First Test Ride

With the yellow Mark 1 back from its service, despite several problems yet to be addressed, it was time for the inaugural test ride. All I had to do first was recover from a back injury that had prevented me from doing much of anything, including sitting in a chair, for over two weeks.

Although I was very satisfied with my doctor and physiotherapist, my impatience with inactivity was developing faster than my recovery. For this reason I felt it was time to try something else so, upon the recommendation of Victoria (more about her in future blog entries), I went to see a chiropractor.
We humans often alter our beliefs as required. Life long atheists have been known to get religion shortly before they die. In the same way, having categorised chiropractors with homeopaths and witch doctors, two weeks of incapacity was sufficient to turn me into a devout, new-age hippy, eager to renew my energy grid with crystals or something: anything, actually.
Chanting my new mantra and having driven for two stints of ten minutes separated by a road side stretch, I found myself in Rob the chiropractor's office. He tapped my knees and tendons with a rubbery hammer thing and got me to bend about a bit. I was very impressed with his ability to remain calm in the face of the relentless "Christmas music" that reverberated about the room. By the end of the 45 minute consultation I felt able to ask Rob the critical question, which also happened to be my mantra): "Can I go cycling now, please?" His reply was immediate, matter of fact and confident: "Don't see why not." This was a delicious shock.
Less than 24 hours later, on a crisp, blue, freezing morning, I was ready for my first ride on the Mark 1. Faithful in the finest level of detail to the 1970s task at hand, I had picked the perfect winter cycling clothes: Adidas Rekord trainers, Lee Cooper black corduroy jeans (22 inch flares), a camel polo neck jumper, Levi's brown corduroy jacket, Ray-Ban Aviators and a reindeer bobble hat. Oh, and black woolly gloves. After over two weeks of being almost completely sedentary, my thighs were flaccid stringy things. I felt like that returning Russian cosmonaut who had been at zero gravity for so long he had to be lifted out of his craft like a sack of bones. I dreaded even the slightest incline, particularly as I'd never ridden the Mark 1 up a hill or indeed anywhere, except round to the shops.
From the first pedal stroke on the Chopper, I could tell straight away that riding a racing bike would be ill advised. I could only ride without pain if I sat bolt upright and pushed back into the crook of the banana seat. If I did that, however, I could certainly pedal with enough force to make some kind of ride possible.
If the Mark 2 is difficult to handle up a hill, which it is, the Mark 1 is more difficult than that. The Mark 1's rear stays go straight down to the back axle rather than to a position a few inches in front of it (as per the Mark 2, 3 and 4). Sat back on the seat, my centre of gravity was behind the rear wheel axle. This lethal feature meant that any acceleration sent the front wheel up off the ground and was a major reason that the Mark 1 was taken off the market in 1972 and the safer Mark 2 launched. My position on the seat meant that every time I pedalled over a speed bump, the front wheel bounced up into the air and I had to lean forward to push it back down on to the road and regain control. To make things even more interesting, the front wheel's hub was practically destroyed and it was possible to wobble the rim sideways about 1/4 of an inch (that's about 0.007 Euro-metres). This extra authentic feature added further instability to the ride and, also, an engaging intermittent click and crunch when in motion. The Chopper had come fitted with knobbly tyres. and spare, proper, "red-line" Chopper tyres but I had decided to leave the knobbly ones on for the winter or until they wore out. I hoped they would be a bit less puncture prone. More importantly, I knew they would provide significantly more rolling resistance than the proper tyres and would, therefore, be better for training. Before I got on the bike I noticed the tyres were a bit soft. I resolved to leave them like that for this first ride: the more resistance, the better.
As I set off along Deanfield Road, the bike felt heavy, unstable, unresponsive, unpredictable and, at anything exceeding walking speed, the partially inflated knobbly tyres made quite a din. Unperturbed, I headed out along the country lanes from Henley towards Stoke Row.

