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SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 1
Reports Reviews Legends Cranks Riders Kit Old Skool Carbon
December 2009
Almost embarrassed by the
success of what was
originally being heralded as
Britain's crappiest Time Trial
Fanzine, Ian Cammish and
his merry band of failed
cyclists, photographers and
journalists are destined to hit
the big-time in 2010. Plans
are afoot to go global!
Recent meetings with highly
intellectual (so they told us) and
grossly overpaid IT experts have
resulted in BIG plans being put
forward for the future of Testing
Times by the management at
Planet X HQ. “If it’s going to go
belly up, let’s do it big-time,”
declared Dave Loughran as he was
escorted through the heaving mass
of reporters that had gathered in
anticipation of an eagerly awaited
update on the leaked suggestions
in a recent issue of this mag that
something is afoot.
“It’s a big world out there and
we’ve been told that the worldwide
web awaits. We’ve got a ‘one-off’
here - there's really nothing out
there quite like Testing Times. The
general feedback we’ve been
getting right from the very
beginning is that the quality of the
product has to be seen to be
believed so we want the world to
share what the rest of us have had to
endure.”
Cammish was unavailable for
comment, his minders letting it slip
that he was off to urgently book
himself into an ‘IT made simple’
evening course at his local technical
college. Whether or not he can fit
this in between Neighbours,
Coronation Street and Eastenders
remains to be seen, but it will soon
become quite apparent when
Testing Times goes ‘live’ (is that the
right term?) when the IT fat-cats
have done the deed and got it up
and running.
Never one for moving with the
times, Cammish is said to
be ‘bricking it’ in
anticipation of what lays
ahead. If anyone can screw
it up though, Cammish can
… despite failing dismally
with Testing Times.
What’s in this issue:
Meet (even more of) the team
Major Targett on the National Hill
climb
Planet X’s new TT frame : The
Exocet
Paul Gittins on the Boro’
Mystery and intrigue with Peter
Whitfield
Frankly Franklin’s Christmas
experience
Sue Fenwick meets Margaret Allen
Gambling on … surviving
Christmas
Planet X Old Skool series … 2010
Titter!
Nob off
http://www … beckons
Testing Times to hit the world-wide web
Cammish to hit the bottle ... again
Circulation: There’s still a pulse.
PLANET X’S NEW TT FRAME
THE EXOCET … PGS 8 / 9
TESTING TIMES GOES ‘LIVE’
… SOON!
www.thetestingtimes.co.uk/
The team wishes readers of Testing
Times and anyone else as equally
midguided a very Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year.
Meet the Team … (there can’t be many more left willing to shoulder the burden of
blame … surely?)
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 2
Steve Kish (left) … licensed to thrill. 007’s stunt-man in his spare time. Full
time occupation? International drug smuggler and arms dealer. Hiding out
somewhere warm masquerading as a ‘journalist’ for the World’s leading Planet
X time trial fanzine Testing Times.
In a word … Frightening (well would you argue with a man who looks like
that?).
frighten • verb 1 cause to be afraid. 2 (frighten off) drive away by fear.
DERIVATIVES frightened adjective frightening adjective frighteningly
adverb.
Suechoccychoccy Fenwick/Rogers (left) … very keen on leather and
something big and powerful between her legs. VERY happily ensconced in a
long-term relationship with ‘Big-Will’ from Swavesey (honest!).
Suechoccychoccy is delighted to be a ‘has-been’ in the world of domestic
time-trialling having won the women’s National 100 championship back in
the good old days when Clement 3s ruled the roost and all the aero gizmos
were a twinkle in her mum’s eye. Enjoying a time trialling reincarnation
taking full advantage of all the hi-tech twaddle now available...and loving it!
In a word… SMITTEN (with cycling) … 3(be smitten) be affected severely
by a disease. 4 (be smitten) be strongly attracted to someone or something.
Major Paul Targett (right) … Occasional contributor. Fond of ease, chess,
fell-racing, insincere flatterers. Not fond of DIY, team games, totalitarian
state interference unless he’s giving the orders. Given to self-effacement and
flights of fancy. Partial to simplistic solutions. More foibles than Aesop.
In a word ... QUIRKY quirk (kwûrk) n. A peculiarity of behavior; an
idiosyncrasy: "Every man had his own quirks and twists" P.L. Onker 1858-
2003
Testing Times gives the inside
story. Any resemblance of
names or characters to real
people in this account is
entirely intentional.
Darren Gill sat bolt upright as Mr
Tickle’s arms reached 10 and 12,
triggering the musical alarm which
had roused him virtually every
morning since his sixth birthday. He
knew immediately the awesome
significance of this day. Ever since
the CTT had announced that the
National hillclimb champs were to be
held at nearby Stocksbridge, he’d
taken every opportunity he could to
practice on the infamous OHC9
course. Unlike the innocent cannon
fodder yet to come, Darren knew
exactly what to expect. He wolfed
down a full English and drained two
bottles of Barnsley’s finest pale ale –
he wasn’t taking any chances of a
hunger crack today. The gusting
winds wouldn’t make the challenge
any easier but then these would buffet
elite and duffer alike.
At 10.30 sharp he closed the garden
gate and swore at next door’s
Doberman/Boxer cross as it strained
the links on its chain in a desperate
effort to sink its foaming gnashers
into his inviting neck. Darren made a
mental note to pick up some Warfarin
and a cheap ham shank from the local
Costcutter store on his way back and
turned to business.
Some way away and some time
earlier, Tags Targett came to. It had
seemed a smart move two weeks
earlier to post his £12 (ouch) entry
cheque; a chance to extend his season
by a week and see a part of South
Yorkshire usually off limits to the
salaried middle classes. As the
cacophony of falling masonry down
his gable end died off a shiver of
doubt stirred within. Leaving a note
for his better half to check yellow
pages for a local chimney repairman,
he swallowed two aspirins and
re-checked his pulse. 88 had seemed
a mite high.
Paul Kippax or ‘Smokey’ as his
drinking chums affectionately tagged
him, was to approach the venue from
the South, hailing as he did from
Rutland, where he ran a haberdashery
store on the indoor market. As the
recession was playing havoc with the
demand for habers and dashers he had
recently returned to his original
profession as a mercenary,
specialising in silent assassination. If
anybody was foolish enough to cross
him on the Nationals day they’d run
the risk of experiencing one of his 87
preferred techniques.
His preparations had been extreme.
To reduce weight he’d extracted his
own toe and finger nails but had
needed the assistance of an
engineering apprentice to plane off
5mm from his upper and lower
canines. Unfortunately the jig had
been set wrongly and the resulting 30
degree angle from 8mm down to
2mm ensured he’d never again
advertise toothpaste. This obsession
with weight loss seemed incongruous
given that he always rode with a
saddlebag, but Smokey never
travelled without his favourite
filleting blade.
Tags Targett meanwhile was still
trying to understand the physics.
Having input OHC9 (momentarily
struggles to avoid product
endorsement) into his favourite
search engine, he came across a
science abstract relating to sub
threshold pion production in heavy
ion collisions around 100 MeV/u . It
seemed that OHc = 9” and 23”
Testing Times’ view of the 2009 National
Hillclimb Championships, Pea Royd Lane,
Stocksbridge by Paul Targett
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 3
“We only came out to walk t’ dog .. what’s ‘appenin’ ‘ere them?”
Photo courtesy of Andy Gates
won’t argue with those who claim it
was closer to 7/12 ths) preceded two
further blistering ‘kicks’, as the
crosswinds howled up the fellside
and the black and white chequered
flag strained on its pole in the far
distance. Tags knew instinctively that
he was now out of his mind...err..
depth but he had promised Cammish
an article and a cub scout’s word is
his bond.
Darren hadn’t needed much of a
warm up as he’d cycled the 5 miles
from home in a shade under 10
minutes, an uncomfortable pace not
unconnected with the sharp metallic
ping of a steel chain link stress
fracture as its residual tensile strength
was suddenly exceeded. Not of a
metallurgical bent, he’d failed to see
this coming whereas Smokey, who’d
studied metallurgy at pup school had
worked long and hard for this very
opportunity. The matching names of
the mad dogs from Birdwell and
Rutland was one of an estimated 367
coincidences predicted that day by
statistical theory within the parish
boundaries of Stocksbridge alone.
As he clipped in with 30 seconds to
go he smoothed down his eyebrows
represented the moving source
parameterisation of something or
other, probably ectoplasm for all
Tags knew. However as a semi-
educated 60’s baby boomer it seemed
clever stuff and Tags surmised that
he’d hit on the optimum average
velocity for the hillclimb. He mulled
over the concepts as he gently
climbed Pea Royd Lane for his first
recce.
The initial section was tantalisingly
easy and therein lay the trap – you
had the hammer down because you
were still fresh but then you hit the
ordnance survey double arrows on a
sharp right hander, steepest on the
inside curve with the road surface
degraded by hard braking car tyres.
As it shallowed to the half way point
a lone piper (sporting the Rab C
Nesbitt tartan) summoned the clans to
rebellion with a stirring rendition of
that old Scottish classic Danny
boy. The awful brutality of the
second half filled the horizon,
festooned as it was with cheerleaders
hoping to see a chump or two topple
off as their forward speed reached 0.0
m/sec.
