imply that early season fixed wheel runs were the be all and end all of training, nor that they were a panacea. I enjoyed them, and that enjoyment has helped in sustaining my interest in the sport over many years, even though I can't claim they resulted in brilliant palmares for my own career. Some others seem at least not to have been harmed by the practice - I refer you to the back of the CTT handbook, the 'past champions' section. Look at the team winners for the longer distances. Of course our successes were mainly in the 70's and the 90's and maybe the system will never work again in the 'modern' era.

I think we've wandered too far from the original question at the top of this thread, and I'm about to go off on holiday - so I don't intend to post here again.

When I come back in September I intend to start serious training for next January's training runs.

Why is that?

Why aim to ride in a group with strong riders?

It makes you work harder.

It develops your technique, both because you are forced to refine your style to economise on effort, and because you have the opportunity to observe the skills that the others have already perfected.

With any luck it helps to create or strengthen relationships, which are a major part of what this game is about.

To go back to Boucher and Anquetil for a moment, Jacques was the strongest rider around, so unable even to train with his equals, he would ride behind Boucher's Derny pacer.

To answer mdcc tester's point about the need to have similar abilities, I'd say that once you have mastered the technique of group riding, which is basically being able to follow a wheel, it is quite possible to have a range of strength within a group. The better riders do more work at the front.

What's the reasoning behind fixed training in the winter as you understand it clubman?

From what I gather its to keep the pedalling technique in top form, promote the suppleness in the legs before trying harder efforts to get in form for the season.

I'm not completely sure I fully understand the reasons. Two minor reasons are:

Tradition. For some people the mere fact that something has been done decade in,decade out is enough to suggest that there may be something in it. Of course, there are many who take the opposite view: if something's been done the same way for a long time, it must be out of date.

Economy. Perhaps not a factor today, but we used to think it was best to keep our more fragile geared bikes in the shed (or perhaps the bedroom) until the severe weather and the salt had gone.

I think there are probably two good reasons apart from these. Firstly, as others have said, there is the strength with suppleness argument - this would apply at any time of year, but if you're going to ride fixed for only part of the year then winter seems the obvious time to do it. Secondly, winter conditions lend themselves to long, steady distance riding - and this has generally been the style of early season training runs. If you're setting out, in a group, to do,say 60-90 miles at a steady 17-20 mph then a single gear in the 65 - 70" range should be perfectly adequate from a speed point of view, and at the same time it should avoid the draining effect of trying to push too big a gear at too early a stage in your programme.

Fixed has a serious limitation for training - you'd need to be a really brilliant rider to survive on fixed in a group of strong riders on geared road bikes. And riding in a group of strong riders is surely just the sort of training one should aim at.

I believe that for me, over many years, riding fixed when circumstances allowed has been highly beneficial. When I started club riding again as an adult in the mid 1970's many of my clubmates were still riding fixed in the winter and continued this into the training run season in January and February. Eventually there would be an agreement that the next Sunday gears would be used, and if you weren't in the loop and turned up on your fixed bike you'd be in for hard time or an early bath. I remember those winter runs in a hard riding group mostly consisting of fixed gear users as some of the best club riding I've ever done, and I'm sure it helped me to develop whatever modest talent I had. Now only a very few of my clubmates can be dragged away from their modern road bikes however bad the conditions, and I for one cannot cope against them on my fixed bike.

Fausto Coppi, and Andre Boucher, who was Anquetil's mentor, recommended fixed for early season training; I believe this is the best time to use it, but ideally you need a little group of like minded individuals.

In a way I'm in a similar position since I was out as a result of my crash. However, I have a vague idea floating in my mind that, using the £25 fixed prize, we might have some kind of special club event at the end of the season.

I'm thinking of a sporting course, perhaps 30 -40 miles, using the roads which were once part of the Bath Road 100 north west of Newbury, going through Chilton Foliat, and then onto the Ermine Street (as used in the 10 championship in 2009).
Of course the committee dinosaurs may well veto the idea, but does this sound an attractive idea to any one here?

I believe this is going to happen. It will be an additional Hounslow club event. The time and date to pencil into your diary is 2pm, Saturday 30th October 2010.

The event will be over three laps of the 'Gracious Pond' circuit (HCC137) a distance of 27.06 miles. This is a sporting course using 'B' roads in the area between Chertsey and Chobham (Surrey). It is undulating, but there's nothing that can't be climbed on a single gear without excessive stress, and can easily be reached from Staines or Weybridge main line stations. Ease of access for riders and helpers took precedence over the 'hallowed tarmac of the Bath Road' mentioned in my original post.