When I reached the foot of the climb up to the Cherry Tree pub, I wondered if I would be able to get to the top. The Chopper is a child's bike, obviously, and has short crank arms only 5 1/2 inches (that's 140 Euro-litres) long. This makes climbing particularly tricky if you have the legs of a grown up because it feels as though you are pedalling in uncomfortably small circles and has the effect of stiffening the gear. As I rolled along the valley floor I reached down to the T bar gear lever on the centre console and set the controls to Sturmey Archer 1: "Ventoux". I started the climb and my back seemed to have eased a bit. I could lean forward just enough to keep the front wheel down, most of the time. The climb is through a wood and I had a couple of flashbacks to the forest on the lower slopes of Ventoux which helped my rhythm.
Having reached the top, I was filled with optimism and set my ambitions on Benson, a 15 mile ride. I knew it would mean another 15 mile ride home but I felt able to do it. My reason was that if I was injury free on a racing bike it would be little more than a warm up and, as long as my back was properly handled, riding the Chopper would mean only that the trip would take a bit longer.
I picked the long descent from Nuffield to the crossing on the Wallingford Road. Although narrow, the lane is pretty straight so, ordinarily, it's possible to descend safely as fast as you like. I was wary of doing this on the Chopper, however, because of its famous front wheel wobble. Another reason the bike was withdrawn from sale was that above a certain speed, asthmatic jogging pace for example, the bike's front wheel would oscillate out of control, throw the rider off the seat and ram his or her genitals on to the steel T bar gear selector. The fact that my Mark 1 had a wobbly front wheel all the time meant that although I was reluctant to ride up steep hills, I was even less keen to ride down them. There was ice on the road side too, which made me consider riding home but, fortune favours the brave, so lots of dead people have said. I took a deep breath, clunked the T bar into Sturmey Archer 3: "Warp factor 9" and pedalled off into the sun soaked Oxfordshire abyss.
Luckily for me, the Chopper's soft, knobbly tyres offered so much rolling resistance and turned so much potential energy into a loud whirring noise, my speed was barely above that of an asthmatic jog. I had to pedal to add excitement. Benson arrived surprisingly quickly and I stopped at Guy's for coffee, mince pies and world rectifying.
A couple of hours later, with the future of our species on Earth secure, I decided to ride home via Ewelme. Having got back on the bike after the break, it seemed that the Mark 1's longer, thinner and less padded seat had been designed specifically to grind into those bones in your arse. Given the pleasant ride out to Benson, things were surprisingly uncomfortable but after about ten minutes, numbness came to the rescue just in time for Swyncombe Hill.
The latter was a sterner test than the climb into Stoke Row. Unlike the Mark 2, which has a handlebar welded to the stem in a forward position, the bars on the Mark 1 can be tilted back as far as you like. Of course, the temptation is to set them right back in order to maximise that Easy Rider look. Doing so, however, makes the bike even harder to handle up an incline and may result in the back of a careless rider's head smacking on to the road behind upon the first pedal stroke: another reason for the withdrawal of the Mark 1.
Worried about how securely the handlebars were fixed, I began the climb to Swyncombe church trying to minimise the effort exerted through my arms. Unlike Streatley Hill, up which I'd ridden the Mark 2, Swyncombe Hill was not steep enough to worry about ripping the bars and stem out of the headset and braining myself. That said, it was certainly steep enough to worry about the bars slipping back, falling over backwards and braining myself. Unfortunately the silly little pedal circles caused by the short cranks and my forward position on the banana seat meant I couldn't extend my legs properly. I had to use my arms for leverage and I held the bars about half way down to the stem to try to stop the front wheel skipping about. It was all getting a bit out of hand and just when I thought I might give up, a bloke on a carbon racing bike whirred past with the comment "Classic, mate!", which spurred me on. Once at the top, with the deepening orange sun lowering over the Chilterns, I dropped down from Maidensgrove through the silhouetted trees to Stonor Park. From there, I spun along the winding valley road to the Fairmile and then home.
My arse arrived home about 20 minutes later.

Rikki Pankhurst and the YMTF

Rikki Pankhurst is an extraordinary chap. There simply isn't anything he doesn't know about bicycles: even children's bikes from the 1970s such as the Raleigh Chopper. Rikki can tell you in arresting detail the differences between things on the Mark 1 and the Mark 2 that the average person - even the average cyclist - wouldn't understand. It was Rikki who had brought the Ventoux-smashing red Mark 2 to the zenith of its capabilities, enabling me to wrestle it to the zenith of Mont Ventoux with minimal resistance in May earlier this year. In short, if you want to do something on a bike, you want Rikki in your team.
Upon riding the newly acquired yellow Mark 1 Tall Frame (to which I shall hereafter refer as "YMTF") only a few hundred yards, it was very clear that its trusty three-speed Sturmey Archer hub had long since become a rusty one-speed Sturmey Archer hub. Keen to experience the YMTF in its most glorious of conditions, once again, I called upon the services of Rikki.
In precisely 24 hours, he had: rebuilt the Sturmey Archer hub; trued both wheels; straightened the bent handlebar stem; serviced the bottom bracket and headset; cleaned and greased all the cables; replaced the brake blocks and front brake cable with an original Mark 1 cable I had found; and replaced the failing cotter pins with original Raleigh branded pins.