A sharp left at the ¾ point (although I
and brought up most of that mornings
sausage and plum tomatoes, although
the scrambled egg mysteriously
refused to surface. At 10 seconds to
go he thought he heard a distant
bark. At -3 he saw it, leaping the road
closure bollards and nailing the
‘man’s best friend’ myth from the tip
of its docked black tail to the
menacing intent in its blood red eyes.
Stoically suppressing his rising dread
he began to wonder if messrs Clarke
and Parker would ever give him leave
to start.
Smokey Kippax had wangled himself
a late slot preferring to mix it with the
seeded riders in the hope he’d be
pulled through to a sub 4 minute
time. As bad luck would have it he
ended up being sandwiched between
two riders of the fairer sex, each of
whom reminded him in different
ways of his ex-partner Millicent. The
emotional trauma this engendered
was not inconsiderable given that
they’d only broken up that very
morning. Finding his inner tubes
unironed had been bad enough but
her rank refusal to accompany him to
the championship on the feeble
premise that her ailing mother Maud
wasn’t expected to last the weekend
was more than he could tolerate.
Warning her to be gone before he
came home with the champions
trophy he borrowed a tenner and
turned on his Sat Nav. Firing up the
customised V8 on his lime green
Austin Allegro he roared up the A1 to
steel city.
Darren had reached the first turn
when Smokey, closing rapidly,
suffered a massive fatal heart attack.
Fortuitous as this was for Darren it
proved less so for the assembled
crowd on the outside bend, six of
whom were bowled over domino
fashion by the dead dog’s hurtling
cadaver. Darren gratefully pressed on
and held his composure well to
record a first split of 2.18.
In training he’d never broken 6
minutes but he now felt sure that
barring any bionic dog resurrections
the (not so) magic 5 minute barrier
was within his grasp. Wiggo’s efforts
on Mont Ventoux were tame in
comparison to the physical
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 4
Dan Leeman (Cervelo Test Team) on his way to his first
National Hill Climb Championship win.
Photo courtesy of Andy Gates
contortions he now subjected his body
to as he fairly buried himself to crest
the summit in 4-58.5. It was nigh on
13 minutes before the St John
Ambulance volunteers finally
resuscitated him (Smokey had proved
quite beyond their powers) with no
obvious sign of brain damage. As
Darren’s brain also proved to be
largely intact the smile on his face on
hearing his finishing time made the
Cheshire cat look solemn and he part
cycled, part skipped the 3 mile detour
back to the HQ.
Tag’s top tube was the only thing that
prevented his knees knocking
together as he completed the final
decade of his rosary beads. Taking
leave of his senses and previous
experience he took the first split in
2.11 and even the piper knew he’d
blown it big time. His error was
further compounded by his miserly
streak when he espied what appeared
to be a ten bob bit in the grit by the
kerbstones. Unable to resist such
temptation he dismounted and was
bitterly disappointed to find it was
only the remnant of a Doctor Pepper
can weathered into a perfect hexagon.
The gradient defeated his attempts at
remounting and he was forced to
wheel his stricken machine to the next
bend before resuming a pedalling
motion of sorts. Waiving all offer of
assistance from the summit marshals
it came as a pleasant surprise to find
he’d dipped inside Darren’s marker
by 0.3 secs. He soaked up the
impressive panorama of the Don
valley below him as the icy showers
failed to dent his brylcreamed crew
cut.
Smokey Kippax, unaware of his
namesakes recent demise, checked the
buckles on his saddlebag one last time
and placed his rear tyre on the
wooden starting wedge. He’d never
heard of Darren Gill or Tags Targett
(the hillclimbing escargot) before but
he was about to ride himself into the
glare of media publicity that
surrounds every issue of Testing
Times. Dawn Sherrin of VC Azzuri
but perhaps better known as the more
dominant member of the much feared
tag wrestling team ‘The Berserkers’
had set off one minute ahead, but the
starter’s periscope suggested she
might be catchable with a following
wind and there was certainly plenty of
that about. Mr Parker would stick to
the number 47 at Mozammal’s balti in
future. Alex Deck, the other half of
‘The Berserkers’ was starting
immediately behind him and besides
not wanting to take the blame for Mr
Parker, Smokey had no intention of
becoming the meat in The Berserkers’
sandwich.
12.48 passed into history and Smokey
Kippax kept his cool. Wisely splitting
in 2.23 he’d husbanded his available
energy perfectly to catch Dawn
within 50m of the finish line. As Alex
packed at half way, ostensibly to
throttle the piper for murdering her
favourite Welsh tune (Daniel boyo)
Smokey’s saddlebag thankfully
remained unopened. He had finished
in 4-55.7 which by another of those
estimated 367 coincidences predicted
that day by statistical theory within
the parish confines of Stocksbridge
alone was exactly the time of Lynn
Hamel, the Cumbrian star riding to
defend her hillclimbing champion’s
tiara.
As Darren, Tags and Smokey fought
their personal battles against the hill,
each other, their inner demons and
each others’ inner demons, and their
inner demons fought each others’
inner demons, the hill and their own
inner inner demons, the unfolding
drama of the ladies championship
superimposed itself on their second
fiddle efforts. Lynn had blasted to ½
way in 2.09 (great time for a marathon)
and her face betrayed a mask of pain as
she rounded the final bend – indeed
some bystanders thought it may have
been her death agony itself. Tragedy
was writ large for Lynn that day though
as she had missed the earlier posting
of Maxgear racing team’s Anna Fischer
by exactly ½ a second – surely the
cruellest result of the day.
At the men’s sharp end professional
Dan Fleeman (real name Daniel
Fleeman) of the Cervelo Test Team
took the honours from previous champ
Matt Clinton (real name Matthew
Clinton ) who believed he’d over
geared, and Jim Henderson (real name
Jim Henderson) took a deserved bronze
in his final race following the surprise
announcement of his retirement. Dare
we hope this was a ‘Steve Redgrave’
type of retirement and that he will fight
on next year? If Danny Shand hadn’t
come down with the flu it may well
have been the day of the Dannys,
especially if the piper got her way.
Pea Royd Lane has earned its place in
the annals of hillclimbing folklore and
the lucky few have a porcelain mug to
prove they saw action on the day the
champs came to Stocksbridge.
RESULTS
1 ) Dan Fleeman (Cervelo Test Team)
03-17.8 (split 1-29)
2 ) Matt Clinton (MikeVaughan.co.uk)
03-31.6 (split 1-35)
3 ) Jim Henderson (Southport CC)
03-39.4 (split 1.43)
(some other riders).
75) Anna Fischer (Maxgear RT)
04-55.2 (split 2-22)
76) Paul Kippax (Rutland CC)
04-55.7 (split 2.23)
77) Lynn Hamel (Team NCA)
04-55.7 (split 2.09)
78) Paul Targett (Pendle Forest CC)
04-58.2 (split 2.11)
79) Darren Gill (Birdwell Wheelers)
04-58.5 (split 2.18)
(not many other riders)
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 5
Major Targett kicking butt up
Pea Royd Lane
Photo courtesy of Andy Gates
Testing Times’ Ian Frankly
Franklin is to team up with
former Dutch national time
trial champion Lex Nederlof
to attempt one of the longest
records on the Road Records
Association’s books.
A crack support team, led by brave
Dale Ford, is already laying the
foundations for a serious attempt at the
1000 mile tandem-trike record at ‘a
secret location’ some time next
October. Inside information leads
Testing Times to believe the attempt is
likely to take place on Manchester
Velodrome and that the time of start is
specifically being planned to coincide
with the ending of British Summer
Time. “Well that gives us a free hour to
play with straight away” said Frankly
at the recent press launch hosted by the
attempt’s main sponsors ‘Thailand’s
Tag-a-long Trailers’.
“Personally, I never thought I’d see the
day where I’d ever have a realistic
chance of getting my name in the
record books, but with Lex I can’t see
any way I can fail. Obviously over such
a distance as that, and bearing in mind
the choice of venue, boredom is going
to be one of the biggest worries but I’m
sure there’s plenty of room where I’ll
be sitting for a lap-top - my biggest
concern is whether or not Lex is up to
the job”.
Road Record Association officials
were unavailable for comment at the
time of going to press but Testing
Times contributor (and RRA
committee man and multi-record
breaker) Ralph Dadswell is reported
to have maybe said “We’ve had no
reason to consider any claims for the
1000 miles tandem trike record since
Pnut Arnold and Mr Grimes put it on
the shelf in 1954. Let’s face it … it’ll
never be beaten. Nevertheless, I would
whole-heartedly support Frankly and
Lex’s attempt because I really like
seeing people suffer … more so, when
there’s absolutely nothing to be gained
(because my money says they won’t
beat it!). :-) Of course, I still wish
them all the success in the world.”
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 6
Frankly and Nederlof to attempt
RRA’s 1000 mile record
Frankly and Nederlof begin training outside their main
sponsor’s headquarters
PROUDLY PRESENTS
OLD SKOOL RAVE THE FINAL SHOWDOWN
DATE AND TIME TO BE CONFIRMED
IN A PLANET X WAREHOUSE NEAR YOU
(LIKELY TO BE CARCROFT ENTERPRISE PARK AFTER OUR MOVE!)