This event is particularly aimed at fixed or single speed riders who entered the Hounslow 100, but all are welcome. The single gear prize from the 100 will be transferred to this race.

I will be away from this Saturday until the 8th September. When I'm back I will post again to report progress and give a better descrition of the course and how to find it.
It would be nice to hear from anyone interested in riding, although as a club event it will be entry on the line.

If you look at my post in Hippy's Time Trial thread (#96, near the bottom of page 2) you will find a photo of my fixed TT bike.

I cannot claim to have done any super fast rides on this machine, but I doubt whether I'd improve very much even if I threw unlimited money at this problem.

For the great majority of TT riders there are not going to be many days when they are in sight of winning events outright, but there is always the possibility of impressing your mates with a better ride than they expected, and this is where a basic fixed wheel TT bike has an advantage over a state of the art machine which can so easily lead to embarassment if you have an off day (and remember, these are usually more frequent than the days when you're really pinging).

You may notice this frame has forward opening road ends. It's worth mentioning that these were originally designed in the 1920's to aid rapid wheel changing for the then almost universal single gear set ups, and I suspect TT riders in the 20's and 30's would have thought of track ends for road use as old fashioned and inconvenient.

I did try to move the original post to this thread, but it didn't want to work.

x

Nice one. Looks amazing.

In my experience, unless you've a workstand it's easier to bash the cotter pins out with wheels in. That way you can stand the bike up and rest the cranks on a pile of wood or books or something to keep them steady while you give the pins a right good whack with a hammer. You'll probably need something to get into the hole when there's been no more pin showing- I've used an old allen key before and hit that.

Good luck with it.

Hope you're keeping the old bits. They look like Williams C34 cranks.

MDCC tester is quite right to advocate supporting the crank before hitting the cotter pins. I use a small bench vice supported on a pile of books, or whatever comes to hand.
One thing not mentioned is that it's best to unscrew the retaining nut just to the top of the cotter pin thread before applying the hammer. This saves damaging the thread, and should allow you to reuse the same pin many times. If the cranks have been in place for many years penetrating oil (WD40) may be helpful, but in this case, judging by the shiny paint in the photo I don't think there will be a problem.

When I was young I smashed up a large number of cotter pins, but eventually I acquired the knack of removing them. I'd say cottered cranks usually take no longer to remove than cotterless, so take courage and start practising !

They certainly do look like C34 cranks. These are very serviceable, and there are a great many chain rings still in circulation. When they were current no one had heard of 'just in time' stock control.

i think im going with 172.5 or 175 what ever comes along really, cant decide what tho, miche, dura ace or suginos........

Don't forget Williams, Chater-Lea and BSA.

In 2001, after a bit of a lay off and not taking things too seriously, I did a couple of 25's which were sufficiently fast to make me optimistic enough to think I might get back to my best times.

The bike I used was built on a truely antique frame with a Chater-Lea bottom bracket which made cottered cranks obligatory. I was using six and three quarter BSA's with a TA 5 pin chainring cobbled onto them, at the other end I had a Sturmey AM three speed hub giving gears of 79.5, 90 and 104. I did have fairly good rims and tyres, and clip on bars.

At the time I thought that I was obviously giving away a lot with my antique kit, and since then I have made numerous attempts to improve by modernising (although I must admit I have not spent money as freely as most other TTers).

I have never got back to those 2001 performances, even though at times I have felt pretty fit and seemed to be going reasonably well.

My conclusion is: 'it's not about the bike.'

MDCC, here's a question, what sort of fixed GI should I go for on a 10 mile flat TT? I was thinking around 80-85, but I have zero experience of riding fast fixed.

I don't think there's any 'correct' answer to this question.

Ray Booty did the first sub four hour 100 on 84", whereas I, a greatly inferior rider, need 90" to go slower than that for 25 miles, and I know from experience that if I used 84, I'd go even slower.

Experiment - see what suits you best.

what crank lenghts do most of you race on?? i caught my foot on a turn yesterday on 172.5,

A little anecdote that had slipped my mind when I first responded to this q.

Some years ago a clubmate had two events to ride over a bank holiday weekend, a road race and a time trial. My friend is a good mechanic and a man who always likes a spotless presentation of himself when racing, so during the preceding week he dismantled both his TT and road bike, carefully polishing and checking as he reassembled them.

Over the weekend, against pretty strong opposition, he won both races.

