I: [CR]Anyone heard of Lovell Road bikes

Lawrence,

You don't write where you are writing from but I expect from Canada. Jocelyn Lovell was one of the premier Canadian riders of 70's and early 80's. Unfortunately, he was hit while out training and ended up confined to a wheelchair. There were a number of Lovell frames made in the 80's and from what I can recall they were quite nice. Except in Canada, he is probably not well-known, notwithstanding the fact that he was a world-class rider.

An interesting anecdote that I remember from the 70's about Jocelyn had to do with a kilo event in track racing. He set up a bike with two chains, right and left, using a modified old two-sided hub. I can't recall exactly how it was done, but he effectively had a first low gear to get up to speed more quickly and then his other gear for the rest of the ride. He had the fastest start ever recorded at the event. The cog giving the higher gear was initially barely threaded onto the hub, meaning that it took a few turns of the cranks to get it to seat down and provide drive, just enough time to get started and up to speed. This allowed Jocelyn to use a larger gear than he would otherwise have been able to do. The start-up gear then became free-wheeling as the other larger gear didn't allow it to engage in drive.

Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