12 CONTENDERS BATTLE IT OUT FOR YOUR VOTES
EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT JEDWARD, JAMIE, JOE AND JORDAN
THE OLD SKOOL RAVE RULES OK!
12 HOURS OF PURGATORY BROADCAST LIVE … MAYBE
‘AVING IT OUT ON THE NIGHT WILL PROBABLY BE:
AL BOOGIE AND RAP ROBERTS
THE POWER POP-MAN PARKY PARKINSON
and GAV GROOVY GOOD MAN HINXY BABE HINXMAN
To hear their previous form across DnB, Techno, Hip Hop, 2 step and
‘core production listen in and download from a freebie download store
near you. ;-)
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 7
After many months of talk and
speculation, Planet X’s new
time trial frameset is about to
hit the road. Ian Cammish is
delighted to be able to provide
a Testing Times exclusive road
test report, together with
photographs, of the all-new
Exocet frameset.
Nice smooth lines of the rear ends
incorporating wheel adjusters to
allow the centring of the wheel and
shortening of the wheelbase
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 8
Integrated headset and internal
brake and gear cabling
TESTING TIMES PRESENTS …
THE EXOCET
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 9
The road test I carried out was a far
cry from the month’s warm winter’s
training in the Canaries the Cycling
Weakly team manage to wangle for
their ‘tests’. Instead, I waited until the
rain was forecast to stop and booked a
days sicky from work to try it out on
my local home-made 25 mile course
in Cambridgeshire. Although it was
dry, it was still blowing a gale and I
hadn’t ridden much further than to the
local take-away and back in the last 6
months (he’s been ill...apparently!). I
also didn’t bother tweaking the
position at all - just got on it and rode.
The stem was a bit short (later
replaced as per photo) and the saddle
a tad high but time was short and I
didn’t want to be seen by the
competition … or by any of my
workmates, so I persevered as it was.
My initial impression was how
comfortable it felt - very similar to the
Pro Carbon track bike. It was a tad
more responsive and rigid than the
Stealth with a very, VERY stiff rear
end.
The special two-position seat post
allowed for a powerful position right
over the bottom bracket and enabled
me to power out to the turn into the
strong headwind with no problem.
The best was yet to come though. On
the return trip there felt to be no
‘give’ at all in the frame. All the
power I was putting down seemed to
be getting through.
Technical stuff:
Conforms to UCI 3:1 and 80mm Max
rule
Wind-tunnel evaluated in San Diego
and Dresden.
In San Diego it was compared with all
the major 'competitor' frames, with
and without rider, at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20
degrees of yaw. In every test the
Exocet was evaluated to be in the top
category.
In Dresden it was evaluated against
the current '09 and new '10 models of
a top rated TT bike (you don’t
seriously expect us to name it do
you?) . The Exocet was measurably
more aerodynamic than both models.
NOTE: the 2010 ‘un-named’ bike has
concealed front & rear brakes yet the
Exocet is still more aerodynamic.
“Good design beats fashion fads any
day” … that’s the quote from one of
the frame’s designers.
Two choices of saddle mounting
(left). Photo contrast cunningly
adjusted to prevent too close an
inspection by the competition!
Neat seat cluster and rear brake
mounting (below)
Well pleased and certainly impressed.
One or two tweaks before it can be let
loose to the public - gear changing a
bit spongy, front mech mounting
needs ‘stacking out’ a bit to ensure the
front changer changes … that’s all!
Naturally, I’ll delay feedback as long
as I reasonably can so I’ll be the only
rider using one until at least next
September! We’ll see if it makes up
for no training.
Let’s face it .. All you rally want is
photos anyway … eh? ;-)
“Bloody fast” … that’s the quote from
Cammish.
Flatter tubes than the Stealth (below)
but more aero...and more rigid
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 10
Those were the days my friends
We thought they’d never end,
We’d ride and ride for ever
and a day.
We’d ride the roads we’d
choose,
We’d race and never lose,
For we were young and naive
in every kind of way.
(With apologies to Mary
Hopkin, yet another great
Welsh person)
When I was a fresh faced youth I lived
in Wrexham which was to me and my
mates in the Wrexham RC, the centre
of the known universe. We would ride
events on the local ‘D’ courses which,
with the D1 at Chester being the 25
competition record course (1961
Charlie McCoy 55-01), were quite fast
enough for us. Occasionally we would
be very daring and venture into
Cheshire, Lancashire and even
Staffordshire to ride on some of the
‘J’ courses such as the J13 on the East
Lancs Road with its concrete slabs or
the rolling J52 between Maer and
Nantwich – a whole world away (well,
a couple of counties anyway). This
sufficed for our early teen years, not
many club members had cars so riding
out was the usual means of getting to
events which tended to limit one’s
sphere of activity.
This relatively limited view of the time
trialling world was expanded by
reading Cycling every week with its
reports of events across the UK (yes, it
did have them – lots of them!) and
glimpses of such exotic locations as
‘The Southend Road’ and ‘The Bath
Road’, always couched in relatively
vague terms so as to confuse the
general public (never mind cyclists
from other parts of the country!)
and maintain the RTTC’s strict
‘Private and Confidential’ edicts. It
often seemed that courses in other
regions were perpetually faster than
those locally with 54 and then 53
minute 25’s being done ‘down South’
on a weekly basis, not to mention
astronomically fast 50’s with times we
could only dream of on the Whitchurch
Road.
The potential of the ‘foreign’ courses
was brought home to me in 1966 when
my old friend Paddy Ward of the
Birkenhead Victoria CC suggested that
we take a trip to Yorkshire (Yorkshire!!
Where was that??) to ride a 50 on the
famous and fast ‘Boro’ course. He’d
entered an event, the Harrogate CC, in
2 weeks time and was willing to give
me a lift up. To me at that time,
Yorkshire was a complete unknown
(still is in some ways!), my only known
reference to it being my Mum’s
puddings of the same name, and a trip
there would mean crossing the
Pennines!! I gracefully declined the
offer stating that I was going to stay
home and ride the final local
association 25. On the day that Paddy
made the suggestion we had both
ridden the Chester RC 50 on the
D2 and both done middling ‘4’s’
finishing around 4th and 5th in the
results. Now, those of you of a certain
age may see where this is leading.
Paddy did go up to ‘Boro’ and did a
1-55 on a day when it seemed that a
one legged unicyclist could have got
inside 2 hours. Pete Smith broke
comp. record with the first 1-49. I
stayed at home and did a 1-4 on the
D1. Hardly a week goes by since then
when I have not regretted it. Mind you,
if I had gone, then it would have blown
a gale, rained a flood, and the history of
time trialling would have gone down
a completely different leg of the
trousers of time. Perhaps all those
riders who did fabulous times that day
should thank me for maintaining my
allegiance to the West Cheshire TTCA.
In ’67 I left home and went to the Far
South, that is to say, High Wycombe
(quite far enough thank you!). Here I
made acquaintance with the legendary
‘Bath Road’ and recorded my first
‘inside the hour’ ride and my (still
current) PB 50 in the ’68 National
Championship. Last year I drove down
the Bath Road from Reading to
WHEN (we were a lot younger)
Mr Gittins in the Yorks Century 100 in '68. It was taken (on Paul’s
camera) by his friend Nigel and shows him taking a huge 'packet' with
around 10-15 miles to go. Where is all the traffic?! Late morning on the
A1 on August Bank Holiday and hardly a car in sight and even then they
complained about traffic flow!
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 11
Marlborough for the first time in nearly
40 years and couldn’t believe how
narrow and ‘lumpy’ it appeared. Beats
me how so many people did the super
rides they did (such as Frank Colden’s
3-54 100 in ’62 and Pete Smith’s 1-48
in the ‘67 International 50) on such a
road.
I also made my one and only
pilgrimage to the Southend Road.
Gordon Wright suggested we ride the
Roamer 30, so very early one Sunday
morning we set off down the A40,
around the North Circular and down
to Basildon. I started but I didn’t
finish, I just couldn’t equate the
actuality of the course with the glowing
reports written about it in the ‘comic’.
I was disappointed, it didn’t ‘feel fast’
to me at all but perhaps it wasn’t one of
those renowned ‘float mornings’ that
Alf and co. seemed to find on a regular
basis. Whatever it was, I’ve never been
back.
