www.dadswell.co.uk Mostly cycling records, mostly on three wheels
A few press cuttings relating to Liverpool-London Back to Rides in 1995
The Times announces the ride, and the postcard confirms the result.
The Portsmouth Echo had this to say.
And then SportsMail
Not long after, Glenn did indeed get the London to Portsmouth and back record.
A newspaper I'd forgotten existed (sorry), CycleNews, reported this (including a typo with the start time!)
The Bucks Free Press
And the Brighton Argus, who were hoping I would have another go at the Brighton record..
(btw, I've no idea where the Three Wheeled Terror thing came from. Possibly Brian Hutton's imagination)
I received this letter from Peter Barlow, who was on John Arnold's 1952 ride and also the 1935 ride by Syd Parker and H Warburton on tandem-tricycle.
Notes taken by my parents, as telephonists. Some interesting names, as usual.
(and check out the notepaper from Dad's work)
There was a certain amount of upheaval (long story) surrounding my claim to the Liverpool to London record. It all worked out in the end, although not without a fair bit of angst.
The other matter of interest was the way the weather forecast seemed good, then bad, then miraculously good again.
To begin with, I made my decision to go based on the 72 hour chart below. I could see that it looked suitable and John Dalton was in agreement that it should be ok. He might have given me a warning of things that could go wrong (he usually did!) but I don't remember.
The wind on the surface doesn't follow the isobars, but is about 30 degrees adrift. I drew an arrow on this map to show the wind direction in the Liverpool-London territory. A perfect tailwind.
Trouble was, with all the preparations underway and with the expectation of getting in the car bound for Liverpool in the morning ... the next set of charts we received were a lot less exciting.
Suddenly the direction was a lot more west, and a lot less speedy.
I had an agonizing phone call with John, and he wasn't really very optimistic. He might've come up with some hopeful talk, but think overall we felt that this was a lot less suitable than we'd been bargaining for.
However, we decided to stick with the plan. The record really wasn't a very tight one, and we were all ready to go.
As we drove to Liverpool, Gerry Lewis (also a professional meteorologist) noted that there was also a possibility that the assumptions of the 48h chart might not persist. He did explain in more technical detail, because he really did understand it. I just nodded and quietly hoped.
Back to Rides in 1995