New Carlton Thread

I'm still calling 8u11$h!+ on you riding up a 25% gradient in a 42 x 21. We need visual proof the gradient in question. How long is it?

Not long - 100 metres or parhaps a little more. Its the steepest road in Worcester. I try to mount it a couple of times a week.

It is the road that runs parallel to Rainbow Hill at the back of the parcel of land that now has many flats on it, but which once was the garden of the house called Marl Bank, which Edward Elgar lived in from 1926 till 1934.

When I first attempted it I was on the Peugeot, which was geared as 39 over 24. I managed it just. Then I attacked it on the Carlton and it perilously close to stalling with the gearing 42 over 24. Then the Carlton went out of use for several months, and I bought the three speed Elswick which has theSturmey Archer "AW" three speed hub and the gearing on low is rather high. I stalled several times. But one day I got there, and so made a practice of two or three times a week attacking it till I got surprisingly good. Sort of like weight training.

Then came the Carlton back in one piece and a featherweight beside the Eslwick. I attacked it, and was surprised how bloody hard work it was, considering, and then I realised that the rear derailleur had not engagaed the 24 tooth cog, but only the 21 tooth sprocket next to it! But it was a sort of determined effort not to be beaten. and I was jiggered at the top. So more practice, and last time I was quite pleased not not be done in by it. Its called practice. Nothing more or less than sheer determination. When I realised that I had done it with 42 over 21, obviously pride meant that I must never again use the 42 over 24 cogs! Unless I was already knackered at the bottom. Bear in mind that the cycle weighs a few grams shy of ten kg with all the legal lights and reflectors, and I weigh 67 kg, so not a huge mass to move in converting my body's energy into Potential energy via Kinetic. I dare say a heavier rider would have a less enjoyable time.

It is my sheer lack of a big boned frame - I am politely called five foot six - that probably would have mitigated against me ever making a real fist of competing on a cycle in my younger days [and my total lack of wish to compete against any but my own previous best],  just as it did when I used to row - a waste of time to have me in the team for my relative lack of reach, though I loved it. I was all the same too large to cox ...

Also I will say that the moustashe handle bar allows a much more powerful riding position than a drop bar or even a flat bar, because the tails are very close to the knees when leaning very foward on a severe up-gradient. Indeed I think I may need to get a better stem as it I could hear it creaking last time as I was levering myself against it..

ATB from George

Somehow I doubt it!

ATB from George

Landsdowne Walk?

Yep, that's it.

I'm looking at the photos on Google street view. Assuming the bricks in the wall are laying horizontal, the grade looks about 1:8 to me. Still steep, for sure.

It's more than one in eight. Perhaps it's one five, but not bad for an old timer on an old time bike! Hey, better get yourself over to the UK and we can each test our best machine with a good witness!

I do know a real footpath with a stair right by the tarmac that is worse than one in four. I have done that one regularly on the Carlton on 42 over 24! I could never quite manage it if I had had a pint first! Back of the Evening News printworks. Trouble is that you need to mount a three inch step at the bottom, and so not attempted since the new wheels were built!

Only about twenty yards that one, but plenty of time to stall as you cannot get a run at it. Mind you you can't get a run at Landsdowne!

ATB from George

On the Polar Bear thread, Hook wrote :

George - I know how much you are enjoying your Carlton, and I do not want to be a downer here.  Am sure your athleticism, and your attention to detail, will minimize your chances of serious injury in an accident.   But as you seem like a good chap, and as I would hate to see the forum loose your contributions, please do continue to take care!

Hook

I thought my reply would be more correctly answered on a thread of less general interest,  and pertaining to the point of this thread as much as the Polar Bear thread. Though the point about personal risk taking is tamgentially related to the terrible incident in Norwegian territory for all that.

Dear Hook,

A good friend of mine died in a tragic cycling accident when he was nineteen - we were the same age and had known each other since the age of five. He lost control of his bike in Malvern [having possibly had a brain heamorage] and hit a railway bridge at something like thirty miles an hour. No one else was involved, and one may conclude, wistfully, that "there but for the Grace of God, go I." As for taking reasonable care, I certainly ride in a defensive way. For example if a car is coming up to a road junction and I have priority, I will stop very quickly if the driver has not looked my way ... it's called staying alive. But there is always the unexpected. Always some potentially lethal situation that cannot be foreseen.

But so long as I have the reactions to deal with the road, I'll ride a bike on it. The risk is quite different to driving a car, as a car might be the force that causes death to a cyclist and yet may not even be dented. I don't know of any case where a cyclist has survuved a crash with a car and the driver died as a result ...The greater risk is massively skewed against the cyclist, obviously.

... , but there are risks we take. One that I am trying to avoid is living to the stage of being doubly incontinent and dribbling into my bib. I took up smoking for my thirty fifth birthday in the hopes that it would shorten my life enough to prevent me living into my eighties! I had always enjoyed being round smokers, not least both of my grandfathers, who both died in the mid to late seventies [stroke and leukaemia] , and passed quite quickly long before they mental faculties had declined.