In 1968, at the height of my powers
(!!!) I suggested to my old Wrexham
RC mate Nigel that, as we were now
more cosmopolitan in our outlook and
our horizons had been expanded (he’d
been at Reading University when I was
in High Wycombe) and I now had a
car, we would travel up to Yorkshire
and beyond on August Bank Holiday
weekend and ride a couple of events. I
would ride the Yorkshire Century 100
on the Sunday on ‘Boro’ and Nigel
would ride the Ferryhill Whs. 50 on the
Monday on the T503. In the
anticipation that we were both going to
finish our respective events with
performances that would put club
records on the shelf for years to come,
we drove up on the Saturday by some
convoluted route that my cousin (who
had been to Darlington once!)
suggested – this was well pre-M62 of
course – and found our ‘digs’
somewhere in Knaresborough, sharing
a room with several other ‘foreigners’
riding the 100 next day, one of whom
snored all night. He slept a deep and
refreshing sleep while the rest of us
didn’t, hardly conducive to riding a
good 100 the next morning. After an
early rise and some sort of breakfast
(pre-race preparation wasn’t so
technical in those days) Nigel drove to
Wetherby and I rode behind the car as a
warm up. When I started and got onto
the A1 for the first time I could
appreciate how good it was in
comparison to all the other courses I
had ridden and how those fast times
had been achieved. The tyres sang, the
miles passed by – even those in the
‘lanes’ around Thirsk – and I got back
onto the A1 at Leeming and to the 75
mile point inside 3-10 and could see a
real PB in prospect. It was then that I
discovered how Boro’ could bite you in
the bum and become a graveyard. The
gentle zephyr that had been helping me
to that point was a Southerly and as I
rode down the wide open stretches of
the A1 it picked up to almost gale force
and battered me without any sympathy.
I did an ‘18’ for the last 25 miles. I had
to complete the distance as I needed a
100 for my BAR certificate. I never
ever rode a fast 100 (or 50) on Boro’
and now never will.
Sunday evening we drove up to
Catterick to our digs and the following
morning after another rather disturbed
night’s sleep, we found the start just
North of Catterick. I was still feeling
the effects of the previous day’s efforts
and Nigel – who was riding fixed -
went for a warm-up ride and when he
got back, I turned his rear wheel around
for a bigger gear while he got ready.
After seeing him start I drove down the
A1 to watch him a couple of times and
was pleased to see how smooth and fast
he was pedalling even though he was
being caught by several riders, one of
whom was a youthful Sid Barras.
Down the slopes approaching the finish
he looked to be pedalling his bits off
and I was surprised to find that he had
only done around a 2-12, I thought he
had appeared to be going much faster.
It was only when we stripped his bike
down that we discovered the reason.
His rear wheel – which was mine on
loan – had an 18 tooth sprocket both
sides! In my 100 mile befuddled mind
I was oblivious to this when I had
turned his wheel around and given him
the same 72” gear as he had warmed up
on, no wonder he was pedalling fast! I
think he has forgiven me since
although it is seldom mentioned when
we meet.
When I married and moved
to Yorkshire in ‘71 I anticipated riding
Boro’ and O2 every week and regularly
recording times minutes faster than I
had ever achieved before. I soon
discovered the reality was that float
days on these courses were not a
‘given’ and that they only occurred
occasionally and then only on days
when my clubmates were riding and I
wasn’t. People who I would beat on a
regular basis in club events etc. would
post times minutes faster than my PB’s
on weekends when I would be away
visiting relations or having the ’flu.
However, I consider that some of my
‘best’ rides – not necessarily my fastest
– have been on Boro’ on hard days.
Days when the wind blew and a 57
won – and I did an ‘0’ or even a ’59’.
‘Worth a 55 on a good day’ I was
regularly and irritatingly informed. I
suppose that these sort of performances
can be seen as being very rewarding –
but not quite the same as doing a ‘flyer’
on a ‘float’ and improving a couple of
minutes!
Ain’t nostalgia great!
But not quite the same as it used to be.
Paul Gittins
Planet X employees, team
members and Testing Times
editorial staff available for
early season training camps.
Enjoy the benefit of all our
experience and knowledge. Fly
us to any exotic destination of
your choice, then feed us only
the best cuisine available in
return for the opportunity to
‘give us a right bending’ up the
steepest hills you can find or
the longest sessions you care
to commit to.
Serious expressions of interest
only please to:
So we’ve heard from the icon of
the 20s, 30s and 40s (that’s Mr
Gittins by the way!) and his
exploits on Boro’ … well that
prompted me to spend an hour or
so in the loft over a recent
weekend (well it beats training
doesn’t it?) pulling out diaries to
jog my memory a bit! Lo and
behold … my first journey up to
the infamous Boro’ course took
place on Sunday 4 September
1977.
I’d read about this course time and time
again in Cycling (the time trial
magazine of the day) and the impact it
had on people’s times and the country’s
leading season long competition the
British Best All Rounder. I wanted to
go fast too and as the Boro’ seemed the
dead cert ticket to achieve that, entered
the Yorkshire Century 100 held on the
V176. The course started on the
northern slip road out of Wetherby and
headed north up theA1 past
Boroughbridge to Dishforth
roundabout (no longer there now!),
where it turned eastwards and headed
towards Thirsk. In those days, this
part of the course was only single
carriageway and the circuit from
Dishforth-Thirsk-Nothallerton -
Londonderry - Dishforth had to be
covered twice before the final 20 mile
or so run in down the A1 to finish
near Cowthorpe Lane just north of
Wetherby.
So, what did I write 22 years ago ...
and was I using joined-up writing?
Result
I Cammish (Northampton CC - Vindec)
4-11-19 Prize value £5
M McNamara (Rockingham CC)
4-12-42 £4
J Woodburn (Sydenham CC)
4-12-48 £3
T Mullins (Rockingham CC) 4-12-50 £2
K W Platts (Coalville Whls) 4-14-11 £1
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 12
My Diary … and the first time I rode
on Boro’ by Ian Cammish
Fifteen miles into the ride at
Dishforth roundabout - photo by
Bernard Thompson
Ninety years ago the
countryside to the east of
Leicester was criss-crossed
with narrow lanes leading to
uneventful little villages like
Evington, Stoughton, Kings
Norton and Gaulby. In mid-
summer the hedges were eight
feet high and the lanes in that
pre-motorised age were lonely.
One July evening in 1919,
around 9.20 pm, a farmer was
driving some cows along the
lane some two miles from
Gaulby, when he came upon a
young woman lying in the
road, beside a gate leading
into a field. Her head was
covered with blood and a
bicycle lay askew across the
road beside her. He saw at
once that she was dead, and
supposed that she had fallen
from her machine and had died
of her injuries. The farmer
placed her beside the road,
saw to his cows and set off for
help. When he moved her he
noticed that her body was still
warm, suggesting that she had
been dead for a very short
time. By the time a constable
and a doctor arrived at the
scene, it was dark.
A cursory examination served to con-
firm the impression of an accidental
death, and the body was carried to a
cottage nearby. Next morning the con-
stable dutifully returned to the lane to
take a second look around, and now he
found several things which completely
changed his view of the case. A few
yards from the spot where the body
was found, he discovered a discharged
bullet, embedded in the road. On the
top of the field gate, which was
painted white, he found the marks of
claws, marks made in blood, and in
the field itself lay a large dark bird,
dead, and apparently gorged with
blood. With the aid of the doctor, the
constable examined the girl’s body
again, and this time they found a bul-
let wound just below the eye, and an-
other in her head where the bullet had
exited. Clearly, they were dealing not
with a bicycle accident but with mur-
der.
The dead girl was quickly identified
as Bella Wright, aged twenty-one,
who lived in the village of Stoughton
with her parents. She worked in a fac-
tory in Leicester and was engaged to
be married to a merchant seaman. It
did not prove difficult to reconstruct
her final hours. She had left home at
6.30 pm to cycle to her uncle, a man
named Measures, who lived in
Gaulby. While she entered his house a
young man, also a cyclist waited out-
side. She explained to her uncle that
he was a man she had met on the road,
a stranger, but she did not complain of
him or express any particular concern
about him. When she left the house an
hour later, the man was still waiting,
and he was heard to say, “Bella,
you have been a long time – I thought
you had gone the other way.” Meas-
ures’ son-in-law had some conversation
with the man about his bicycle, and
then, at around 8.40 pm, the girl and
the unknown young man cycled away
together. Just forty minutes later, her
body was found on the road back to
Stoughton. Obviously the man was the
prime suspect, and the police possessed
a reasonable description of him, and
they knew that he owned a green bicy-
cle. Every man in the district who
owned such a machine was sought and
questioned, but without result.
The months passed, and Bella Wright
lay in her grave in Stoughton church-
yard, but there was no sign of her sus-
pected killer, and no explanation of the
significance of the dead bird. There
was not even any agreement on what
kind of bird it was: the police reports
called it a raven, but bird experts im-
mediately objected that there were no
ravens in Leicestershire, and anyway
they did not drink blood, therefore it
was probably a rook or crow. It was
never stated whether the blood was hu-
man or not. It should have been possi-
ble, even in 1919, to establish this, al-
though it would not have been possible
to say whether it was Bella Wright’s.
Her body was found within a very short
time of her death: could this bird really
have consumed enough blood in a few
minutes to cause its own death?
Half a year passed and the mystery
looked as though it would remain un-
solved for ever. But then in February
1920, a canal barge was drifting slowly
through Leicester when the boatman
saw his tow-rope tighten as it snagged
something beneath the surface. Then,
for an instant, it lifted up a bicycle, or
at least a part of one, which hung in the
air for a moment before slipping back
into the water. But that moment was
enough: the boatman immediately re-
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 13
THE GREEN BICYCLE MURDER
A Mystery Without a Solution
Bella Wright … found lying in
the road, beside a gate
leading into a field.