Having returned the bike - yes, he picked it up from my house and brought it back - Rikki advised me that more work would be necessary to optimise the machine, in particular the replacement of the front wheel which, although very old, was not original and the hub of which had completely failed. The YMTF also needed a new chain and the rear wheel needed rebuilding. Strangely, the lacing of the spokes was not as per the factory set up. The structure of the back wheel was so chaotic it was almost impossible to fit a pump to the valve because it was obstructed by spokes splaying out at absurd angles.
Rikki also advised that the pedals, although original, were the type with no bearings, relying entirely on grease for movement. He said he had been considering a few enhancements that would gain valuable yards during The Hour. That's the sort of thing Rikki does. It doesn't seem to matter how absurd the requirements of his client; and mine are certainly absurd, Rikki treats them with a deadly gravity and certainly far more than is warranted. I'm keen to maintain a completely original bike with authentic configuration, however. I expect, therefore, we'll have some intricate discussions, some of them bordering on the philosophical.

The Mark 1, Tall Frame

Of course I could use the Mark 2 Raleigh Chopper I rode right up Mont Ventoux to tackle The Hour but something isn't quite right about that idea. One hour, one man, one bike, one vision, means that a Mark One must be more appropriate, not to mention some rousing music by Queen. Well, thanks to Barry Gale who sold me the bike pictured below, the Mark 1 is here, in my possession.

The Raleigh Chopper Mark 1 Tall Frame. It's a bit bigger and no less lethal.

I have been asked, more than once, "What is the difference between a Mark 1 and a Mark 2 Raleigh Chopper?" and my research has taught me the following.
Raleigh introduced the Mark 1 Chopper to the unsuspecting UK in 1969 and a rather more suspecting America in 1968. Hailed "The Hot One" on both sides of the Atlantic, it's fair to say that during its life time, the Chopper outsold every other child's bike in the UK but didn't do quite so well in the United States. The relative lack of impact in America was allegedly because of the prevalence of more established, similar bikes such as the Schwinn Sting-Ray and something called the Apple Krate, also made by Schwinn. It is a mystery to me why the Chopper didn't outsell these. Next to the stylish and racey Chopper, both the Sting-Ray and Apple Krate look like something out of a Dr. Suess book: not the least bit cool or motorbikey. Frankly, they're clown's bikes and look silly: not like a Raleigh Chopper at all. Perhaps bike aesthetics are specific to culture. In any event, it isn't as though Raleigh didn't try harder in America. While we in the UK made do with the three speed Mark 1 in six colours, the Americans got all sorts: a three speed version, a five speed version, even a ten speed version, a single speed bike with back pedal braking and a girl specific Chopper with no cross bars. They also got the tall frame, one and a half inches taller than a standard Mark 1 and this is the model I now have. I don't know if the tall frame is more dangerous than the standard Mark 1 but, having ridden it, I'm confident it isn't less dangerous. Mark 1s, you see, are perilous machines, sufficiently deadly to be withdrawn, despite their success, in late 1971.

The contemptible Schwinn Apple Krate (they couldn't even spell crate)

"The Raleigh Chopper is dead. Long live the Raleigh Chopper" might have been the marketing strapline for the Mark 2 if Raleigh had wanted to appeal to teenage cycling fans who are worried about an interregnum; and that's one of many good reasons why it wasn't. In 1972 the Mark 2 was thrust into the UK and the US more or less simultaneously and it did very well indeed. Raleigh's noble ambition was to produce a bike, the riding of which wouldn't result in the maiming or demise of its rider. As a result and to the annoyance of many children, I'm sure, the handlebars could no longer be tilted back. Yes, it may have prevented the rider from going over backwards at the lightest push of the pedals but it was no longer possible to get that proper, laid back, Easy Rider look. In order to limit further the likelihood of leaving the back of one's skull on the road, the seat was set further forward by curving the rear seat stays back where they held the rear wheel axle. Most unsatisfyingly of all, the seat was shortened. Having been the perfect length upon which to sit two people while hurtling downhill at an uncontrollable speed, the seat now accommodated about one and a half. While this modification could have made the Mark 2 more dangerous and therefore exciting if a duo was attempted, it didn't look as cool. The Mark 2 with all its sissy safety stuff wasn't all bad, though. It came in a bunch of new colours including signature "infra red" with yellow lettering; and "fizzy lemon" and "ultra violet" both with day glow orange/red lettering. The Mark 2 also came in various special versions with varying degrees of absurdity including one with a five speed derailleur, available only in pink and the absolutely bizarre "GT Sprint", which had racing drop handlebars and a taller frame, though with all the Mark 2 safety features. The latter has to be seen to be appreciated. It's as though Raleigh's marketing and design departments were experimenting with hallucinogenic substances or at least were on an exchange programme, each doing the other's jobs.