It was only afterwards he realised he had muddled up the cranks and had put the 175 lh crank from the TT bike onto the road bike, and the 170 road crank onto the TT machine.

He tells me he hasn't worried overmuch about ideal crank lengths since then.

I set a course record today..

the "SCCU 100 + 6 miles riding in trainers on SPD-SLs" course record.

4:52 (I didn't even get DFL)

I have in front of me a Calleva Road Club handbook (for 1949), and I can inform you that your ride would once have given you that illustrious club's 100 record which you would have held until the 19th June 1932 when F.G. Heath did 4.49.49.

Seriously, I think that to get inside five hours, at a first attempt, with so much against you shows real promise. I can imagine the possibility of riding in non-cycling shoes, but then to keep going at any sort of speed after adding six miles to the distance would always have been beyond me. It is a good example of the sort of determination needed for the longer distances.
It can't have been a particularly fast day either, with only one rider getting inside four hours.

Since everyone improves with experience at any particular distance I don't believe you will need a great deal of luck to get inside 4.20 next year.

I've been a bit slow responding to this 'cos I've been away or a couple of days.

what crank lenghts do most of you race on?? i caught my foot on a turn yesterday on 172.5,

I believe the only important consideration with crank length is what you feel comfortable with, and this will be determined mostly by the length of your legs. If you get overlap with the front wheel, I think you will find you get used to it fairly quickly even though it can cause trouble at first.

For what it's worth, my inside leg is 31 inches, and I am only really happy with six and threequarter inch cranks. (I had to write this out in full because the keyboard doesn't do fractions)

I make no apologies for the imperial measurements, but I will mention that 6.75" = 170mm.

Got the SCCU 100 mile TT with fasteddy on Sunday. A 2min flat out hill climb = perfect prep. for 4hrs+ riding..

fasteddy is going for sub-4. I'm going hoping to finish.

I wish you both good luck.

I look forward to hearing how you get on. If it's your first try at the distance at least you're guaranteed a p.b.!

I think that's a very odd view - Cycling Weekly were late to the Sportive bandwagon so to suggest it's somehow their fault that time trialling is declining whilst sportives boom is bizarre.

Time trialling is declining because it's stuck in the past. If you don't believe me look at what you have to do to enter one; decipher a code to find out the course (due to pre-war cloak and dagger shenanighans), discover it's on a dual carriageway that is a motorway in everything but name, get an entry form that demands to know your previous best times for the distance, send it with a cheque to an organiser then wait to see if you're in or not. If you do get in, which for the newcomer isn't guaranteed, then you've got to get up at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning to ride.

For most sportives you're all but guaranteed entry, you can ride with your mates and there are goals set to aim for on a scenic, well signposted route.

Clubman to Coureur - response to comments.

I do not disagree that there are at least some things about time trialling that are stuck in the past, and I have myself referred to ‘committee dinosaurs’ in my posts elsewhere on this forum.

It does seem that dealing with entry forms is more off putting to newcomers than it was in the past. I don’t think it’s worth discussing why this is so, but I am convinced that the on line method should be universally available and I shall press for this for all my own club’s events for next year.

Other points raised above:

Closing Dates.
Not a month in advance, but 13 days in most cases.

‘Sportives all but guarantee an entry’.
There are very few open TT’s that attract full fields now. Even my entries are accepted! Most organisers are only too pleased to get your entry form and don’t much care what’s on it so long as you’ve signed it and sent the entry fee, which is usually modest by current cycling event standards.

Courses.
I accept there may be difficulty for new riders to know the nature of courses. This is one of the reasons why it is so desirable for newcomers to join a club where they will get this and other information.
Incidentally, the course code system may have started in the ‘private and confidential’ era, but even I cannot remember a time when the codes were anything other than a convenient shorthand. Anyone really in doubt about a course could always telephone the organiser.

Vets
Yes, time trials have too many vets, but remember these are the riders whose youthful ideas about cycle sport were influenced by the old ‘Cycling’ magazine I referred to in my article.

Finally, can I remind you that what I wrote advocates racing in general, not TT’s in particular and for myself, to have had a racing career consisting only of time trialling would have been like eating only bread and never having any jam, but time trials have their place and often that's at the beginning and at the end of your time as a coureur.

That's a very interesting article. Thanks.

There is one factor not mentioned, which is the recent boom in cycle sportives. In my day (the 70's) they were called reliability trials and took place at the start and end of the season.