My Diary … and the first time I rode
called the publicity surrounding the
murder, and as soon as he could he set
about fishing up the machine: it was
green, and it had been partly disman-
tled. The police took up the search,
finding the rest of the bicycle, and a
revolver holster, but no gun. There was
huge public interest in the case, with
crowds watching the police scouring of
the canal. The cartridges in the holster
proved to be like the one found in the
lane by the body, but this meant noth-
ing, as cartridges of that kind had been
manufactured by the million during the
war years, and thousands of ex-soldiers
still kept their service revolvers.
The bicycle proved to be a BSA, with a
back-pedal brake, an unusual feature on
an English machine. The frame-
number, 103648, was still visible, and
it proved possible to follow the bike’s
trail from the factory to its purchaser. It
had been supplied by BSA back in
1910 to a dealer in Derby named Orton,
and, with its back-pedal brake, it was
special order: this fact alone made it
possible to trace the man who bought
it. This man was identified as Ronald
Light, and, when tracked down, he
proved to be a teacher of mathematics
in Cheltenham. He was 34 years old, a
former pupil of Rugby School, and had
served for three years in the war in
France. This perhaps explained why he
seemed prematurely aged and slightly
deaf. He was unmarried, and at the time
when Bella Wright met her death, he
had been living in Leicester with his
mother.
When questioned by the police, Light
denied ever having owned a green bicy-
cle, denied knowing anything of Bella
Wight, or having been anywhere near
Gaulby at the time. Yet Bella’s uncle
and his son-in-law both identified
Light as the man they had seen. The
circumstantial evidence against him
was strong, and he was, inevitably,
arrested, and sent for trial. While in
prison awaiting trial, a witness heard
him exclaiming, “Damn and blast that
canal!”
On the opening day of the trial in
Leicester Castle, there was an early
sensation. His defence lawyer, the
celebrated Sir Edward Marshall Hall,
announced that his client had changed
his story. Light now acknowledged that
his earlier denials had been the result of
sheer panic. He now admitted that he
had been with Bella Wright on the eve-
ning of her death, that the green bicycle
was his, and that he had hidden it out of
fear. However he maintained that he
had nothing to do with her death, and
that he had never owned a revolver
since he had been sent home from
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 14
The guilty man? Ronald Light
- a teacher of mathematics in
Cheltenham
The evidence being pulled from the canal (above)
France on a stretcher. Light’s appear-
ance impressed the court: he was seri-
ous, calm and dignified, and, although
he could not be described as a war
hero, he was a evidently a man who
had suffered in the service of his coun-
try. What account then did he give of
his meeting with Bella Wright ?
He said he met her in the lanes as she
was standing by her bicycle, and he had
asked her if there was anything wrong.
She said her front wheel was loose, and
asked him if he had any spanners with
him. He had not, but her bicycle
seemed quite rideable, so they went on
together to her uncle’s house in
Gaulby. Here he waited for her, but
when she re-appeared he did not ad-
dress her by her name, which he never
knew, but said, “Hello, you have been a
long time.” Light went on to say that
they had ridden together for only ten
minutes when his tyre began to soften.
It was clear that he would have to walk
home and so she left him at a cross-
roads, where she took the lane to
Stoughton, while he took a more direct
road back to Leicester. He walked the
entire way home, getting back around
ten o’clock. A few days later, when he
read about the death in the newspapers
and heard about the search for the man
with the green bicycle, he was terrified,
broke up the machine and threw it into
the canal. This was his story, and five
hours of cross-examination failed to
shake it in any detail.
Sir Edward Marshall Hall then ques-
tioned witnesses closely about the
shooting itself. He argued that a bullet
fired from a few feet away should have
blown out the back of the skull, and it
should have travelled much further.
There was no actual evidence that the
bullet found in the road was the fatal
bullet at all. Hall made the intriguing
suggestion that Bella might have been
killed by a rifle bullet, fired from a dis-
tance, from the adjacent field. There
was no evidence that Light had ever
been seen with a gun, and why should
he go out for a summer bicycle ride in
the English country lanes carrying a
loaded gun? What motive could he pos-
sibly have for killing Bella, who not
been assaulted in any way? His defence
was a powerful one, and when the
unanimous verdict of “Not Guilty”
came, it was cheered in the court and
outside. Ronald Light walked free, and
lived until 1975, dying at the age of 90,
but without ever speaking about the
case again. Somehow the local bike
shop in Evington got hold of the noto-
rious green bicycle and exhibited it
there for some time after the trial. No
other person was ever sought or ar-
rested for the crime. Bella Wright’s
family remained convinced that the
guilty man had been set free. This
reminds us of the personal suffering in
this and in all murder cases. The pub-
lic cares only for the puzzle, the great
question, “Who did it?” and they for-
get the human tragedy.
So who did kill Bella Wright, and
why? In spite of Sir Edward Marshall
Hall, everything seems to point to
Ronald Light: he was with her only
thirty minutes before her death, and
no one else was even seen nearby. But
this was all circumstantial, and the
fatal weakness in the case against him
was the lack of a gun to connect him
with the crime. But what could be
easier than to drop a gun into a canal ?
Perhaps it was lying there, a few yards
away from the bicycle and the holster,
and perhaps Light’s saving stroke of
luck was that it happened never to be
found. In a modern trial, the ballistic
and medical evidence would also have
investigated far more thoroughly:
what exactly was the nature of Bella’s
wound, and what kind of weapon
would have caused it?
And what of the mysterious dead bird?
At the trial neither side was able to
make anything of it. It was not subject
to intense scientific examination, as it
would be now. Was it even connected
with the death at all? Here, Hall’s idea
of an accident comes into play. Sup-
pose someone were out with a rifle or a
shotgun in that adjacent field, and sup-
pose they saw a large black crow
perched on a white gate: they fire at it,
and hit the bird, but at precisely that
moment, a girl on a bicycle appears in
the gateway, and is tragically hit by the
same fatal shot. The distance involved
would explain the nature of the wound,
and why the bullet travelled no further.
The man, whoever he was, then rushes
away across country as fast as he can,
is seen by no one, and never comes
forward. Far-fetched? Perhaps, but not
impossible. On the other hand later in-
vestigators managed to unearth some
stories about Ronald Light which sug-
gested that he was definitely a misfit,
and may have had some dark secrets in
its his life. But a misfit is not therefore
a murderer, and the fact is that no evi-
dence was found to connect Light with
Bella’s death.
If we accept the verdict of the jury – as
perhaps we should – the green bicycle
murder is no nearer a solution now than
it was when Light’s trial ended, and it
probably never will be. The homely
detail of the bicycle, rarely in its his-
tory associated with murder, contrasts
with the macabre puzzle of the bird
gorged with blood – if indeed it had
anything to do with the case at all. The
lanes east of Leicester are less lonely
now than they were, but the memory of
these events is still alive in those vil-
lages, and many people have made the
journey from Gaulby to Stoughton,
following in the footsteps of Bella
Wright and the man with the green bi-
cycle, and wondering who he was – if
he was not Ronald Light – and what
really passed between them.
Peter Whitfield
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 15
Wanted … information
leading to the apprehension
of Annie Bella Wright’s
murder.
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 16
Frankly Franklin's
unexpected trip to the seaside
resulted in a welcome
encounter and provided the
inspiration (and facts) for
this Christmas story.
Those of you who have read
Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas
Goes on Holiday will already know
that during his summer break he likes
to take well deserved jaunts to exotic
places such as France and Las Vegas.
This year Rudolph, Prancer, Vixen,
Blitzen et al towed his ubiquitous
holiday home to The Beach
somewhere down in the South of
Thailand where I found him after
having got lost on a club run 1200
miles north of the same country.
'I'm sure Chiang Mai is somewhere
around here, after all I have been
riding for 12 hours or so' I thought to
myself. Problem with living in this
country is that if you get lost and don't
speak the lingo, there is absolutely no
way that you can communicate with
the locals. You just have to keep
pedalling. And keep pedalling I did.
Mind you, it was really very nice to
see the seaside. I've been surrounded
by mountains and paddy fields for far
too long and the air fare from here to
the southern islands is a bit steep. I
kept on riding at my usual time trial
pace (something around 15mph),
rounded a corner and lo and behold I
came across a wonderful sandy beach,
not too crowded but populated with
bright red fat tourists, wunderkids in
bikinis and an assortment of local
traders offering them battered prawns,
leg massage, wooden croaking frogs
and in a few cases what is
euphemistically known as
‘friendship’.
This was the place to resolve my
dilemma and find out how to get
home. I found this lovely couple
roasting themselves under the burning
sun: “Excuse me”, I said, “Could you
tell me the way to Chiang Mai?”
“Жаль, я не говорю на тайском
языке, спрашиваю кого - то еще Вы
дурак,” came the reply.
I tried asking another sun-baked
tourist: “Schade, ich spreche Thai
nicht, frage jemanden anderen Sie
Irrer.” I tried again: “Ci dispiace, non
parlo thai, chiedere a qualcun altro è
pazzo”, she answered. I carried on like
this for some considerable time.
Ukrainians, Spaniards, Germans and
Italians - The Beach was full of them,
but there wasn't one English speaker
amongst them. “Wir haben die
Engländer anderswohin gesandt, weil
sie alle Liegestühle monopolisieren”, a
German sunbather explained. 'Ahh', I
thought, 'so that's why there are no
British sunbathers here!'
