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Bike Friday tikitTM co-designer Rob English raced his Speeding tikitTM in the Commerce Bank Manayunk Wall Hill Climb + Time Trial in Philadelphia, 2008. So did he have to pedal more? - LC
 Speedy Rob is the first folder up the Wall There was a lot of excitement and curiosity at this first ever sanctioned folding bike classification at a USA Cycling event - Bicycle Musings We've been waiting with bated Vo2Max for news of how Rob fared (no fairing necessary) on his first attempt at two high profile amateur races in Philadelphia: The Commerce Bank Manayunk Wall Hill Climb and flat Time Trial. And here are the results ... Manayunk Wall Hill Climb: Rob clocked 1:35:22, winning the Folder class outright in a field of 16 folders/104 total entrants, only 9 seconds behind the overall winning time of 1:26:21 - achieved in the Senior Men Cat 1/2 category. This was around 9 seconds in front of the nearest folder. What can we say? Folding bikes can really climb! He was beaten by just 11 riders - all on full-sized wheels. See the Hill Climb results Time Trial: there was no specific folder category; Rob competed in the fastest category, Senior Men, Pro/Cat 1/Cat 2 combined, 18 entrants in a field of more than 274. Due to a chain drop which cost him "at least 20 seconds and three places" he clocked 19:52:01, 3 minutes behind the overall winning time of 16:40 (a Cat 3 rider!), and 76th overall. He's itching to have a nother go at it, we hear! See the Time Trial results Round*Up Fast Fold Showdown: In this tongue-in-cheek event won by David Lam on a tikit last year, Rob came a close second, beaten by fractions of a second by an even faster folding folder, a Dahon Jack. See Rob's thrilling report below. Well! Imagine the folding fraternity becoming more and more competitive and aggressive given the above antics. One day we may no longer be able to proclaim "you can't have a big ego when you're riding little wheels". Let's hope it stays warm an d fuzzy and friendly - but fast. All in all, a great show for folderdom, to coin Mike McGet's word of the week. Especially when you consider Rob entered the Time Trial as a Cat 1 (that's fast) AND was recovering from mono. Well done Rob! We know you're champing at the cleat to do it again - and you will ... |
 From Mike McGettigan, Trophy Bikes: When they stuck the times up on the outside of a van, his 1:35 sec. time got lots of wows ... He folded the Speeding tikitTM innumerable times for the cameras and onlookers. Steve Cuomo from Dahon edged Rob in the Round*Up Fast Fold Showdown by 7 tenths of a second. [see last year's showdown] Good news for the folding fraternity: they gave me the mic at the start and there were four Fridays in the hill climb - along with 4 Swifts, 2 Brommies [Bromptons], 2 Dahons, a Bickerton (with bamboo reinforced handlebars!), a Birdy, and a Wal-Mart Schwinn-badged folder. Channel 6 shot lots of film of the hill climb and ran a 2-min piece about Trophy, folders and city biking, and every day had lots of people and action. |
Thursday 5th June - the Hill Climb Two flights later and three hours lost to the time difference and I landed in Philly a little before midnight. David Seidman, a Bike Friday customer who rode his Pocket Rocket across the country in 2004 (the year after me!), had very kindly offered to put me up, and was there to pick me up in a 'Philly Car Share' Prius. Despite it being late, we went on a quick tour so I could see where the hillclimb and time trial courses were, before we headed home and I eventually got to bed sometime after 2am. |
I eventually got up and found food before making my way over to visit Michael McGettingan at Trophy Bikes – the Bike Friday dealer in town and the one responsible for all the folder events this weekend. The shop was pretty busy, so after checking in I headed out to investigate the race courses. The time trial course was very straight forward – an out and back on a flat road that would be closed to traffic on race day. The hill climb, on the famous Manayunk Wall (which the pros will race up 10 times during the Philadelphia International Championship on Sunday) was interesting: The start was just off Main Street, then after accelerating off the line there was a quick right and left over cobbles, before hitting the climb proper. Not terribly steep to halfway, then it ramped up to 17% for the second half, before levelling off a little to the finish line. Only a kilometre long, so fast and furious! I rode up with three CSC pros, out on a training spin from the look of it. I then rode back to town and Trophy, where I met up with pro photographer and BF owner Al Gilens and friend and ended up joining them for lunch – of course the tikitTM came too! After lunch I went back to David's for a quick nap