1970s Time-Trial Bike

Fag paper clearances. (British slang for cigarette paper.) Meaning the rear wheel was so close to the seat tube that you could barely get a cigarette paper between the tire and the frame tube. See the picture above.

This was an extreme fashion fad in the UK during the mid 1970s especially on time trial bikes. It served no useful purpose except to make the chainstays shorter thereby saving a little weight, and making the rear triangle a little stiffer. The frames were usually built using vertical rear dropouts to achieve the close clearance.

When fads like this become fashion a framebuilder can do little but follow the latest trend, or loose business; I was no different. However, I did not follow the extremes of some framebuilders who built these frames with clearances so close you had to deflate the rear tire to get the wheel in and out. This bordered on the ridiculous.

Some built frames with extremely steep head angles so the front wheel barely cleared the down tube. This was a part of the trend I refused to follow, as it made for some very “squirrelly” bikes. The last thing a rider needs is a squirrelly time trial bike; a TT bike needs to hold a straight line.

I remember one frame (not one of mine.) brought to me for repair. The down tube and top tube were bent. My first question was, “What did you hit?” The owner replied, “Nothing, I slowed to take a corner, and the frame collapsed under me.”

When I inspected the frame the first thing I noticed was a black rubber tire mark under the down tube right where the tube folded. It became clear to me what had happened. The front wheel was so close to the down tube that when the rider applied the front brake there was enough flex that the front wheel touched the down tube.

Maybe his headset was a little loose, whatever the cause, once the front wheel touched it would have stopped the bike very quickly and the forward momentum folded the frame. I replaced the top and down tubes, making sure to make the head angle a little shallower, making for a little more front wheel clearance.

The bike pictured at the top was one I built for John Patston, an international class rider who represented Great Britain on their national team. In the above picture, John Patston is leading, followed by Paul Carbutt, and Pete Hall. (All on ‘dave moulton’ frames.)

The forth rider Grant Thomas is obscured behind Patston. This was the British Team riding in the 1975 World Championship 100 km. Team Time Trial event.

John Patston was primarily a road rider, very strong and aggressive, often riding away from the opposition to win solo. If others stayed with him, he would usually win the finishing sprint. He was also an excellent time trialist.

I received a great deal of publicity from this particular bike. It featured in the British “Cycling” magazine. (Affectionately known by cyclists throughout the UK, as “The Comic.”)

I can’t remember whether the bike was built in Columbus or Reynolds tubing, but the complete bike built up with Campagnolo titanium components, weighed in a 19 lbs. Pretty light for 1977 when this was built.

The bike was also featured in “The Penguin Book of the Bicycle” published in 1978. (Left.) The same photo shown at the top was used for the title page as the book was opened. (See below.)

My name was airbrushed from the picture, as were the spokes from the wheels to make room for the title text. However the same picture appeared again later in the book, this time with my name intact.

The frame was painted black and had gold pin striping on the edges of the lugs. It also had John’s initials “JP” painted in gold on the seatstay caps. Cycling magazine drew an interesting parallel to this, one that I had not realized when I chose that particular color scheme.

The British tobacco giant “John Player,” also with initials JP, sponsored a Grand Prix racing team at that time. The cars built by Lotus were painted black with gold lettering.


My thanks to Lance Woodman for reminding me of this bike.

Twiddling

Two important passions in my life have been music and bicycles. Coming of age as I did in the early 1950s, musically, I came in at the end of the Big Band era.

I saw the American big bands like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Stan Kenton when they toured the UK. Later I witnessed the birth of Rock n' Roll in the mid 1950s and experienced first hand the emergence of the British music scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

As for cycling I came in at the end of the fixed wheel era. In the early 1950s all the top time-trialists in the UK rode fixed gear. The picture above from 1948 shows a typical British time-trail scene.

Not a car in site; it is easy to see why this era is often referred to as “The Golden Age of Cycling.” Note the rider has a fixed gear, a single front brake, and the obligatory bell on the handlebars. (Picture from Classic Lightweights UK.)

Time Trialing in the UK during that period was predominantly a working class sport, and many working class people at that time did not own cars. Their bike was not only their recreation and sport, but also their mode of transport to get to work each day. Most had a bike with track dropouts making for easy adjustment of chain tension while switching differing size fixed rear sprockets.