The utterly bonkers and almost unrideable Raleigh Chopper "GT Sprint"

Suddenly in 1973, just when it was all going so beautifully, the American legislature found time in its busy schedule to pass a much needed law against cross bar mounted gear changers. Perhaps it was smarting from its losses in Vietnam, perhaps it needed something to take its mind off the Watergate scandal, perhaps Schwinn had lobbied the government, fearing that the Chopper was about to outsell their silly clown bikes. Who knows? In any case, Choppers were gone from America as quickly as they had arrived leaving American teenagers with nothing to ride but cartoon comedy bikes. In response to the American government, the Raleigh design department, or possibly the marketing department, stood firm and decided that the testicle smashing gear shifter was an essential part of the Chopper's identity. Over in the UK where we are less precious about our reproductive organs, thing were going so well that the end of the US Chopper campaign was not about to upset anyone in Nottingham. Spurred on by relentless demand from British teenagers with no care for their genitals, Raleigh pressed ahead with models such as the jet black one with a sort of glittery exhaust pipe sticker on the chain guard.
The last Mark 2 Choppers were made in 1980, when their heyday was over. Like a great many things in the 1970s including flares, proper sideburns, Muhammad Ali, Opal Fruits, Roxy Music, safari suits, Eddy Merckx, ABBA, Tizer, disco, The Good Life, Twiglets and the moon landings, the Raleigh Chopper represents the very peak of human achievement in its field. It's as though all these things had a collective consciousness and, once the decade closed, simply couldn't maintain their level of excellence any longer. My aim is to recapture those extraordinary times by pedalling my yellow Mark 1 tall frame around a velodrome as far as I possibly can in an hour. It will be an honour to do so and, if it raises some smiles, eyebrows and, more importantly, money for research into the causes of blood cancer, it will be more than worth it.

A wrapper off of some Opal Fruits, the zenith of confectionery. No, they're not "Starburst"

How Far?; and the Mysterious Mister Frank Dodds

Since having the idea of The Chopper vs The Hour, the most obvious question on my mind is: “How far can I ride a Raleigh Chopper in an hour?” Having only wrestled the thing along lumpy Oxfordshire country lanes and up a very big hill in France, very slowly, once, I have absolutely no idea how fast I can make it go on the flat. Obviously, I can't hope to go as far in an hour as anyone who set a record on a proper racing or track bike, no matter when they set it. No cycling record has ever been achieved easily and they are always set by the most exceptional people of their time: but what about those who held the first few "The Hour" records? Perhaps I could equal their performance. If so, it would surely be because their attire was even less well suited to performance cycling than denim cut-off shorts and trainers and their bicycles even more unwieldy than a 1970s children's bike.  

According to several sources, the first person to ride a formally recorded hour on a bicycle was James Moore of Suffolk. Mister Moore is also regarded by some as the first winner of an official bicycle race, which took place in a park at St Cloud in Paris in 1868. The course was over 1,200m of gravel to a fountain and back. There are doubts about whether it really was the first official race as there may have been a race slightly earlier the same day. So what?: I say. Nobody remembers the day clearly enough to refute Moore's claim that he won the first race. In any event, Moore certainly won the world’s first road race from Paris to Rouen a year later with an average speed of around seven miles per hour. He was thus labelled by cycling journalist of the day, Victor Breyer, a “crack" velocipede rider. Racing cycling has always had a tempestuous relationship with chemicals but, despite the fact that cocaine would not have been a banned substance at the time and that it was routinely used by cyclists as a stimulant (1923 Tour de France winner Henri Pelissier poked it into his eyes to stoke himself up) Breyer's comment was not about this. Crack or no crack, Moore was practically unbeatable in England and France between 1868 and 1877. Getting to the point, in 1873, at the height of his powers, Moore rode a penny farthing 23km in one hour at the Molyneaux Grounds in Wolverhampton. As there was no governing body, the feat was never officially ratified and, for reasons I haven’t been able to discover, many writers ignore it and refer to Frank Dodds as the first Hour record holder.