Of course, once you have this problem,
there is nothing to do but wander along
the coastal roads, buy an ice cream or
two, eat the odd plate of noodles, ring
home and explain to the Mrs why you'll
be late for tea.
I continued, up a slight hill, a bit more
climbing and then I was able to look
down into these little coves, lonely
deserted beaches with palm trees gently
swaying in the seaside breeze.
Rounding the next bend, there was this
little footpath which wended its way
back onto a beach - just about rideable
on my GP4000s and it looked very
inviting. So down I went.
Now all of you out there whose Sunday
club runs are confined to traffic laden
roads in temperatures as low as or
below nought degrees, should by now
be feeling a little jealous (especially at
this time of the year when the roads are
too icy to ride on anyway). That's the
idea, but sit back and relax as there is
more to come!
Indeed there was more to come! I
parked my bike in the shade of a
coconut tree, removed my Specialized
shoes and socks and ventured onto the
smooth and beautiful sand. As I did so
I caught site of just one person in the
whole of this cove. He walked towards
me, and as he got closer I thought that I
recognised this portly fellow with what
seemed like ice cream or sea foam
around his face. And then, when he was
just three metres away I thought, 'Yes!
I know who this is …… it can't be
………… but it is! It's got to be …….'
“Hello” I said, “Haven't we met
before?”
“I think no” he replied in heavily
accented English.
“Yes we have”, I said, and then
explained “You used to have a job in
Trinder's toy shop every December. I
sat on your knee once and asked you if
I could have a bicycle for Christmas.
But all I got was a lump of ice.”
A Peek into Santa’s
Musette
Raymond Briggs’
Father Christmas goes
on Holiday (right) ...
like it says on the tin!
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 17
At this he looked very uncomfortable.
“Deed you? Waz that at Twinder’s in,
now let me see, in ninety fiftee ate in a
place called Fakestone?”
“Yes, yes” I replied “But I never
understood why all I got that
Christmas was an icicle. After all, I
hadn't been that naughty during the
preceding year.”
“Ah, yes.” He thought for a minute and
then said “I remember now, I thought
you said 'icicle'. I could not have 'eard
the 'B' - so it was a Bicicle you wanted,
hein? But how was the icicle?”
“My mother always told me that I
should never look a gift horse in the
mouth, but I must tell you that the
bloody thing melted!”
“Never matter” he said “I am sure you
'ave 'ad many bicicles since then!”
Well, this little exchange proved that
the person in front of me was indeed
Santa and not just some escapee from a
fancy dress party. He had a long white
beard, kindly eyes, a blue and white
striped long sleeve t-shirt and the
largest pair of red and white spotted
shorts that you've ever seen. In fact, he
was straight out of Briggs' book. It was
him, no doubt!
He sat on the sand next to me and was
clearly a little lonely. I had the distinct
impression that my company was
welcome and that he was up for a chat.
What a great opportunity to delve into
the hidden secrets of Santa world. “I
was wondering” I said to him “how
you manage to carry all the presents
for everyone in the world in such a
small sack.”
“It eez wun of Santa's little see crets”,
he answered.
“But … it's not only the sheer volume
of toys and bits that you deliver, it's the
whole world you have to speed round.
In such a short time too!”
“You are a bi cyclist, hein? You are
understood about speed. Ullrich,
Schumacher, Pantani, Virenque - all
zees people ride the cycable so much
fartster than you, right? You must ask
zem ze question same answer!”
“I would really like to know more” I
said.
“Veree vell zen”, he replied “I vould
like you to fellow me. Iz zat good?”
Well, follow him I did. We walked up
the beach until we saw a group of
reindeers munching seaweed at the
water's edge and just behind them a
kind of old-fashioned caravan (see
Raymond Briggs' book for a good
artists' impression). It was red with a
little chimney stack sticking up at the
back. There were harnesses at the front
and I guessed that these were to enable
the reindeers to pull this contraption
through the sky.
“I vould much like you to come into
my leetle 'ouse ere and see my sack.”
I did as I was bid and followed him up
the crinkly steps into the caravan. I was
a bit nervous here because it is a bit
dodgy going into some lonely old guy's
caravan on a deserted beach - so if
there are any juniors or juveniles
reading this, be very very careful. None
of my actions should be copied by you.
Ok? [Inserted at the request of the
health and safety department, Planet X,
up north somewhere.]
But his next move made me even more
nervous. “Now poot your 'ead in the
sack, pleeze.” Now if he hadn't said
'please' I definitely would not have
done it. As soon as I bent over with my
head in the sack he gave me a ruddy
great shove with his black boot and I
went whirling and swirling downwards
into a huge and different world full of
toys and presents and little elves
running about. 'So that's the answer', I
thought 'It's just like the wardrobe in
Narnia - you disappear into the sack
and emerge in an entirely different
place. Magic Santa, indeed!'
Once I had settled down, got my
bearings and overcome the shock of
being booted up the behind by Santa, I
started to enjoy what I could see. What
was interesting was looking at the
labels and seeing just which presents
were going where. Obviously I could
get some insight into what people like
To55er were going to receive this
coming Christmas and I found some
interesting stuff. If you see him, don't
tell him, but I think he's getting some
go faster stripes for his old skool bike.
Cavendish? They've only gone and
got him a school cap and a school
uniform with short trousers (well,
we're not used to school kids winning
the Milan-San Remo, are we?). What
else did I find … ah yes! Here's one
for Dave Lloyd. It's a book called
How to Write an Autobiography.
Hutchinson? A training programme
and a can of Guinness to help him get
the 25 record next season. That's
appropriate. Dave Loughran: a bag
full of money to add to his already
considerable wealth. Gordon Brown:
a rubber duck (…… must be for a
different person of the same name).
Now here's an interesting one: a Tour
de France game for Ken Livingstone
(must be getting into cycling);
Bradley Wiggins: a lassoo to attach
himself to Cancellara next time he
comes whizzing past. And so on ……
oh yes me? A map of Thailand so I
can get back to Chiang Mai (a bit late,
I think). But I won't give all the
secrets away, you'll know soon
enough.
And then I found about fifteen
hippopotamuses milling about in a
corner. Each had labels carrying the
name of a professional racing cyclist.
“I wonder what they're for?” I asked
myself. I stored that one up for later.
All of a sudden I emerged from this
world sooner than I expected. I
suddenly felt this force that dragged
me spiralling upwards until, emerging
from the sack, I found myself back in
Santa's little caravan, in a cove, on a
beach, in Thailand.
“Wow!” I said “That was very very
interesting, but why did you get all of
these hippos for those cyclists.”
“Yes, I woz wunderin' zat my shelf”,
he said “But I can tell that eech of
zees cycling persons, when zey sat on
my knee zey asked for an eepo. So if
zat is wot zey want, zey can 'ave a
leetle eepo, hein?”
Ian Franklin
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 18
Which female time
triallist from Yorkshire
won national
championships over a
30 year period,
represented her country
in European and World
road races, yet never
got to go to the
Olympics? Yes Beryl
Burton, but there’s
another person too,
often overlooked and
always understated—
the lovely Margaret
Allen. Sue Fenwick
caught up with our
other Fast Yorkshire
Lady.
Margaret’s first national
championship medal was
silver in the 1964 ‘100’ won
by Beryl. From 1983-1993
she won individual and team
golds at every distance:
individual BAR in 87 and 88, ‘100’ in
89 and 91, ‘50’ in 88, ‘25’ in 88m ‘10’
in 90, team ‘100’ in 83, 84, 86, 87, 88,
89 and 92, team ‘50’ in 84 and 85,
team ‘25’ in 89 and 93, and team ‘10’
in 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92 and
93. Many of her 1980s team rides were
done with her sisters Maureen Pearson
and Katherine Mitchell and her 1990s
rides done with her daughter Katie
(1998 BAR).
Her fondest timetrialling memory
though was the day in September
1987 on the E72 where she recorded
54.00. “I was catching the men in front
of me, knew I was on a ride. Everyone
in the laybys was standing, looking
shocked as I went by. Just before the
finish, there’s a tricky bend where you
got disqualified if you crossed the
white line, so I took it steady. Team
mate Debbie Pearson asked what I’d
done, she swore when I told her I
thought I’d done a 54, then she stood by
the result board waiting. When the time
came up she screamed, swore again,
shouted “You’ve done a 54 dead!” and
threw her arms round me. It was the
second-fastest-ever 25 by a woman,
done on a roadbike too, no tribars or
discs.”
Born to cycling parents, and with a
famous cycling uncle, Eddie Larkin,
who was set to represent Britain at
Olympic level until the outbreak of
WWII, Margaret was destined to be a
cyclist, her early years spent on
clubruns and youth hostelling.
“There was no track scene near us, only
5 or 6 road races per year and not too
many time trials so it was about riding
your bike, not racing. The season was
much shorter and the working week
longer—5.5 days and 50 hours.”
In common with Beryl, Margaret
suffered a serious health setback in
childhood—she unknowingly dislocated
her hip in a road accident, carried on
cycling but limped when walking, was
eventually hospitalised and put into
traction for 12 months, celebrating her
13th birthday in hospital.
