Vintage

What an unexpected day.

It was the ride day of Eroica Britannia - a vintage cycling festival - and it takes place right here in Bakewell.  My bike is too new, so I couldn't enter, but we got up early doors to go catch sight of the riders setting out.  What an awesome set of people, talk about getting into the spirit of it all.  

I found myself getting more and more engrossed in it all: the atmosphere was amazing, the clothes interesting and the bikes just heavenly to look at.  We toddled off to the show ground after they had all departed, even though I had no prior plans to go at all.  We ended up staying for hours wandering amongst the stalls and saw loads of people we knew.  I rode a penny farthing, Jnr Jnr made some tassels for her handlebars and  I even had a go on a simulator of the steepest climb of the day;  I was pleased with my 39sec time for the last hardcore 400m (apparently I averaged 471watts and peaked at 546watts - although I have no idea if that's good - the guys running the demo were impressed though).  I even got sucked into looking at all the vintage bikes on sale.....saw a nice 1979 red aluminium beauty that took my eye (well, many more did, but they were thousands of pounds!), but there was no way I was going to buy one on impulse.  It was even a 60cm frame, not commonly found and just about ideal for my lanky frame.  Ah well.

Jnr Snr bumped into some friends and stayed there whilst we headed home for a couple of hours.  I did some looking around on vintage bike sites and realised really how rare large frames are, I even saw one identical to the red beauty I saw earlier, it was only the frame and just £20 less than the guy was selling the complete bike for!

We then went back to catch some of the live music, a bit of food and to find out what had happened to Jnr Snr.  After walking in I saw the guy who had that red beauty for sale as he was just getting into his van to drive home.  I asked him if he'd sold it and he said he hadn't and would I like a look?  I agreed so he unpacked it and I had a little ride.

With a trip to the cash point and then home to get some extra as the cashpoint wouldn't give me enough, I am now the proud owner of a red beauty.

Impulsive sucker ;)

I blame ChrisG - although it is nowhere as nice as his uber-beauty.

So next year, I am definitely entering and am looking forward to it already.
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These guys were my favourite of all, that little air raid siren was so much cooler than a bell and it was very loud.  The ARP guy was playing WWII music from a box on the back too.

More shots of the amazing riders in a Flickr album