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Best wheel builder in the north east - Tony at Bicycle Repair Man, Prudoe

I raced in the 70s and 80s then packed in. ...
Paddington Track Club....

I, too, was a member of the Paddington club, 76-79

Saw him in action last year at the Ghent Six Day - not on the bike, you understand, just bossing people around :-)

I take your point about [some] women's lack of confidence and experience. I grew up in central London and cycled everywhere - I had no problem cycling down Park Lane at rush hour! Now 35 years later, I no longer live in central London but that experience has been invaluable over the years.

I guess there are many people who take up commuter cycling in adult life without that early years experience, and maybe this group includes many women.

Done.

I don't know if the survey's author reads but I have a couple of comments on the survey design:

a) In reply to a question such as "I always wear a cycle helmet", a better choice of answers would be something like; always, sometimes, rarely, never, rather than agree disagree etc

b) Most people are very bad at assessing risk so asking to rate risk severity is a bit meaningless - you could simply ask if you would be prepared to do it (acceptable risk) or not (unacceptable risk)

Also, I was surprised to read at the end that the majority of fatalities were women. I wold have thought that as the majority of cyclists are men, they would be the majority of the deaths. Why is that, I wonder.

My frame owning history goes like this:
North: Mercian
South: Condor
North: Woodrup
South: Alec Bird
North: Arthur Caygill
South (very): Colnago

Hi, are you any relation to Alec or Ken Bird?

Saw this in a Lancaster bike shop window

A quick Google search shows this to be the work of Townsend Cycles in Cambridge
http://www.lightblue.co.uk

Try RAM mounts
www.ram-mount-uk.com

This thread is making me cry :-(
I bought a brand new Woodrup from Whisker's bike shop in Kilburn Lane in 1984.
Lovely dark red colour like the one above.
531, beautiful lugwork.
I would still have it today if some scrote in Cardiff hadn't broken into my shed and stole it in 1996. It's probably at the bottom on the Taff. Probably had no idea what he was stealing :-(

Don't know what the pub is called either, and what/where is Wests?
I have a confession to make that I don't actually live anywhere London any more. I left Paddington in 1979 and currently reside in Carlisle, Cumbria

Ivan - yeah, that's how I remember Paul too :-)

Diable - yes, I remember those circuit training nights well.

However, I don't recall anything about training in Bangor. I'm sure that if they were on 1976-79, I would have gone on them.

You lot are bringing back a lot of my memories!

The bag you're thinking of is called a musette. They still use them for handing out food on races. The jersey was blue with a white hoop across the middle, with red sleeves (at least it was in the 70's). I used to have one but it was a horrible nylon one and somehow it has shrunk over the years :-)

I also remember Steve Heffernan and there was another pro called Tony Gowland who I think was a member of the club in the mid-70s'. He raced in the London six day at Wembley on at least one occasion.

I also have to admit I shaved my legs but as I am rather hairy, it was a messy job so I only did it a couple of times, after that couldn't be bothered. I gave up tubs once I stopped racing. One of my mates is still racing - he just chucks them away if punctured - how times have changed.

The name Carl rings a bell but his surname doesn't. I am trying to think of the names of fellow club members from my time. There was a lad from Yorkshire called Paul Shuttleworth who something at London University and spoke with a thick Yorkshire accent. There was a cockney plumber called Adrian Mitchell and another guy called Paul Dodd (or Dodds). They were all older than me,probably in their 20 or 30's. There was a schoolboy my age called Laurence Wolff who turned out to be the son of TV boffin Heinz Wolff.

Do you think a PCC re-union is on the cards?

OK, now that's cleared up, it's back to reminiscing about Paddington CC...
TBH, this thread has been great, it brought back a lot of old memories which I thought I'd consigned to the dustbin of my brain.

I used to drool over Colnagos as well but the reality was very different. I remember going on my first club run, meeting at Kingsbury circle in north London. My bike was a ratty old Sun on which I toured England and France. I also didn't have any proper bike kit. Still, I managed to keep up and when I got home, I checked the map - we did 90 miles that day - no wonder I was so tired.

I also realised I had to get a proper road bike and some proper bike kit. The next day, I found a second hand Mercian bike in the local paper which was mine for £90. That was my racing/training/touring bike until I could get enough money for buy a second hand Condor frame which I built into my race bike with the Mercian consigned to training and touring.

The next upgrade was to a brand new frame, a first for me, a lovely Woodrup which I bought from Whisker's cycles in Kilburn Lane (does anyone remember that shop? - proper old fashioned bike shop was that place), which I would probably still today have if some scrote hadn't stolen it (along with a pair of Campag record wheels) - would have made a brilliant fixie, which is where we came in ....

So, what happened to Paddington CC? What brought on its demise? I can see that loss of the track and of John Austin would be major factors? Is John still alive? Has anyone seen him recently ? Not sure how old he would be now but in my teens, he seemed very old, but probably was only 40 or so.

See what you mean, that is a nice Raleigh, although the club bikes weren't anything like that. That's a club bike I am riding in my photo. No idea what make they were as they were all painted the same plain blue. Later on, I was loaned a lovely chrome track bike by a fellow club member whose name I forget and then in 1979 I got my own track frame built by a builder called Alec Bird in SE London. He had a workshop at the back of the old Holdsworth shop in ?Penge?. I kept that frame for many years hoping I'd race again but never did. In 1995, I met a young cyclist so keen to race on the track, I felt sorry for her and gave her the frame.

I rode at Herne Hill just the once but never at Welwyn. More recently, I've had a couple of goes at the Manchester velodrome. They do "taster" sessions for about £10, no experience necessary, but I soon got the hang of the wooden bankings.

I also remember well those early morning rides from central London to time trials in the outer suburbs. Did more miles getting there and back than the race.

And to add to the name dropping, I can say that I raced against Sean Yates when he was riding for the Archer RC (sponsored by Cutty Sark whiskey) at Paddington. Of course, when I say 'raced', I mean I was on the same track at approximately the same time as him. Any impression of actually racing him is purely accidental :-)

Is Eastway still there? I thought it had also gone the way of the Rec.

With 500+ pages of posts in the bike porn thread, you'll have to point me to it :-)

Here is the picture, taken in 1977 or 78, I think. It was printed in the local paper. Yours truly is in front centre. You might recognise some of the others.

Hi,

Been lurking on here for a wee while and having seen this thread, thought it was about time I posted something.

I was a member of the Paddington cc from 1976 to 1979. My family moved to Warrington Crescent (bottom right in the map, above) and I soon discovered the track at the Rec.

I spent 3 years racing on that track, as well as time trialling with the club, mostly 10s and 25s. I did a bit of road racing too, at Eastway circuit in Hackney amongst others. My track bike was borrowed and my road bike was also my training and touring bike, as well as converting it to fixed wheel during the winter.

I, too, remember club rides and weekend trips with John Austin and his wobbly saddlebag. Paddington cc had a strong social side.

In 1979 I moved away to go to university and that was the last I saw of the club, apart from attending a few Tuesday night track leagues in the 80's if I was in London.

I was working in Bangor in 1995 when I saw a cyclist dressed in the club colours so I stopped him for a chat which is how I found out that John had moved to north Wales.

I have a photo of racing at the track from those days. I'll find it and put in on here.