It seems then, that the first genuine The Hour was set in 1876 by a man called Frank Dodds on a penny farthing in Cambridge and, as far as I can tell, that’s all that can be agreed on the subject. Frank Dodds’ record wasn’t ratified by any governing body either because there wasn't one, so I have no idea why his ride should be more significant than James Moore’s eight years earlier. I’ve pored over all the cycling books I own and plenty that I don't, which is quite a few, and none of them say anything about this momentous occurrence. Even Michael Hutchinson’s excellent book, handily titled “The Hour”, does not refer to Frank Dodds, though James Moore gets a mention. Having scoured the Internet for information, including web sites such as that of the Road Records Association, I can find only articles that don’t cite any sources or simply refer to other web sites that offer no provenance for their content. The variation in the facts reported is staggering. Some articles, for example, say Frank Dodds was an American while others claim he was English. Some agree that the record was set at the "Cambridge University Ground", which seems to have been either an athletics or a cricket ground. Most irritatingly, Frank seems to have managed a distance which, depending on the information source, was 15.8, 15.85 or 16.471 miles. More confusingly, this distance equals, allegedly, 25.4km, 25.508km, 25.51km, 25.598km or even 26.508km. My research on the subject, such as it is, has taught me little except that: the early history of cycling is murky thing; journalists can be very lazy; and that I need to investigate this subject further, though I’m not sure where to begin. 

Happily, things begin to clarify considerably when the French begin to apply themselves to The Hour, which is interesting in itself. It is generally accepted that the first holder of the real, proper The Hour or l'Heure record is none other than Henri Desgrange, lawyer and the organiser of the first Tour de France. He set the record in 1893 on something at least resembling a modern bicycle. It had two wheels of roughly the same size and, unlike Moore's and Dodds' penny farthings, a chain that drove a gear on the back wheel. Monsieur DesGrange set this, along with eleven other world records, on a cycling track. His Hour was undertaken on the brand new, concrete surfaced, Velodrome Buffalo, so named because it was built on a site that had hosted Buffalo Bill Cody’s circus for a while. As he was French and didn’t think in miles, there is less confusion about the distance Desgrange rode, which is uniformly cited as 35.325km. This is just under 22 miles. Anyone who has ridden a bike in anger will know that 22 miles is a jolly long way to go in one hour, other than perhaps down a very big hill with a following breeze. When one takes into account the bicycle used, not to mention the drag caused by Monsieur Desgrange's prodigious moustache, the feat seems even more extraordinary. 

Henri Desgrange, wishing death on all cyclists except one, on an annual basis

Perhaps I'm a pessimist but it seems to me absurd to suppose that I could ride a Raleigh Chopper anywhere near the distance Henri Desgrange managed on his track bicycle. This was a brutal man who believed that variable gears are only for people over 45 years' old when decrepitude has weakened them sufficiently to require such nonsense. He insisted that the perfect Tour de France would have the perfect winner if only one man survived. In addition to wishing death to all but one cyclist on an annual basis, Desgrange was almost as tough on himself as he was on everyone else, flogging himself hard on foot or on a bike throughout his life. He was 28 years' old and at a physical peak when he set The Hour record. As a 48 year old solicitor with two young children, a full time job, no track cycling experience and no bristling moustache, the only thing I have in common with Monsieur Desgrange is the legal profession. Sadly, this one similarity is irrelevant for these purposes. Perhaps then, I should aim instead for James Moore’s distance of 23km. On a really good day, perhaps I might even think about trying to equal one of Frank Dodds’ many distances: 25.4km, 25.508km, 25.51km, 25.598km or 26.508km. At least I could take my pick. I have a feeling, however, that all of these might be too ambitious. Penny farthings are not slow. The reason the machine’s front wheel is so big is that when riding a direct drive machine on which the pedal axle is also the wheel axle, riders found that the bigger the wheel, the faster they could go. Yes, that's right: the penny farthing was a red hot, thoroughbred racing machine. According to the Road Records Association, The Hour record for a penny farthing is 38.17km (over 23 miles) set at Herne Hill velodrome in 1891 by Frederick J Osmond. Mister Osmond rode further than Henri Desgrange two years before the latter’s record was set but, critically, Mister Osmond’s ride was paced. These days, paced means that riders follow a small motorcycle or "derny". I have no idea what it meant in 1891 but whatever it meant, it certainly didn’t mean one person on a bike on a track, alone for one hour, so it doesn't count. Thus, it seems I'm back with James Moore or the mysterious Frank Dodds, both of whom must have been very fine athletes indeed. Of course, I have no idea how a Raleigh Chopper compares with James Moore’s, Frank Dodds’ or indeed Henri Desgrange’s bicycles. I don’t, therefore, have any basis on which to set a target other than a method derived from measurement and monitoring of my speed on the Chopper; but what should be measured and how? In any case, at the moment, even James Moore's 23km seems horribly daunting and enough to wake me up early and stare at the ceiling while I wait for my children to come in and jump on my bed. The fact that Moore seems to have ridden his Hour record in a collar and tie, knickerbockers and some sort of double breasted blazer with lovely piping and a matching Homburg hat makes it all the more unsettling.