“That’s why my back is so strong – a
year spent with a 16lb weight hanging
off the end of each foot”. In 1964 she
attended national squad selection trials
at Loughborough and although she
wasn’t picked, the coaches remembered
her having the strongest back out of all
the men and women from her session on
the back strength apparatus.
Margaret starting one of the National Championships she rode in the
early 80s. Photo courtesy of a fan :-)
Sue Fenwick tracks down …
MARGARET ALLEN
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 19
Margaret found another route to
international honours – piloting for
blind stokers in tandem road races and
track pursuits. Partnering Elspeth
Brown, she represented Britain in
European and World disabled cycling
road and track championships from
1988-91. They were selected to
represent Britain at the 1992 Barcelona
Paralympics but the events were
cancelled due to too few entries. A
second chance came in 1996 with the
Atlanta Paralympics but again, things
didn’t work out well.
“I was so tired. We were training at
Manchester track. That style of training
didn’t suit me, and the two hour
journey each way on top wore me out. I
was on the downhill slope of my racing
career too.”
“However I’m proud that we did
pioneer cycling for ladies Paralympics.
One of my best memories is a 2-day
international tandem blind roadrace in
France, all-male, all-female and mixed
tandems in one event. The atmosphere
was fantastic. All the documents in
French, I read them out, Elspeth
translated. We won an outstanding
riders award for finishing consistently
high up across the three events: two 40
mile road races and a 20 mile pro-
logue.”
“Another memory was a Belgian road
race and afterwards a mixed shower
block where the men took very long
showers so they could see all the
women. We waited and waited but still
they stayed. I was embarrassed so in
the end, shut my eyes and kept them
closed, so neither Elspeth nor I saw
anything we didn’t want to see!”
“Spending time with Elspeth was
special. When all your senses work,
you take your senses for granted, but
take one away and life becomes very
different. Elspeth has learnt to live with
her disability. It’s a shame more able-
bodied people can’t see past a person’s
appearance or disability to see the
person underneath.”
What sort of training leads a rider to
both short and long distance honours?
“We never called it training. We just
rode our bikes. An average of 250 miles
a week. Now I’d be pushed to fit in 100
a week! Maureen and I ran a part-time
business together. On Mondays we
would do a 50 mile loop. Our parents
had a caravan at Mablethorpe, 96 miles
each way, they’d drive down with the
children at weekends, we’d cycle.
Never cycled in the dark except to club
night. When racing came, weather
warmed up so we’d go faster. I always
spun a 59” gear and when my four
children were young, I spent years
cycling with them on the back of a
tandem or in a trailer. Gives you strong
legs! During winter I used to run and
do circuit training too, keeps the fitness
up, rests the cycling muscles and works
other muscles.”
“Today I do a spinning class once a
week and mainly ride tandem with my
husband Graham. Maureen has a boat in
Portugal so we’ve just had a month out
there of riding solos. It’s good to get up
a hill by my own efforts again. I even
wondered briefly if I should start racing
again in 2010!”
Whether or not we ever see Margaret
racing again, the Allen dynasty is far
from over. Daughter Katie and her
husband Chris have just celebrated
the arrival of their daughter, born on
Armistice Day 2009, so in about 18
years’ time, if you read a start sheet
and see a rider with first name “Ella
Poppy”, you’ll know the Allen story
continues.
The grey column:
Where you could input. Still no
more unsung heroes … surely
Gordon’s not the only one? Who’s
yours? Tell us on
Who’s hot in the world of domestic
time trialling? It’s winter out there
… ok?
Who’s not hot in the world of
domestic time trialling? Anyone
who’s out there training in the cold.
Coming soon:
www.thetestingtimes.co.uk/
http://tt-weekly.com/index.htm
There was a time when Christmas
cycling activities were social gatherings
in country hostelries. Ghost stories
were told around a log fire and everyone
rode home, with blobs of white dynamo
light on the trees, leaving wheelmarks in
the snow.
Not any more they don’t, for Christmas
has become very competitive in recent
years. If the three Wise Men came now
they would be lined out into the wind
and in the spirit of the manger there
would be some subtle robe-pulling.
The longer racing season, basic winter
miles, cyclo-cross, Christmas time trials
and road events take us through the
festive season with limited opportunity
for protracted celebrating. Oh, yes,
there are still the odd spectacular
binges, but it doesn’t amount to a full
scale Yuletide like they used to make.
Now the suffering and enjoyment are so
close together you can’t see the join.
If you are the new competitive breed
you will not want vital energy sapped
before Christmas For example,
shopping is very laborious and heavy
work, rally painful to the calves, and
should be left to the wife, girl friend or
mum. By all means make a list for your
shopper, but don’t be too fussy, because
whatever you send people they will
already have three of them. Really, the
whole swop around is only a means of
exchanging paper and string.
At the same time, remember your tame
shopper is likely to be in the big league
as far as buying you a present is
concerned, so broad hints about
needing tubulars should hit the target.
If the girl friend is a new acquisition,
then show her a tubular, because
otherwise you may well get a couple of
small-wheel inner tubes.
This pre-Yuletide period is also that in
which the decorations are put up, so
again, a little task for the ladies.
However, if trapped into the job, then
bring back one of those synthetic silver
ones that fit in a cylinder and can be
rooted out of the roof for years.
Enquire when the tree and room are
being decorated and ensure you are out
that evening. If all deceit fails and you
are cornered into helping, then my tip
is watch out for glass balls. They roll
about all over the place, and if you
jump off a chair on to one in your
stockinged feet, then you could be out
of the game until the following
September.
In fact, chair-climbing to put paper
chains up is too much for the dedicated
thoroughbred thighs of a cyclist. That
also goes for getting them down, when
in addition to your gear-changing
fingers will be cut and bleeding from
prising out drawing pins.
Avoid small bulbous tree lights, for
they never work and can absorb three
valuable training nights. Fool with
these and you can black out half the
Mick Gambling contributed
around 5000 articles, race
reports, interviews etc for
Cycling Weekly, formerly
Cycling. They encompassed a
40-year period, 1965 to 2004
and half that period, to 1985,
included light-hearted pieces.
Many were topical for the
period, although some are still
relevant to the present time. A
taste of these will be produced
on a regular basis. Mick is
still alive and pedaling in
Norfolk.
GAMBLING … on surviving
Christmas county. Even worse, they could fuse
you permanently to the national grid.
There is a tendency for relations to
assume that because you’re an athlete
you are just the chap for blowing up
balloons. What they don’t appreciate is
that gasping for air in a race is
completely opposite to repeatedly
emptying lungs into rubber bags until
they become transparent. You will
probably get a wicked headache, a
hacking cough and shell-shock from
having balloons exploding up your
nose. For every ten balloons your
racing career will be shortened by a
season.
The adroit racing man will also avoid
the nervous tension and painful piggy-
backing of children’s parties. These
are the functions in which ceilings are
covered in jelly and kids are sick on the
carpet. Unless you hide everything
they will pocket your medals, put jam
on your tourist trial certificates and get
into the cycle shed. A trained
mechanic could not remedy in a month
the damage a small boy can do in five
minutes.
Adult parties are also dangerous for the
competitive type, because you can get
the wrong side of too much alcohol just
keeping up with the others, which
means you’ll do a personal worst in
that important race. Office and works
parties are also tricky because that pert
little typist looks even better under the
mistletoe or in what little light gets into
the brush cupboard. Very nice at the
time, but just as you are leaving for the
Christmas ‘10’ a big bloke will come to
the door and punch your face in.
Christmas is supposed to be when
families get together. It is also when
relatives talk about other relatives
unable to be present. Try some cycling
talk and you will just get a huge pool of
silence. Just when you want to get into
an aggressive Engers mood for a race
the jolly kinsfolk will be working
relays on the conversation with the
latest news of their bad backs and
weight problems.
You may feel all my gratuitous advice
is out of keeping with your proper
seasonal spirit. If so, I’ll see you down
the pub.
Santa beat Gambling in the
sprint by this much!
Happy Christmas.
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 20
Buoyed by the success of the
2009 Series (and the fact that
it’s front-man Ian Cammish
was unable to off-load his
white Guerciotti on ebay), the
Old Skool committee is
pleased to announce a further
Series for 2010. Bearing in
mind most riders found riding
25 miles ‘old skool’ too bloody
hard, changes will be made to
lessen the likelihood that any
serious injury is going to be
inflicted on any of the old fo-
gies taking part.
Long negotiations have been taking
place nationwide with organisers of
some of the country’s most prestigious
time trials in an effort to draw up a list
of suitable events. Finally, the select
five were announced at a recent press
launch which was hosted by Ian
Cammish in his front room one evening
while his wife was out with her lady
friends fleecing their husbands’ bank
accounts doing late night Christmas
shopping at Cambridge’s Grand
Arcade.
The real ‘biggy’ of the series will
undoubtedly be Team Sanjan’s hosting
of the inaugural Old Skool National 10
mile championship held in virtually
THE events for 2010 … be there AND be square!
