Tin Can 25

TC 25m 1994

2004 photos

David Eccles' 2004 Tin Can Report

You know that this event has been a success when you get the result board back and find that the rain splashes are outnumbered by smudges of ginger and chocolate cake. The threatened rain did come this year but fortunately not so heavily as to dampen the spirits of the second half of the field.

The shower arriving later was lucky for Keith Wileman whose perfectly turned-out Patterson tweed plusses must become very heavy if caught in the rain. We are not sure about the etiquette of tooting a small horn at the time keeper while coming round for the second lap, but no doubt there is something in the CTT rules about it.

Things that slow you down on the Tin Can come in many forms of course, ranging from simply being seriously undergeared, like Cathy Melia on her Brompton – and would she have got closer to the Moulton Equipe with a higher ratio – to suffering a disintegration in the sprocket/driver area – as occurred to Andrew Thompson.

Your reporter found the middle gear of his three-speed magically disappearing after the second bend, (isn’t it wonderful how things like Sturmeys behave perfectly until the nervous tension of a time trial starts to kick in?) which was later discovered to be as a result of an un-secured cable guide gently sliding down the seat tube. Memo: Remember to tighten up all your nuts beforehand. If you have remembered that you need to have nuts to tighten up in the first place that is; by rights the Sock should have gone to the competitor whose chainwheel and cranks fell off their cotterless axle because of the total absence of any nuts at all.

Another slowing down effect is obtained by exploding tyres, as Minoru Mitsumoto found in missing his start by seven minutes. Interesting to see what a decent time can be achieved despite this sort of pre-ride hassle: with the late start minutes taken off, Minoru came in just one second adrift behind Graham Lansdell and two behind yours truly. How would that have looked if it had been a road race?

Some of the most interesting machines at the Tin Can are often neither the fastest nor the most recent. Mike Christy’s 1892 front driver is a remarkable bicycle by any standard, representing the swan-song of the ‘Penny-farthing’ (or ‘Ordinary’ if you prefer)

configuration, in the face of the new-fangled chain driven ‘Safety’ .Even with pneumatics and a wheel reduced in size by the gearing-up of the Crypto hub the rider is still perched a long way off the ground. What a difference to compare this with Tim Dawson’s BSA speed machine of 20 years later, looking suprisingly modern with its low profile dropped top tube. Steve George’s slightly younger (but much larger BSA) also aspired to speed, with the addition of tri-bars; and they must have worked given his impressive time, well under evens.

It was also interesting to compare the 1910 Dursley Pedersen with the 1985 version, proving that there’s still a lot of life in this intriguing frame design. For those who think that ‘classic’ machines all look much the same (sacrilege!) the finish at least is sometimes worth remark; we could instance the handsome livery of the Raleigh Record Ace (not in the characteristic plain ‘flam’ red as favoured by Reg Harris) compared with the beautiful original bespoke harlequin diamond design on the Maclean Eclipse.

The organiser spoke to some folk in charge of a road scraper and a tarmac machine before this year’s event and was assured that the extremely rough bit of road between Kingston and the Sutton Bonington College corner was going to be repaired shortly. Let’s hope so.
All riders will wish a big thanks to be offered to the Loughborough Phoenix who make this event possible and what is so much more, so enjoyable.

The results of this event, and pictures and results of previous Tin Can events, can be found on the site maintained by Brian Donnan at www.tincanten.com .

We hope that all this can be done again next year, when it will probably be a week earlier in the sporting calendar.

If you cannot wait until then there is to be a track event on the 22nd of August at Halesowen with V-C.R.C. participation. There will also be another event on the 28th of August at the Milton Keynes Bowl circuit after the British Human Power meeting, and a similar one again on the 17th of October at the Eastway circuit in London. You can contact Phil Wray for more details; email phil@harwoodcycles.com and a link to info on the V-C.R.C. is at www.harwoodcycles.com while information on the Halesowen track is at www.halesowencycling.com