 James Moore, right, not with his penny farthing and not having just broken The Hour record and, possibly, not 

ever having won the first ever bicycle race

Luckily for me, there is a resource I intend to review very thoroughly. Published in 1975, the same year my Raleigh Chopper was manufactured, “Cycle Racing: Training To Win” is by Les Woodland. The author's name alone shouts 1970s, flared trousers, jumble sales, a quarter of pear drops and a Sunday afternoon bike ride to the local swimming pool followed by tea on a tray in front of the telly. Subsequent editions of Les Woodland's book have been published, the second of which was released in 1986, so I’ll ignore them all on the grounds that they're too modern. Les Woodland 1975 will be my guru and will get me through this. Come on, Les, let's show the world what's possible on a Raleigh Chopper. 

The Gauntlet II

Since riding right up Mont Ventoux on a Raleigh Chopper in May this year, a surprising number of people have asked me "What next?" 
Of course, many of them were simply making conversation. There needn't be anything next and for a while there wasn't going to be. Nevertheless, as a result of the Chopper versus Ventoux, thanks to the extraordinary generosity of all those who donated, around £5,000 was raised to beat blood cancer. It's very difficult to not want to try to equal or even exceed that amount but I am very aware that it is almost impossible to move without tripping over a charity bike ride these days. Thus, if there was to be a next thing deserving sponsorship, I had decided that it must be at least equally daft, arduous and nerve wracking as Chopper versus Ventoux. After considering several options involving more mountains, I had almost resigned myself to there being nothing that would fit the bill on the grounds that it seemed to be more of the same. In the past few days, however, inspired by Jens Voigt setting a new category of hour record this month and Bradley Wiggins' resolution to break it next year, an idea has formed. I have been thinking about attempting "The Hour" on my Mark 2 Raleigh Chopper: the same bike I rode right up Mont Ventoux.
I have asked several people the question: "On a scale of one to ten, ten being men in white coats breaking the door down, how barmy would it be to attempt “The Hour” on a Raleigh Chopper?" All the answers have been that it's around a ten and that I should do it, most certainly. Some are shocked that I don't already hold the record for the furthest distance ridden on a Raleigh Chopper round and round a velodrome for an hour. Well, I don't, not least because nobody does, so someone must. It's only right, after all.
As per the Mont Ventoux climb, The Chopper vs The Hour would involve an unmodified Mark 2 Raleigh Chopper, denim shorts, trainers and a lot of 70s rock music. Again, I’d do it to raise money for a charitable cause and, ideally, on the same day as Bradley Wiggins’ attempt to break Jens Voigt’s current hour record, i.e. in June 2015, the precise date to be announced. 
Clearly I wouldn't be trying to break any record that already exists. Very wonderful though the Raleigh Chopper is, there's a reason why Jens Voigt didn't use one to set his new hour record. Though it makes up for its aerodynamic shortcomings and massive weight with knockout 1970s style, the Chopper is perhaps not the best bike for cycling up mountains nor for setting records on the track. Aside from this very obvious fact, I'll be 49 years' old and a busy father of two with a full time job. Yes, I'm a hobby cyclist with no track cycling experience but I'm not going to let that stop me from mashing the Raleigh Chopper's pedals until I just absolutely can't.
The Ventoux ride was over two hours of such hard work it took me a couple of months to recover properly. "The Hour" must be easier than that, mustn't it? I mean I don't think the friction burns on my back side started bleeding until the second hour on Mont Ventoux and it was only in the second hour that I couldn't see properly, lost my mind and became a thing whose only remaining purpose was to push that pedal now and then the other one and then that one again and then the other one again, etc. repeat until nothing left and the darkness comes. 
"The Hour" can't be as hard as that, can it? Can it?
I suppose I'd better find out.