Nowadays, I know lots of very fit cyclists, riding top bikes who regularly ride sportives but who aren't willing to take that next step to proper racing. Now, I wonder why that is? Maybe it's the thought of losing ....?

Thanks for your comment.

Of course it's impossible not to be aware of the sportive phenomenon, and I certainly do not understand it myself. It seems crazy to pay a lot of money to take ride in something that's nearly a race when for more or less the same trouble and expense you could take part in a real race.

The only explanation I can suggest is, as I imply in the article above, that Cycling Weekly has a strong influence in these matters. The magazine gives a lot of space to sportives and they boom; it gives virtually no space to time trials and they decline in popularity.

In the past Cycling has responded to complaints about its coverage by saying it can only report what the public is interested in. I would respond - look at the existence of the tricycle in this country. In France it is assumed that trike riders must be disabled (or mad), whereas here there is still a small but thriving trike scene. Now look at prewar 'Cycling' and you can see the influence of the North Road Club - H.H. England was a member alongside the well known trike enthusiast and father of time trialling F.T. Bidlake. Another writer given plenty of space was G.H. Stancer, another trike advocate. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with this - but if I'm right in thinking their influence can still be seen in the existence of trike riders here,in 2010, it shows the wonderful power of the right publicity.
I believe Mark Twain said:' A newspaper consists of as many of its owner's opinions as his advertisers will allow him to print.'

You might like to look at my post in the 'Thinking of Racing' thread (#120), which includes an invitation.

This article was written for my club website, forum and magazine. It's not perfectly formed for this forum, but I hope some one here may find interest in it.

The invitation to this Saturday's club 10 is extended to all forum users to ride private time trials. The Maidenhead Thicket course (H 10/2) does not look specially promising at first sight, but has often yielded fast times.

The Hounslow & District web site should give you the necessary information, if not
phone me.
**
Clubman to Coureur.**

On the July day I am writing this I am almost certain that you, dear reader, will watch the Tour de France on television.

If there could be anything more likely to make the non racing owner of a good bike dream of competing I cannot think what it might be.

Naturally, while your first thought will be “I want to be there, on that mountain, hammering up between the cheering crowds and wondering if one more big effort will shake Andy Schleck off my wheel”, but your second thought may be: “possibly one club run to Billingbear golf club is not fully adequate preparation.”

If you are the sort of person who does not enjoy reading wordy essays complete with historical references, I suggest you cut to the chase now and go straight to the last paragraph, if not, please read on.

The longstanding members of my club, and probably of many other clubs, wonder why it is that while there is an increasing number of new enthusiasts coming into cycling there seems to be some barrier to those newcomers riding competitively. We are very pleased to see big club runs all the year round, but we remember times in the past when it was unusual to have a worthwhile run in the racing season - because everyone was busy racing!

Well ‘times change and we change with them’ as the proverb goes, but it really does seem possible that there are talented riders out there who for some unknowable reason are hanging back from taking their new found pastime of club cycling onto what is its natural next level - from clubman to racing man.

A possible reason for the current position may be that the publicity around bike racing today is so different from the past. We watch and read the coverage given to the big tours and world class track racing, but we look in vain for anything about amateur racing which we are taking part in ourselves. ‘Cycling’, the magazine, was the bike riders’ bible and from the 1920’s onwards for about forty years under the editorship of Harry England it gave an almost obsessive coverage of time trialling, with detailed accounts of big events, often relegating dramatic developments in the Tour de France to obscure inside pages. Even the results of club events were reported.
After England’s reign came to an end there was a more generous policy towards road racing and so things became even better. However as we all know, Cycling Weekly’s policy has changed over the past decade or so, and now it has very little interest in the sport at club level.

Clearly this may have led to the situation where new arrivals in the game get the impression that unless one is a Godlike superman equipped with a full set of bikes of ethereal lightness, complete with professional team support, there is no point in trying to race.

Well this is not the case. Although it’s impossible to say how much longer it will continue, at the moment there is still a full programme of races which beginners can take part in. There is accessible track racing at Reading and Herne Hill (maybe even at Stratford in the future), for road racing there is the Minet Park circuit at Hayes and a good Surrey League programme for fourth cat. riders, and there is time trialling.

Time trials are really the easiest entry point for aspiring racing cyclists. If you feel that you really are only interested in the exciting competitive jostle of road and track racing I can only wish you well and encourage you to get on with it, but if you are less self confident, then it is time trials you should be thinking about.