The bike would have a brazed on lamp bracket boss on the front fork and have eyelets and clearance for mudguards. The mudguards would be put to good use; it rains a lot in the UK, and if your bike is your only means of transport, riding in the rain is your only option. A rider would wear a rain cape (Poncho) that was long enough at the front to reach over the handlebars thus keep their legs dry.

At the weekend, the mudguards would come off in readiness for a time trial and the cyclist would ride to the start of the event often carrying his best wheels with tubular tires on wheel carriers attached to the front of the bike.

These wheel carriers were simply two aluminum strips about 5 or 6 inches long with a hole drilled each end. The front wheel nuts were removed, the metal strips were then attached on either side of the front wheel spindle so they stood above and slightly forward of the front hub. The nuts were replaced and tightened.

The spare front and rear wheel spindle then attached to the hole in the top end of the metal strip, one on either side. Finally, the spare wheels were strapped to the handlebars using a toe-strap. Track nuts were always used, not quick-release. Everyone used a Brooks leather saddle that had bag loops on the rear; a saddle bag would be attached to carry racing clothes to change into, and food.

By today's standards riders used pretty low gears; distance events would be ridden on a 79 to 81 inch gear and the shorter events on about an 86 inch gear. The thinking of the day was that speed was achieved by pedaling fast, known as "twiddling."

I was like many of the younger riders and used gears, because I emulated the top European pro riders rather than the British time-trialists. However I did switch to fixed gear to ride through the winter months, and I would often strip my bike of its gears and convert to fixed to ride a 10 or 25 mile time-trial.

A very popular early season event was the 72 inch restricted gear 25 mile event. All competitors rode a 48 x 18 fixed gear, which was checked at the start by wheeling the bike between two chalk marks on the road, to ensure the crank did one complete revolution.

My very first time-trial was such an event, in March of 1952, one month after my 16th birthday. I had put in many miles on a 65 inch fixed gear all through the winter months and I could definitely twiddle. I had been riding seriously for over a year, but had to wait until my 16th birthday to be able to race.

I had been preparing for my début through the winter, whereas the more seasoned riders had been taking it easy and had not reached their full level of fitness at the start of the season.

I surprised myself and my fellow club members when I won the event with a time of 1hour-10min.-10sec. (See the press clipping, left.)

This meant I was pedaling at an average rate of over 100 RPM for the 25 miles. Top riders of that era could turn in times under the hour for 25 miles on a 72 inch gear; which is close to 120 RPM average. Two revs per second, that’s some serious twiddling.

The RPM rate was calculated as follows: 25 miles = 132,000 feet. Divide by my time for distance, 70 minutes = 1885.714 feet covered in one minute. Divide by feet covered per pedal revolution (18.67 ft.) = 101 RPM.

Calculated at a nominal wheel size of 26.75 inch diameter. (7.003 feet circumference.) 48 T chainring, divide by 18 T sprocket = 2.666 turns of the rear wheel per 1 turn of the chainring. 7.003 x 2.666 = 18.67 feet traveled per pedal rev.

The US Team Aero Bike Fiasco

Myself and Mike Melton (Right) building the aero frames.

Looking through an old scrapbook last evening I came across a story that Velo-News did in February 1980.

They did a pretty good piece of unbiased investigative reporting into some Aerodynamic frames I built for the US Team Time Trial riders for the 1979 World Championships. The whole episode turned into a huge fiasco, and after many people putting a great deal of effort and expense into the project the bikes were never used.

I came to work for Paris Sport in New Jersey in January 1979. At the time, Mike Fraysee co-owner of Paris Sport, was also President of the US Cycling Federation, the governing body of competitive cycling in the US.

The big new thing in bicycles at that time was aerodynamic frames, and it was suggested I build such frames for the US Team Time Trial squad. I had built a few aero frames in England the previous year by modifying round tubing to make it aero shape. No one was manufacturing proper tubes at the time.

I approached the English Reynolds Tube Company at the New York Bicycle Show in February 1979 and they agreed to produce the aero tubes. I had enjoyed a close working relationship with Reynolds, having been in from the start of their development of 753 tubing in the mid 1970s and built some early 753 test frames for them.

