Well. well. well... I'd like to know the story behind this auction. This very frame was auctioned about a week ago, on the same site, by the same seller - mirror53, based in Wigan. I watched the auction carefully and thought about bidding knowing that the frame would be excellent, having been built by Steve Elsworth, MKM's foreman builder. However it is too big for me.. and I could build my own in any case. The auction was won by buyer "jacek-disaster" for £100, albeit without the chainset. So what happened? None paying buyer..?
All "Ultimates" were built from 531 except one Harrogate Show model that was built using Columbus KL (very light !!!) with silver soldered joints. Steve thought it was an unwise choice, but he did what the boss told him... The shortened seat tube is bronze-welded onto the thick butt of the down tube for strength reasons. No Ultimate has been known to crack..
the name "Ultimate" came about from one of those sublime episodes in cycling folklore.. MKM was based in the town of Harrogate, quite close to the AI main road which was used every week for a "drag-strip" type of time-trialling course, 10s, 25s, 50s etc. MKM used to build a lot of time-trial "testing" frames. At the time of the Ultimate the paint sprayer was none less than Ian White a renowned tester and record-holder. Always seeking a faster bike for the T-Ts Ian asked Steve to design something shorter and faster. Steve remembered the old Sun Manx TT ( I think that was the model) with its seat tube joined to the down tube.. so he built a sample frame for Ian to try. Ian duly broke the 10 mile record on his first ride. Back at the workshop when Steve asked Ian how the bike road, Ian blurted out "...it's just the ultimate time-trial machine.."
I have built several copies of the Ultimate including one in Reynolds Speedstream aero tubing. Bearing in mind that these bikes are used to race out 5, 12.5. or 25 miles in a straight line, then do a U-turn in the middle of the road and race the same distance back, the bikes dont need to handle cornering very well - they are radical straight line bikes. The shortest I ever built the rear chainstays on an Ultimate - and this on the Speedstream one - was 13.25", about 33.5cms. I couldn't get it any shorter because the 18mm tubular was just about rubbing on the bottm bracket sfell...An all-chrome beast, it really qualified for its colloquial name - The Mean Machine"
I think that one of the CR members is currently leading the bidding on thids frame, so I hope he bears in mind the purpose for which this frame was built, as there can be no fast sinuous descents on it.
Norris Lockley.. sunny Settle-on-Ribble..not far from the A 1 drag-strip