before getting ready for the evening hillclimb – I was starting at 6:30pm. Fortunately I left plenty of time to ride over to Trophy for the group ride to Manayunk, as I only made it about four blocks before my rear tyre went flat. I changed the tube but wasn’t happy about the slit in the tyre left from a large piece of glass (the little Primo tyres are great, but not the best for city streets), so I went back to fit my spare tyre before heading off again. Nice and hot at over 90 degrees. I took one more easy ride up the Wall when we got there. I tried to do a warmup before the start, but there wasn’t anywhere to go – between traffic and signals it wasn't possible to ride at a good tempo anywhere nearby. So I just sat in the shade – I wasn't exactly cold anyway! The first rider up the hill was one of the CSC pros, setting the target for the rest of us with 1:34. The race had 69 pre-entries, which swelled to over 100 on the day, including 14 in the folder class – a pretty good turnout! I was a bit nervous because although this sort of event is my speciality, having had mono I hadn’t done any training in over a month, and had no idea how my form would be. Still, c'est la vie, I would just have to give it a go and see what happened. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and GO! I hit the cobbled corners without losing speed and got the gear spinning in the saddle – remember to breathe! – until the steep bit, then it was hold the same gear, out the saddle and give it everything. I started to slow before the top of the ramp – definitely lacking a bit of top end power, but held on to the line to stop the clock at 1:35. Not too bad, but would it be enough? I collapsed on the side of the road to catch my breath, before heading back down to await the results. I ended up with the fastest folder time - last year’s winner, Peter Daulkner on a singlespeed Brompton ended up 9 seconds behind me, but the Bike Friday contingent of two tikits, one Pocket Rocket and one Pro took first, third, fourth and sixth! The overall event was won in 1:26, and my time was good enough for around 12th overall – I would definitely like to come back when I am at my usual fitness, as my initial reaction was that I thought I could probably get under 1:25. The Trophy crew had beers and burgers just round the corner, so after waiting for the presentation, I hung out with them for a while. But with another race looming in the morning, at 9pm I enjoyed a nice night ride along the riverside bike path back to town (still in the upper 70s, great weather!). Then I swapped the stem over (to a much lower position) and fitted aerobars to have the bike ready for the morning. |
Riders were off at 30 second intervals, so once I could see the rider in front of me I could start pulling him in. I eventually overtook him a bit before the turn around point, and shortly afterwards I was caught by the guy 30 seconds behind me . And then disaster! I messed up the gear change at the turn and dropped my chain! I got it on fairly quickly, but probably lost about 20 seconds – and so had to re-catch my 30 second man on the way back. I also got caught by the rider who started a minute behind me shortly before the end (wouldn’t have happened without the chain drop, curses!). I am definitely not used to being caught in a time trial – not being at my usual fitness level sucks! Still, aside from the chain issue, the bike did great – 54 x 9 was a big enough gear, although the jump from the 9 to the 10 was a bit big; always the problem with the Capreo cassette. My final time was 19:52 for the 8.4 miles – about 26mph average. Only good enough for 16th out of the 18 rider Pro/1/2 field; though the additional 20 seconds cost me three places. The winner did a storming 17:15! When all the results get on the web I can see how I did overall. Afterwards I met up with David and we showed off our bikes to a few folk before heading back home for a shower and (a well earnt I think!) breakfast. |
The afternoon’s activity was Michael’s fast fold showdown; normally this would take place on the riverside path, but with temperatures in the high 90s it was moved to a shaded area opposite the shop. This meant the course was very short – start, ride to a marker, fold the bike, run to a stool, sit and cross the legs, unfold and sprint back. The guys from Dahon and Swift were there, as well as assorted owners. In the first round, Steve from Dahon just pipped me – he was using their Jack, which is basically a full size mountain bike with just one hinge in the middle, so a very quick fold! We all had a second go and although we all went quicker the result was the same – Steve first, followed by me less than a second behind, followed by the Swift not far behind. All good fun, and then we were ready for a drink in the cool! |
