Happy Halloween Urchins!

Happy Halloween urchins!
We had a lovely evening anthropomorphising squashes drinking beer and eating seasonally inappropriate food at Sue's place last night. Actually the nosh was lovely. Things with beans, things with nuts and things with fruit. It wasn't very goulish (not a single bloody steak to be had) but it was most enjoyable.


Matthew at least was in the mood and brought some gothic sounds of yesteryear. It was a trip down memory lane with Killing Joke, The Cult, The Mission and some Fall thrown in for good measure. He spoiled it somewhat with Godley and Cream (bleugh) but you can't have everything.

Amazing the character you can get out of a pumpkin.

Gary Nelmes

Tough rugby

I played my first competitive game of touch rugby at lunchtime. Touch rugby is what Julia would refer to as a 'strategic ball game' and seems to be a combination between tag and rugby league. There is no kicking, no actual tackling and a turn-over every six ‘tackles’. Both women and men play in the same games and seem to function pretty much equally.

When you are defending, the knack seems to be getting back on-side quickly and closing the opposition down as soon as they play the ball. In offence the game seems to be more territorial than full-contact rugby (because you don’t have the opportunity to break the line).

As a team we moved the ball well; our discipline was good and we are all quite fast. Our problems were isolated to not putting quite enough pressure on the ball carriers and not moving the ball right quite often enough.

We won 6:1 with four different try scorers. I scored two (one in each half) and played reasonably well. I really enjoyed it. Here is Mark's write-up...

"The Knock-Ons swept to a fine 6-1 victory against the Tocsix from Chemistry yesterday. Gary and Alvaro recorded braces for the LTS side, while Guy and James scored a try each. James scored the sixth touchdown securing the Knock-Ons a deserved bonus-point. Well done everyone."

Gary Nelmes

Reims Marathon Oct 21st 2007

It was with failure in mind that I ate my deluxe dosa in the Indian restaurant up the road from Euston station. My entry in Reims Marathon was the direct result of my failure to complete Paris Marathon back in April due to a foot/ankle injury. That entry in turn was a result of my failure to secure a place in London Marathon.

By the time I had travelled as far as Waterloo I was beginning to regret playing touch rugby on Thursday lunchtime. It is amazing how sensitive to little twinges and sniffs I can get before an event. I felt another failure coming on and the public sector strike in France meant that it didn’t even have to be an athletic failure.

The Eurostar delivered us to a Gare du Nord enveloped in transport chaos so we took the opportunity to walk south towards the Hotel Odeon on the South Bank. France is so very French and it is odd how that always strikes me. There is always accordion music, there is usually a strike, things are unnecessarily closed, the drains do smell and the women are unbelievably beautiful.

What I couldn’t believe is that we all managed to find each other. Duncan ran into Richard by accident, I met Gareth on the Pont Neuf and everyone else sniffed us out in a restaurant in the Odeon area. Only Chris was left stranded on the north bank with a bag of 1664 and MacDonalds.

The transport strike more or less finished on Friday night and we were able to get a TGV to Reims without too much difficulty. I say “without too much difficulty” but we’d probably have got nowhere if it hadn’t been for Sarah and Suzanne’s language skills.

The city of Reims (say rinse in an OTT French accent) feel not unlike Cambridge. It is flat, stone built, old and rich. What is more the air is unbelievably clean and crisp. Sarah checked us into the Hotel Cecyl with chatty efficiency and we were generally well pleased with it.

We had the slowest possible lunch on the main street and then headed off to register and collect numbers. That all seemed to go fairly smoothly and we were back in time for takeaway pasta (why can’t we have that in the UK) and a night in front of the box watching England edged out in the Rugby World Cup by the Springboks.

I was up at the crack of dawn pacing about on Sunday. It seemed to be ages before we all toddled off to our various starts. The Marathon one was near the magnificent gothic cathedral.

The first thing I noticed was the lack of women. The vast majority of participants were men between 25 and 45. The second thing to strike me was the lack of gonks, wombles, fairies and deep sea divers. The French obviously take their marathon running very seriously.

I forget everything I run past but here is what I do remember of the race itself. The start was polite, fast and well organised. We were soon running 5min kms (8min miles) and settling into a good rhythm. Running with Julia was brilliant (sort of like being a celebrity minder) with everyone shouting “allez les filles”. The snacks were awesome with dried fruit, banana, and all sorts of attractive nibbles to go with the water. We also had jelly babies to supplement the local produce.

We passed a real flower mill (which is the only legitimate use of Moulin I’ve ever seen) lots of pretty canals, an industrial area and some quiet ‘burbs. The people were very friendly and those who noticed were pleased that foreigners had come to their town to run.

At various points the 10k, the semi-marathon and our race came together. We saw Duncan twice and got high-fived by Richard. There seemed to be many more ladeez running in the other races. The locals had laid on lots of entertainment and we were treated to a string quartet, drums, a flute ensemble and a mental woman yelling through a tube.

Julia had a bit of a wobble between 20km and 30km but we ‘smashed’ (pardon the hyperbole) our 20mile records and pressed on. At 38km I remember feeling very stiff in the feet department and on a down hill stretch thereafter Julia started to pull away a bit. She wanted to stay with me but I think that would have made things harder so with a cheery “pin your ears back curly” I sent her off into the distance. By the end I was reeling her in a bit I would never have caught her.

Julia finished in 3:37:40 and I came in 43seconds later at 3:38:32

Gary Nelmes

Semi Marathon times were

Suzanne Moores 02:10:10
Richard Jones 02:03:39
Duncan Humphrey 01:41:16
Nick (it goes on the shoe not in the pocket) Harris - 01:53:08
Christian Major 01:33:04
Sarah Bird - 02:03:39

Holdsworth restoration

The deep-clean stage is now complete. Everything has been regreased, cleaned polished and scrubbed.

