English
Swedish Spaceman to fly the Rocket
When they started talking about the relative merits of welding an 60mm aero tube at the tapered side to avoid the flex associated with lateral forces, I knew it was probably time to slowly shuffle away and make the coffee.
After months of delicate negotiation, Super Swede and winner of the Paris-Roubaix race was deep in thought and discussion with master frame builder Terry Dolan over how the front end of Rocket 2 should be built. At 6’4″ Magnus Backstedt is one of the biggest and most powerfully built riders to grace the professional peloton over the last decade and perfectly suited to an attack on the RRA 25 mile record.
I say that because the RRA 25 is straight out record. It’s the oldest, most prestigious and best established of all the world’s 25mile records and it’s also extremely fast, The current record stands at 41’04″ and it doesn’t take a genius to work out that you really have to motor to take this record. It does have some advantages over other records however, namely; the rules on how your bike is set up are vastly different and in many ways more forward thinking than the UCI regulations and most importantly as long as you can get the observers to agree the start position, stop position and distance of your course you can attempt it anywhere in the UK that you desire.
Which of course means only one type of route is acceptable…..downhill.
For the first time since the failed attempt at the side-to-side record in August last year the vast majority of the team descended on Ormskirk and the Dolan factory to meet up, welcome Maggy and talk through the practicalities of a record run on one of four potential routes, in either June or August depending on the weather, which as usual will play a vital role.
Jeff and Suze will once again take care of the mechanics and are mightily pleased that whilst we will still be running our innovative Hope disc braking system on the front of Rocket 2, the rear braking will be done by normal cable operated caliper, allowing a disc wheel to be easily slotted in and out of the frame. Stephen will again take care of the mapping and course plotting, a job in which I am sure he would get down and study the tarmac with microscope if he had the time, Peta will take care of the athletes legs and I have the dubious task of just hanging on and pedalling like fury.
For such a speed record the normal chainrings simply don’t come big enough so we are honoured that Rotor and British Company Fibre-Lyte have agreed to work together to produce massively oversized carbon Q-Rings, a world first.
The most interesting idea to come out of the discussions were those concerning position. As you will be aware Maggy has been tweaking my position over the last month and now I see why. The Swede is aiming to use 3T bars that stretch him out in almost the Obree superman position whilst behind, I will be crammed in the width of his body by adopting the even earlier Obree tuck position. That, at least, is the theory and we won’t really know how well it works until the frame is complete and we are both sat on it.
We can only assume that the meeting and the subsequent meal with Magnus UK Youth team provided some inspiration as James Stewart went out today and won the 50th anniversary Eddie Soen’s at Aintree!
Ride Safe
DH
Follow Team Wiggle Tandem on the Wiggle Athlete‟s Diary www.wiggleblog.com
Or at the team‟s website, www.teamwiggletandem.com