In March 1979 I flew back to England to meet with engineers at Reynolds and together we came up with design for an aero tube that was tear-drop shape in cross section. The tooling alone to draw these special tubes was made at a cost around $30,000. Remember this was 1979, thirty grand was a lot of money then.

The tubing took a few months to produce and when it arrived in New Jersey, time was running close to when the bikes would be needed. Because of this Mike Melton a top US framebuilder was brought in to help me build them. Mike and I burned the mid-night oil for a week without pay, I should add, to produce five frames. Four for the team and one spare.

The bikes were tried out by the team but were never used in competition and never even made it to the World Championship. One of the reasons the riders gave for their non use; the bikes handled badly.

You have to remember at the time I was a relatively unknown framebuilder in the US and you could say stuff like that. Obviously, the bikes were tested before they went out and they handled fine. Also at the same time Reynolds sent aero tubing to me, they sent some to French bicycle manufacturer, Gitane. They built a frame for Bernard Hinault who won a time trial stage in the Tour de France on it. He also went on to win the Tour that year.

The whole episode was a politically driven fiasco that I deeply regretted getting into, and it made me look bad with Reynolds; after all theirs was the biggest financial loss. The final kicker came later when the bikes were stripped and the Campagnolo parts were stolen. Riders and/or USCF officials were suspected.

A small consolation came later when a track bike version of the same aero tubing was ridden by an 18 year old Greg Lemond when he took the gold in the Junior World Pursuit Championship in 1979.

I scanned the article and you can read it as a PDF file. It goes into more detail than I have here. (You may want to print it, it is a little long to read on screen.) It is in three parts; there is my side of the story. The riders’ side, with comments by Mike Fraysee, and the story about the theft of parts. After reading the story again, I wondered what ever happened to the frames?

Either they ended up in a dumpster somewhere or if someone reading this has one in their garage, please send it to me. I would put it on eBay and recoup a little of my losses from all those years ago.

My best 12 hour ride.

The picture here shows me aged seventeen competing in my native England in the National 12 Hour Time Trial Championship. I remember that I was the first rider off at 5:01 a.m. on a Sunday morning in August 1953 and I rode non-stop until precisely 5:01 p.m. that evening when a time keeper who had followed me for the last few miles told me to stop. The whole course was measured precisely and for the last part of the event riders were directed onto a fifteen mile “finishing circuit” until their time ran out.

The mileage was marked on the finishing circuit at every quarter of a mile. From the point where my time ran out the time keeper went back to the nearest marker and on a fixed wheel bicycle counted pedal revolutions to the point where I had stopped. Using this method each rider had the distance covered measured to the nearest yard. I covered just over 220 miles my best ride for this event and one that I never bettered in later years. The winning ride that day was around 250 miles.

After I set out that morning other riders followed at one minute intervals; 120 in all over a two hour period. It was a perfect day as I remember, overcast but not cold and little or no wind. The course was on the famous Great North Road where time trials had been held since they started in the late 1800s. The Great North Road or “The A1” as it is designated was the main arterial road from London to Scotland at the time. The first freeway or Motorway as they are called in England was not built until 1959.

The course started at Girtford Bridge about 40 miles north of London and went as far north as Grantham in Lincolnshire. The course was laid out like a giant tree with the A1 being the main trunk running south to north and along the way we were diverted off on branches running east and west. Riding along a branch road to a certain point then doing a “U” turn to ride back to the Great North Road. In the picture I had just done one of these "U" turns and was out of the saddle getting back up to speed. The whole event monitored by volunteer marshals and everyone checked to ensure they rode every part of the course.

When I say I rode non-stop I mean non-stop. I was held on the start line by a helper, and as the seconds counted down I strapped my feet into the pedals and they remained there for the entire twelve hours; my feet never touched the ground during that period. I carried food and drink with me, and more was handed up during the event. My favorite food to carry was rice pudding with raisins in it. My mother would bake it in the oven until it was semi solid but still moist and could be cut into rectangular pieces and wrapped in grease proof paper. This was before the time of plastic wrap and aluminum foil.

It was still officially dark when I started and I had to use battery lights. You can just see the tail light mounted above the rear brake. The heavy front lamp was clipped to my handlebars and I had dropped that off en-route by the time this picture was taken. In case you are wondering I did not have to pee the entire twelve hours; I guess perspiration removed any excess liquid from my body.