Hi everyone
This is my first contribution after a long break from the List. Particularly chose to reply to Paul as I can offer an exact history of my own experiences on my Carpenter. It was a road path frame made around 1953, with track ends and mudguard fittings. It was my only bike at the time as I was a teenager on a small budget. I rode it on pressures, with mudguards, saddlebag(cape-roll on top), during the week to work (6 days in those days). In the evenings I would train on it in that same configuration. During March to September each year, I rode time-trials on it. Riding to the start, sometimes up to about 35 miles, with my sprints in sprint carriers. There I would strip the mudguards and saddlebag off, inflate the tubs, switch wheels and be ready to go. Many clubmen did the same thing at that time. After racing we would load up the bike again and ride out to meet the club for lunch, tea or both, then ride home. Many a time I would arrive home in the evening, tired but happy having done 100 miles or more plus a 25 or 50 mile time-trial. Fortunately my patents were club riders too, so they always kept the old coke boiler running so that I had hot water for a bath, ready for work on Monday morning. I woiuld ride 69 fixed on the pressures and 82.8 to race on. This was a common set-up at the time. As I recall, very few people rode single-free. Hub gears were mainly for CTC type riders among club-folk. Road bikes of course had derailleurs (Simplex, Benelux etc), but many riders were like me and had just one simple bike for everything.
Great days, fondly remembered by the gang I still ride with on Wednesdays and Sundays, so I'm off out now to join them.
It's good to be back on the List
Mike Waite
Amersham Buckinghamshire UK
>A question or two for the older, British 1940s and 50s club riders and
> racers. With all the emphasis on "fixies" at the moment (and my plans
> for the Carpenter still unfolding) I began to wonder how many were
> riding fixed gears in the day? Did many ride fixed gears on club runs?
> How many used single-speed freewheels instead? hubgears? derailleurs?
> What sorts of set ups were favoured most often?
>
>
> Paul Williams,
> Ottawa, ON, Canada