So yes I take a few extra risks because of enjoying the activities themselves, involved in those additional risks, but I would be appalled to think anyone was sorry that I had died as a result! I hope that they would applaud the fact of my enjoying my life as it went along, at least where I have control of it! I hope that they might miss me for a reasonable period, but be only happy to have known me. It is our job in life to be happy and more so to bring happiness to others, which is not possible if we are miserable ourselves. It is not our job to be bogged down by the loss of loved ones. That is the last thing they would have wanted ...

ATB from George

The final cadence on this thread:

My new [well newly rebuilt] Carlton Kermesse, 23 inch framed, Reynolds 501 tubed cycle next to one that looks as almost unaltered from new. Gert Jan's ...

Both go superbly, and we put a few miles [in sun, wind and a little rain] this weekend!

Unimaginable pleasure from old English steel of the greatest finesse. And finesse makes for something no amount of modern technology can match without it ...

ATB from George

Well it was more than a simple mild pleasure to share a ride out on the two old Carltons last weekend, and I learned something from GML/Gert Jan in the process. I must relax and not always push on. Whilst riding in relaxed but positive fashion we managed 53 miles in just over four hours - eight minutes ove! Not bad considering neither of us remotely came close to breaking a sweat. Today I went for a ten mile round the block, in a more relaxed style than I would previously, and enjoyed it far more than "pushing on!"

One is never too old to learn!

ATB from George

The halfway point:

And then auditioned thes "musical angels:"

 You may imagine that 53 - almost 54 -  miles on cycles was well rewarded!

ATB from George

Dear George,

Nothing wrong with 'pushing on'. One of my favourite cyclists from the late eighties, Greg LeMond said, 'It don't get easier, you just go faster'.

I don't normally 'push it' on the Carlton, but enjoy a nice relaxed ride of anything between 20 and 50 miles or so. I like to stop now and then at a picturesque spot or indeed a nice pub. It's never serious when I take the Carlton out.

With my other bike, it's a different story. It's nigh on impossible to ride this one at a leisurely pace as it has the feel of wanting to 'push on'. For speed, agility and lightness it will ride the 501 Carlton into the ground easily. However, if I had to get rid of one of them, I doubt it would be the Carlton.

A snap of my 'Time Edge' carbon fibre bike.

George.

Ah, the Time. And Greg Lemond. Thanks for taking us back. Another beautiful machine taking us forwards.

Dave

A snap of my 'Time Edge' carbon fibre bike.

George.

Dear George,

Do you reckon I could get one in Mid-Brunswick Green?

It's very handsome actually! Best have a go on it next time!

ATB from George

Visiting George was seriously physically demanding. My legs have shrunk to invisible threads and my spine contracted to less than an inch!

Second photo shows the cycle resting in the dry goods warehause at work [as did the first of course].

ATB from George

 You are being very kind George.

If anyone came off physically worse for wear, then it has to be me, although as a sixty year old asthmatic lard arse I'm happy with what I achieve. I didn't trouble the big chain ring that much if you remember, unlike yourself. Individual pedalling cadence preference plays a part here of course, but the amount of time you spent on the big ring was impressive nonetheless.

Happy and safe cycling.

George. 

Dear George,

I was of course leg-pulling! I just threw my cap on the saddle, and thought it looked quite funny like that!

To come over and share my first social cycling since the 1970s was a pleasure unrivalled even by replay of Bach recordings!

As for riding on a big cog, I suppose it is a habit. I used to drive the Volvo 240 like that. A feather throttle - plenty of torque on the engine - and remarkable fuel economy, sometimes even beating 40 mpg on a big and old fashioned car.  

But there is always something to learn, and I have been experimenting with keeping on the small front cog far more, and have found this is rather a good thing! Next time I come over I'll make far more use of the gears rather than sailing around on the top two or three! Mind you the hills round here do require low cogs all too often! 

Have a look on the ESL thread. things are moving along. The room will be ready for the speakers in a few days!

ATB from George

PS: I have realised that I am doing about 400 miles a month at present, which is more than twice what I used to do over the last few years in the late and lamented Volvo. Petrol is horribly expensive!

Well today brought a nice moment with respect to the Carlton. I had to rush down to Worcester Cross [centre, where the banks are] at lunch time to feed a sub into my account so I could cover British Gas the bill for the last quarter [only £62] and I was securing the cycle just outside the Building Society when an old boy came up to me [in full old fashioned cycling regalia] and asked me what the old cycle was. He then almost ignored me, observing the details of setting up and running gear, as I told him it was a Carlton that my friend had bought new and that I was the second owner and had been restoring the cycle to fine condition using good period parts.

His comment was that he'd seen me so many times in Worcester and round about, and had hoped to actually talk to me if the chance arose. His comment was that the cycle would have been his dream machine in his young days, and he was delighted to see a cycle both respected, and clearly so much used and enjoyed!

