My Track bike experience is limited to 2 bikes: a mid-1960s Frejus track bike which I rode extensively for 3 years on the streets, hills, and country roads of Connecticut in the northeastern US during the late 1960s. Later, my 1965 Helyett Speciale, purchased used from a friend around 1970 and again ridden primarily on the roads.
I never had toe clip overlap problems while riding either of these bikes on the roads. In retrospect, this surprises me. It could be that I was simply lucky with the specific geometries of these bikes. The seat tube length of each bike was around 55-56 cm (c-c) and also with rather high BBs which indeed helped clear the pedals around turns (my main concern at that time). As Ken Sanford had suggested, perhaps my somewhat larger sized frames were simply fortunate coincidences.
Or, perhaps these bikes were designed originally with the potential of Road riding (i.e.: training) in mind. Nevertheless, both of mine were indeed serious Track machines with no notable Road concessions (such as brake bolt bores) and each had twin plate fork crowns, rounded fork blades and rear track forks.
Could it be that "later" that Track bikes were more commonly built with shorter wheel bases? Would this have been concurrent with reduced lengths and their lowered wheel clearances of later Road racing bike frames? I honestly don't know.
In spite of my general ignorance of Track Iron, I do know there were surely some event-specific designs which would been poor choices for the road or for anything requiring brisk turns of a front wheel... a motor-paced frame design comes quickly to mind, and perhaps there were other thoroughbred track designs as well which also favored extremely short wheel base designs. While we tend to bunch together all Track machines as a single frame style, I'm sure there were many subtle variations... just as there were for road bikes.
Seems like the weather in Australia would have favored roadworthy fixed gear bike designs on domestically built bikes. Perhaps someone else Down Under could comment on this, too.
Very interesting subject!
BOB HANSON, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, USA
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