Eine kleine Sensation für Moultoneers,
Genau 51 Jahre nach den Erfolgen der 1. Generation von
Bahnmaschinen hat die MBC den Nachfolger vorgestellt:
Innerhalb der letzten Jahre konnten einige Clubmitglieder
mit ihren alten, getunten F- Frames sehr erfolgreich an
HPV Rennen ..(auch der WM) teilnehmen.
Nun also auch mit Werksunterstützung, mit dem leichtesten
und steifsten F- Frame aller Zeiten.
Speedsix
(Bild und Text: MBC, Kevin)
The Butts Stadium, Coventry, 11th April 1963.
Coventry CC beat Leicester CC in the 4,000 metre
4 man pursuit – not remarkable in itself,
other than the fact that Coventry were riding
on the new small-wheeled Moulton bicycles.
The Coventry Evening Telegraph wrote that
“One event in yesterday’s meeting may revolutionise
cycling throughout the world”.
The Daily Mail were more vocal: “Spectators laughed
when a team of cyclists rode to the starting line
of a 4000-metre challenge race yesterday on mini-bikes
with only 17” wheels. But the four Fairy Cycle kids of
Coventry went off from the gun like a shot and thrashed
their opponents, a team from Leicester,
riding conventional 27” wheeled machines, by 220 yards”.
“After the race David Duffield, well-known racing cyclist,
said he thought the bikes could help British riders to win
a world championship. The captain of the Coventry team,
Mick Ives, said: “Those small bikes were terrific.
The little wheels and the special suspension ironed out
all the bumps on the track. We’ve been training together
for a fortnight – we got used to the laughs”.
Inventor of the mini-bike is Mr. Alex Moulton, of
Bradford on Avon, who designed the suspension for the
Morris 1100 car. He has applied a similar principle to his
new bike. He said: “I did not set out to design
a new racing machine. Today standard production jobs
were used. But the riders seemed to find them faster
than the conventional bicycle”.
Fifty-one years later, Moulton’s technical team have
returned to the track with a special lightweight –
prototype machine, ideally suited to the
perfect surface of the VeloPark in London. Built by
hand in Bradford on Avon, England, the Moulton
track bicycle is finished in white – evocative of the
1960s racing machines and the AM SPEED used
in the Race Across America in the 1980s –
and is the lightest Moulton bicycle ever built.