Reims marathon training diary: part three

Things are looking fairly positive for Reims now. The foot injury has calmed down and the horrible cold, which began last Thursday evening, is also passing. I think the timing for the cold was about right as I was already tapering. Although I won't be as well trained as I would like to have been I will at least be well rested.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I will run four easy miles before lunch and then it will be nothing but rest and carbo-loading until Saturday (the day before the race) when I intend to get a light jog in.

I must remember to stock up on my normal energy drink before I leave for France.

Gary Nelmes

Holdsworth restoration: stage three

The polishing has continued and I now have a presentable back wheel and back brake to add to the rest of the shiny bits.

The news on spares is a bit more mixed. I’ve have obtained a very useful list of reproduction decals (from Nick Tithecote at Lloyds) while the modern brake blocks I purchased to replace the MAFAC ones have proved unsuitable due to their depth. I have ordered some slightly ‘hybrid’ Panaracer Pasela TG tyres from Wiggle in the hope that they will cope with the Italian ‘white roads’ better than the Schwalbes.
Roger Armstrong, Tony Colegrave and Steve at Brooks have been very helpful in edging towards a definitive date for the frame. We seem to have narrowed it down to a period between 1939 and 1945 and hope to get a little closer as time goes by.

As regards the paintwork I have decided to go with Roger’s advice in the first instance (i.e. to try to conserve the existing paint) and, should it prove impossible, to commission Mercian to do the necessary refinishing.

Glyn Nelmes (my esteemed father) is looking into the possibility of having the badly corroded cranks and toe clips cleaned and rechromed for me. The leather straps for the latter having cleaned up nicely.

Reims Marathon training diary: part two

Week 3 was finished off with a 10 miler and a 16 miler. The latter was down the canal path from Brighouse to Sowerby Bridge and back and was very enjoyable. the only slightly disturbing thing was the lack of birds. Maybe all the wildfowl has migrated.

Week 4 signals the start of 'tapering' (although I hardly feel I can justify it). Again I took both Monday and Tuesday off but this Wednesday was a pretty fast 10 miler. Julia actually found it quite hard to keep up after her tough half at the weekend but still managed to out sprint me to road sign. Thursday was an easy 'watchless' 5 miler and the weekend saw me doing two race-pace solo efforts of 4 miles and 11 miles.

Just two weeks to go and I have a slightly painful foot. Grrrrr.

Holdsworth restoration: stage two

At this stage I'm focusing my efforts on cleaning, polishing and researching. I bought a polishing kit from Moleroda Finishing Systems (via eBay) to bring some shine back to the aluminium parts. Polishing is strangely addictive and rather than just trying it out on a brake lever as I had intended I've polished the levers, bars, front brake, front wheel and seat post. The materials are easy to use and very effective and the bike is gradually being transformed from an old wreck into a presentable 'classic' (images to follow).

Obtaining spares will be a problem at some juncture but I haven't come across a show-stopping problem yet. Once I have cleaned and trued the wheels I'll need to replace the split and worn tires. These are obtainable although the choice seems to be limited to Schwalbe 27x1 1/4. The brake blocks are also worn and (assuming 1950 MAFAC blocks will be impossible to get) I'm looking for a modern alternative.

Creating a specification for the respray is proving difficult. There is no evidence of the frame ever having been anything but green and no decals remain (beyond the bronze badge). I think I'll stick with green but I need to make a decision on a possible second colour and the addition of Holdsworth and Reynolds 531 logo styles. Many bikes have a contrast panel on the seat tube with a second 'prancing horse' badge but I see no evidence of this.

I still have no firm date for the bike's manufacture. the frame number is the earliest I can find mentioned on the internet (it is certainly before 1948) while the Campagnolo equipment is a little later (between 1951 and 1954).

Priorities between now and Christmas are developing an authentic colour scheme, tracking down the decals, contracting a finisher for the frame and stripping the bike for preparation.

Holdsworth restoration: stage one

I purchased a shabby but interesting looking bike from an ebayer in Lancashire last week with the intention of restoring it slowly to an operable and attractive state for L'Eroica classic sportif 2008. My first task is to tie down exactly what it is and what it should look like.

It is certainly a Holdsworth and I am pretty sure it is a fairly early one but the exact year and model alludes me. Here is what I know...

• The frame number is 6497
• It has a bronze 'prancing horse' badge on the head tube - just bronze with no enamelling
• There are no 'spear'or pierced lugs but it does have moderately 'fancy' lugs on most of the joints (including those around the bottom bracket). These are mostly in the form of two lobes and central point.
• The frame is painted a dark green with no sign of transfers
• There is a grease nipple for the bottom bracket
• It has a very old (original I suspect) Brooks Champion B17 Narrow saddle. This is stamped
  E0
  IM
  0N
• The stem is a forged 'GB' (standing for Gerry Burgess not Great Britain)
• The bell featured in the pictures is a "Ricspur" (patent number 607049). This was probably made at the Ricspur works in Walsall.
• The pedals are Brampton B8s (produced by Brampton Fittings Ltd., Downing Street, Handsworth, Birmingham) of a currently unknown vintage
• The chainset looks like a Williams from 1957 (thanks to Clive Holmes-Dowkes for the tip). It bears the mark
  EW
  †
  AX

I suspect this is a red herring (as these items might be later) but it has a Campagnolo Gran Sport rear mech (with a 4 speed cassette), a campag front mech, Normandy hubs and MAFAC centre-pull brakes. Thelevers are stamped MAFAC and the straps are marked Breveté SGDG (Sans garantie du Gouvernement)

I've added some pre-cleaning pictures below.

Gary Nelmes

Holdsworth restoration