You do not need anything more than enthusiasm to take part. You do not need a special bike, nor is there any necessity for the speed and skill required to stay in a fast moving bunch. At first all you need to do is to set a bench mark for yourself, and then to put your mind to improving on what you did in the past.

It’s worth mentioning here that there is, in the world of cycling, an anti time trial faction. Supporters of this view believe that TT’s are a stultifying dead end, almost as dull to take part in as they are boring to watch. Encouraging young enthusiasts to ride time trials will kill their interest before they experience the exhilaration of being first over the line in a road race, and so they will be lost to the sport for ever. In order fully to understand the bitterness occasionally expressed in this argument it would be necessary to study the angry struggle which lasted for most of the 1940’s and 1950’s between the old guard NCU and the BLRC, which would go way beyond the scope of this article. However, I believe the anti time trial view to be too elitist, since most novices just do not have the speed and skill required for bunched racing but may acquire it after a year or two of club riding and time trialling.

Of the British riders who have gone on to notable careers in Europe most started as time triallists. Our very first Tour rider, Charlie Holland, had no choice in pre-war England, but in the post war period when road racing did exist here we find that Tommy Simpson, as an ambitious sixteen year old writing to Henri Pelissier, the most famous directeur sportif of that era, seeks to establish his credentials by mentioning that he is the fastest sixteen year old in England over 25 miles. Barry Hoban and Vin Denson were both very successful contre la montre before they knew the French name for the discipline. More recently most of the senior members of my club have been beaten in time trials by Sean Yates, and to come to the present I will draw your attention to the current 10 mile competition record held by Bradley Wiggins with a time of 17.58.

It is with the hope of encouraging recently joined non racing members to dip their toe into the enthralling world of bike racing that the club has organised a special 10 Mile club TT on the Maidenhead Thicket course next Saturday afternoon (24th July).

Anyone interested and needing more information can ring me: 0796 3636 784.

I hope to see you on Saturday!

Willesden to Weedon (Northants) Saturday.

Probably very few of you have heard of Weedon(I certainly hadn't until very recently), it's on the A5 a little way short of Northampton. The only reason for going there was that my other half was going to a course in the town and was happy to drive me home in her car.

There's really only one way to get to this place and that's straight up the A5. This might sound like pure head banging, and I must admit it was nice when it stopped, but I feel the need of some miles after a three week lay off resulting from a crash, and I thought having a roman road stretching out in front of me for mile after mile would be just the thing. It's worth mentioning that this road runs very close to the M1 and therefore does not carry as much traffic as might be expected. Also it is pleasant to ride in unfamiliar territory, and the area beyond Dunstable is pretty much *terra incognita *to me.

Milton Keynes is clearly what England would look like if our government manages to destroy the humanities departments of our universities.

Since I wasn't in any sort of hurry I took my hack bike with its 66'' fixed gear and found it perfectly suited to the 70 miles, which took me about five and and half hours, including a half hour stop in Stoney Stratford. I still feel convinced that at the end of a ride like this I'm less tired having ridden on a moderate fixed gear that I would be if I'd been on gears. I can't really explain this, but I think it may be because if I were on gears I'd feel some how compelled to use the big chain ring and hurry. I suspect I would have arrived a few minutes earlier if I'd been hammering along the downhill stetches on a big gear.

If I'd posted this ride on the 'Last minute Rides' thread would anyone else have been interested?

Well I'm really surprised no one has yet mentioned the moral arising from Schleck's problem today which I would have thought was obvious to this forum:

Henri Desgrange was right - the tour should be a straight contest of man against man without the intervention of technology to muddy the issue. If Schleck and Contador had been on fixed this situation would never have arisen!

'Fraid so. National Championships have a 3 week closing date.

Wouldn't a 12 do for this year?

LFGSS people could just join and ride for Grupetto or Rollapaluza.
...

Possibly that would be simpler and just as good.
The main thing is to get those entries in, and to enter the longer events while they are still there to be entered.

Sorry for double entry - this was caused by 'server busy' message.

could be something for a LFGSS team of three next time round?

I hate to mention rules and committees, but to compete as a team in a CTT championship I think LFGSS would need to affliate to CTT as a club.

But it seems to me this would be a worthwhile and perhaps overdue move in any case. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult.

could be something for a LFGSS team of three next time round?

I hate to mention rules and committees, but to compete as a team in a CTT championship I think LFGSS would need to affliate to CTT as a club.

But it seems to me this would be a worthwhile and perhaps overdue move in any case. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult.