The specialised sport of time-trialling has probably been the backbone of British cycle sport since the 1930s. Although much less glamourous than massed start road racing, the number of active participants have far outnumbered those involved in all other aspects of cycle racing. It is from this activity that Britain's best known racing cyclists have emerged, cyclists such as Tom Simpson, Brian Robinson, Barry Hoban, Chris Boardman, Sean Yates etc. Even these days with cycle racing on Britain's dreadfully crowded and congested roads being in serious decline, there are still thousands of riders, of all ages, who, in the early hours of Sunday mornings, will test themselves against the other competitors, against the clock..and more importantly against themselves..to beat their "PB" (personal best time). Time trials whether they are "out-and-backs" of 10, 25 or 50 miles, or longer more testing courses of 100 miles, 12 or 24 hours are really true tests of man and machine.
From the sloppy 69 and 71 degree angled frames of the 30s and 40s, with their reverse seat pillars, time trial frames tested out more dramatic angles of 75head/73 seat during the same period. However these frames were often "skippy" at the front end and suffered from toe-clip overlap..and so the builders relaxed the angles so that in the early 50s, and for quite a considerable number of years, the standard design became 73head/71 seat, in fact the same angles as a "clubman's Sunday machine which, of course, often doubled up, stripped of its mudguards, saddle bag etc as a time-trial bike.
During the later 60s and into the 70s the angles became more standardised at 73 parallel, and the frames could be used for massed start racing as well, although some builders started shortening the rear triangle to provide a machine with less drag, although to some extent the bikes lost some of their predictable handling on descents. However this was not too much of a problem because most time-trials are raced on flat roads, as straight as possible, known as "drag-strips"..and the rider only rode half way, turned around and rode back along the same route. In the mid 70s frame-builders started turning their attention increasingly to the dedicated "testing machine" and it was the small craftsman builders - the custom builders - who profited mainly from this trend. They were willing and able to produce made-to-measure purpose-specific frames. The designs became ever more upright and the wheelbases of the bikes increasingly shorter.."shorter is faster" was the maxim . Angles for a 22 to 23" frame would be around 74 parallel, with the seat angle in particular steepening to 75 or 76 as the frame size diminished. The length of the top-tube shortened correspondingly..and so the handlebar stem lengthened as a result.The design brief was to move the rider further over the bracket..almost in pursuit style. It isn't all that surprising therefore that Chris Boardman who was one of the UK's finest ever time-triallists easily adapted his techinique to the track.
These more radical designs could not easily be obtained using standard components such as lugs and brackets that were not readily available in steeper angles, with the knock-on effect that better builders started to bronze-weld their frames, thereby freeing themselves from the limitatiions otherwise imposed by lugs. During the late 70s to late 80s period almost 70 percent of my production was of lugless time-trial frames.
Of course many of us actually preferrred the pure seamless sculptured lines produced by bronze-welding, linked with the use of internal aero fork crowns and it was not too long before we experimented with other ways of shortening the rear triangles to produce ever more responsive minimal-drag frames.
The early 80s were notable in time-trialling terms for frames with curved or fluted seat-tubes, split or twin seat tubes, and several other designs to enable the rear wheel to move as close to the bracket shell as possible. Customers when discussing the length of the rear triangle would ask for "fag paper" clearances ie the thickness of a roll-up cigarette paper between tubular tyre and seat tube...and of course it depended largely whether the customer used fine white Rizla papers or the brown ones. It was called "fine tuning".
At the same time as the bespoke time trial frame came into its own, so the manufacturers of rims, such as Wolber, Assos and of tubulars, ie Wolber, Dugast, Soyo etc fine-tuned their ranges of products, the result being that frames were often designed and built around a pair of wheels and tubs ie the rear triangles had to permit a 17mm Wolber mounted on an aero rim to "just" not touch the rear of the seat tube. it was not uncommon to have to adapt a second hand frame to accept a 19mm tub! Added into the design equation as manufacturers responded with wider ranges of products, were the aero tubing sets, which in turn gave rise to the lugless frame with aerodynamic gussets welded into the head tube assemly, and around the bracket cluster....
The shorter the rear triangles- 13.5"/34 cms was the shortest one I ever made, this being for a frame that was dedicated to 10mile out-and-back races - the more difficult it became to get the rear wheel in and out of the drop-outs. When it was no longer feasible to use "vertical" drop-outs because these were never really vertical, we had to use track rear facing drop-outs with gear hanger attachments brazed into place. The MKM"Ultimate" frame, built by foreman-builder Steve Elsworth on the CR site is a perfect example of the state-of-the art Testing frame of the early 80s era. It is lugless, it has a contrived rear-end design giving a 14", or thereabouts chainstay length, coupled up to track rear ends..and a very short top-tube.
There was quite a number of builders in the UK at that time who were "time-trial" specialists, including Pongo Braithewaite builder of "AENDE" frames, Barry Chick who built the Shorter frame used by Alf Engers that was mentioned recently on the List, Mick Coward builder of Emperor Sport frames, including those used by Sean Yates, Billy Witcomb, a Liverpool "jobbing"builder, Andy Thompson of Huddersfield, MKM of Harrogate Terry Dolan of Cougar cycles who built many of Chris Boardman's frames, Clive (?) Emery, myself with my Bespoke brand..and others such as Bob Jackson who was always capable of producing something special. Many other builders such as Harry Quinn and Ellis Briggs produced "severe" road racing frames with 74// angles that could be used for both massed start racing and time-trialling purposes.
Almost coinciding with the 1983 cut-of point for the CR List came the "funny bikes"..with their sloping top-tubes and smaller front wheels...but those, as they say..are another and different story....as are the "mini - bikes" with their grotesquely long and inelegant seat pillars that developed when the UCI banned the small front wheel.
Norris Lockley, Settle UK
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