Good Friday 2 Apr City RC Hull 10 V178
Sat 24 April Bath CC 10 U47
Sat 1 May Cambridge CC 10 F2D/10
Sat 12 Aug Team Sanjan “Old Skool National Championship 10” F2A/10
Sat 25 Sept Wrekinsport “Revenge / grudge match 10 for failed National Championship
Contenders” K52/10
PLANET X OLD SKOOL SERIES
… 2010
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 21
Cammish’s back–garden on the
superfast F2A/10 course. If he fails to
pull off a win in that, he hopes to be
able to influence Dave Poulter (of the
Wrekinsport CC) into swinging the
results in his favour in (what WILL be)
a much hyped-up revenge match in
September.
Colin ‘the Power’
Parkinson (left) took
the time trial world
by storm during
2009 by thrashing
the country’s leading
Old Skoolers into the
ground. He’s since
gone on to make a
successful career out
of advertising and
endorsements.
Whether or not he
can be ar5ed to
return for more of
the same in 2010
remains to be seen.
Photo courtesy of
Mike Anton
Bradley Johnston emerges from
the doom and gloom of a mid-winter’s
afternoon in Doncaster at the Planet X
Carcroft warehouse in little more than a
bright yellow pair of football shorts, a
skimpy black footie top, a big broad
smile and a ’cheap-as-chips’ David
Dickinson suntan to ask if Planet X is
having a road team for 2010.
Excitement all round as Dave suggests
there maybe a place available in a new
team being formed by (amongst
others….sshhhh!) Cherie Pridham ...
nudge nudge wink wink! Cammish is
aroused (unusual at his time of life) as
Dave reads through Bradley's cycling
CV. “Weaknesses...sprinting? No
problem ... you can lead out Cammish.
Just get him to 100 metres to go and
your job’s done … the race is won.
Isn’t that right Cammish? Anyone see
where Cammish went?”
The MoD at war! Not enough troops in
Iraq. Too few helicopters. And now
one of Gordon Brown’s closest
confidants retires after 33 years service
citing “irreconcilable differences” as
his reason to jump ship. This will
undoubtedly leave the MoD in really
deep poo. But just who is it? ;-)
More titter! The fastest Customer
Service team in the industry...surely?
Ian Cammish and Ray Eden are
rumoured to be heading up Planet X’s
customer service team in 2010. Eden is
reported to be eagerly looking forward
to 69 sessions in an evening
(presumably these will be fitting
sessions?) while Cammish has his eyes
firmly set on Planet Xs record for
answering as many email enquiries as
possible in a day. He’s started as he
means to go on with monosyllabic
answers (… erm … like ‘yes’ and ‘no’)
irrespective of the complexity of the
enquiry. God help Planet X and its
customers.
… and … which ‘has-been’ yearning
for the long lost glory days of old is
now training full-time in his bid to turn
back the clock? Marathon training
sessions with sparring partner
23minman have started … updates to
be found on the TT Forum!
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 22
THE TT CHARITY FUND’S
CALENDAR IS GOING FAST!
The first run of 500 of is almost sold out … but the next
order is on its way. Oder now in time for Christmas.
A copy signed by all the lovely ladies...and not so lovely
men...will shortly be auctioned on ebay with the winning
bid going to the charities. Keep your eyes open here
http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/
To order your copy contact:
or
… only a fiver!
Planet X and Testing Times enjoy
a little titter
titter
titter
titter
titter
Now a fixed wheel stalwart
answers a few questions. This
ex-Bournemouth Jubilee
Wheeler was the terror of
Ringwood in the 70’s. He is
none other than Nick Frewin
who many may remember from
his DQ at the 1979 ‘25’
National Championships when
seeded and a favourite for a
medal. He came to the start
line without his lock ring
would you believe! Thanks to
the Legends Thread on the TT
forum he came out of hiding
and has made a recent
comeback, once again on a
trusty fixed wheel machine.
He says he will give it a
serious go next year even if
he’s moved up ‘norf’. We say
good luck to you Nick - Old
Skool would be game on for
you!
Full name? Nick Frewin despite what
my Mum thinks - don't know why but
she thinks my name is Nicholas. I used
to get called Nicky by Bill McMullen,
long time president of BJW.
Height? 6' 2"
Weight? Around 13st at present.
Place of residence? Sheffield now, I
ended up here in a round about way,
but mainly due to work.
Current club? JE James RT. I ride
for them mainly cos I've bought most
of my new equipment from them. Still
might rejoin BJW, but being with JE
James means I should be able to get on
to the V718 easier!
Most memorable moment? 3 things
here - 1. Being part of the most
important 25 ever.... Alf's 49 on E72; 2.
Getting stopped from riding the 79
National 25 due to not having a lock
ring fitted to the sprocket of my fixed
machine; and 3. Going under in the ‘79
Crabwood medium Gear 25 - 59:18 to
Tony Doyle's 58:44 and thereafter
being on chatting terms with a World
Champion.
Most embarrassing moment? Same
as no 2 above. Getting a start number
of 90 in a National (when the National
field was still only 120), being
mentioned in the pre-race article in the
comic as a contender, and then not
even being allowed to turn a pedal
having driven 150-odd miles to get
there.
Who was your boyhood hero? My
dad, I used to like to look at the few
photos he had of himself when he was
racing at Herne Hill. And of course
Eddy Merckx, still in my opinion the
best ever.
Biggest influence on your career?
There are a few, Eddy Merckx as
already mentioned, but also within the
Jubilee, 'Atty' (ie George
Attenborough), one of those stalwart,
rock steady, totally dependable
clubmen and William Suttie, who was
my best mate and a fast junior when I
started. Getting to be good enough to
beat him was my objective for the first
couple of years.
Campagnolo or Shimano? Definitely Campag in the 70s/80s. No
preference now, very little these days
has the beauty of the original Campag
Nuovo Record rear mech.
Favourite musical group or singer?
Pink Floyd and Christina Aguilera
Educational attainment 5 GCEs
What’s the most trouble you have
gotten into? Never really got into
trouble!!
Pet hates? Germans, Americans and
Australians.... order variable depending
on what's happening at the time. And
dickhead drivers!!
Your best achievement is? 59:18 on
a medium gear.
Current job? Higher Executive
Officer with a Govt Department.
Current make of car Nissan Qashqai
Married or single? Married
Best TV show? Heroes or anything
on Eurosport.
Best film? Top Gun
THE EX-TERROR OF
RINGWOOD TAKES TIME OUT
WITH NOB’S Q & A SESSION
Nick in a Gentleman’s 2up
with his dad from 1978
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 23
Favourite actor and actress Long
time favourite is Erica Eleniak... people
will have to Google her... but a few
clues Baywatch and Under Siege. But
she'd have to fight Lindsay Lohan for
me. Not got a favourite actor..........
just as well you're not asking the
Missus this question, there wouldn't be
room in one addition of Testing Times.
Favourite drink? Grolsch
Favourite food? Pizza
Which country would you most like
to visit? Japan
Is there anything you would change
throughout your cycling career? Despite having some talent at TTs my
love was probably track racing. My
ultimate would have been to be a 6 day
rider. Unfortunately, living in
Bournemouth there was no opportunity
to really give the track a go. We had
Poole Track League which was a
circular path round a cricket pitch, or
Southampton 30 mile away, which was
at least track shaped but with a very
shallow banking. We also had Calshot
for winter training. There was no
league like there is now.... so there was
no chance of progressing on the track
without moving away, and that just
didn't happen in those days. I really am
envious of the current set up with the
BC Academy for up and coming riders.
Favourite piece of cycling kit you'd
like to own or own? My Roy Thame
track frame, which did come out to
play this year and got me a 22,
although it is way too big by today's
standards.
Favourite Time Trial Course and
why? P201... because it was my local
course and where I had my greatest
successes. Also the H1, because of the
nostalgia that went with it. How many
great riders will have lined up to start
in Pangbourne Lane?
What advice can you give to up and
coming cyclists? Set yourself targets
with rewards to go with achieving
those targets, e.g. new bits of kit.
10 years from now you will be…? No idea........ Retired and hopefully
riding my bike. After my recent
incident with a car, I’ve yet to get on
my bike again, even on rollers or the
turbo.
What can’t you live without? Tootifrewti.......... errrrr that's Mrs
Frewin when on the time trialling
forum.
What other interests do you have? How much paper have you got .........?
Bonsais, flying model gliders..... and
more recently a rekindling of my
enjoyment of sailing since me and
Helen... (That’s yet another name
that Mrs Frewin uses) bought a small
yacht on Derwent Water in the Lakes.
Who would you share a desert island
with if marooned and why? Tootifrewti... cos she's my soul
mate........... but I'd have to hide Vicky
Pendleton in a palm tree somewhere.
Favourite clothing material (PVC,
Lycra, wool etc..) Lycra....... women
cyclists in Lycra … mmmmmmmmm.
Thank you Nic for being so candid and
wish you success in 2010.
May I wish all our readers and our
Editorial Team and Contributors a very
Merry Christmas and Happy New
Year. I hope my small articles have
been entertaining and that Lord
Cammish has been pleased with my
efforts on nearly 1 year of Testing
Times.
Sir Nob of Two Ghiblis
Nick riding a Kiveton Park Evening 10 during 2009
SEE MORE AT WWW.PLANET-X-BIKES.COM PAGE 24