Well that's the point really. Not a museum piece to put behind glass, but one to use and cherish, and most of all enjoy. He was curious about the Midland Bends handle bar. In his day there was a considerable debate about North Road, Midland Bends, and the [then early pattern modern full drop] Maes bar. The consensus was that the old North Road looked old fashioned [and it is a 1920s idea] but was comfortable, and that the Maes [modern drop] was useless, and that hardly any actually used the Midland Bends! A snobbery thing wrt. to the MB apparently, but his view was that the Midland Bends bar was the most comfortable of all. The difference between North Road and Midland Bends semi drop bars is that the North Road bar has a grip that runs exactly front to back, while the MB bar retains some splay-out in the grip area. He reckoned that my brake lever position was original and better than the old style! In fact it is what Carlton issued 1948 models with when modern brake levers emerged for the Maes bar, and how they placed before later adopting the newly fashionable Maes bar as standard. Clearly there was cycle geekery in the 1950s, just like we have Hifi geekery on our forum today, and it was every bit as intense!

Nice little talk, and even though I was on tight time [lunch] ... more than just worth passing the time of day with a real old timer! This kind of thing really does please me more than being told I should have got a plastic and carbon cycle! And the Brooks is now superb, and shows the slight lack of symetry on my sit-bones now. No plastic saddle could ever emulate that! I have never encountered a sadle remotely as comfortable into its fifth century of miles in four weeks!

ATB from George 

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Yes the insurance settlement has come! 

So that chapter is closed finally after ten months and a few days. Of course I managed to actually get the Carlton back on the road before now, and had a lovely weekend in Norfolk a few weeks ago now, so that nothing is on the horizon for any significant new work on the cycle, though I shall get a second pair of wheels built up [with Ambosio rims again], so that should traditional rims of the first quality either become unavailable or prohibitively expensive,  then I shall have superb spare pair of wheels to replace the newly fitted ones should something ever go wrong. 

But more significantly this means I can afford to live having forward spent some of this money on ESL 57s and a Nait 5i italic! Really there is nothing else I want in life in material terms. Well a decent sofa would be nice, but not essential!

Happy days are here again,

....

ATB from George

Well yesterday, I lost the front tyre on the Carlton - a big split, but hot a blow out - which was repaired with the replacement of the tyre ...

I took the cycle to the guy who built up the wheels, and £9 saw a new tyre fitted. And an hour and half spent chewing the cud, and what I needed tp spend [unlikely!] on a better modern frame ...

And then I had a brilliant, lucid lecture on why the [late] Carlton frame is so responsive - though it looks typiclly classical English road cyle geometry - is not. It has a very close coupling of the back wheel, and rather upright seat tube, a very long top tube and rather abrupt steering tube ..

And a very short steering rake on the forks - all of which is more typicaly of the style of the great Italian frames ...

The result is that is almost oversteers, though I soon got used to that, and is naturally responsive and alive on hills.

I could I save as much as 3 kilos on a modern materials frame amd running gear! Is that worth £1200 plus VAT at 20 pro cent? Probably not!

ATB from George

As the late Autumn, and Winter approach,

I have occasionally used the Elswick as "the commuter" but cannot get away from the fact that the Carlton is more or less twice as fast. Is a pleasant ride, and in an emergency so much more able to get out of the way. Better brakes, and superb balance for changing direction, which is not a strong point on the Elswick with its massive [for a cycle] weight, and totally relaxed steeering geometry.

The Elswick requires the fore-thought of "P4" Rover car, whilst the Carlton has a fleet way that is actually safer ...

Anyway I am certainly notching up the miles on the Carlton. 720 since August Bank Holiday weekend! And mostly in fairly dark, and inclement conditions ...

No doubt the first salt will appear soon, and then the Carlton will rest till the rain has washed it away next year.

ATB from George

AN EXPLOSION!

After a really heavy [rolling resistance related] ride to work this morning, I decided to blow the tyres up a bit on the Elswick before coming home. The pump is is one of those short duplex jobs that can easily do 100 psi, and I must have overdone it. I got home and half an hour later I thought that a firework had exploded above my chimney. No it was the back tyre of the Elswick giving out!

So it's the Carlton in the morning, and a new tube for the Elswick at the weekend. The blast made a five inch  break in the tube ,,,

ATB from George

No flats for me lately (touch wood) but last Friday's bike-commute into work was in a snowstorm. I spent 10 minutes in the parking garage at the office clutching at a hot-water pipe to try to thaw my hands! Since then it has been wet more often than not. Character-building.

Dear winki,

If it would be snowing on the way to work, I would walk it as I am luck that it is just shy of two miles. I admire your strength of will to ride in such horrible conditions. It was lovely to go on the Carlton today, and it was dry, but no frost.  When I am on the Elswick top gear gives a comfortable morning speed of say 12 miles an hour, but the Carlton does 15 to 18 for less effort! I am never at my most energetic in those first few minutes! Coming home is a different matter, and if the mood takes me I go flat out!

Keep well and ride safely! ATB from George

PS: The tyre on the Elswick is also a right off. Damn nuisance!