Your Bikes - Darren Barclay's Shorter

By Darren Barclay



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Darren Barclay's Shorter
Darren Barclay writes - I started out racing grass route mountain bikes in the earlier 1990 wasn't long before I spent the next 5/6 years racing the UK Mountain bike Scene. It was in 1996 I started to devote more time to Road Racing and became friends with Peter Ruffhead and have raced with Arctic RT, now Arctic - Shorter Rochford Cycles since 1997 - 10 years ago! Ok, I missed out 6 years as a silent member, but pulled out my bike in 2006 to become a commuter and stop the ever increasing waist line, and now once again cant help racing.

2007 3rd London Cyclo Cross Series
1999 8th Archer International, 6th Essex Grand Prix
1998 3rd National Road Race Championships
1998 6th National Circuit Championships
1998 1st Student National Championships
1998 Surrey 5 Day 2 stages Wins (Raleigh)
1998 1st North London Divisinl Champion
1998 39th Tour de Avenir
1997 1st Chemin Le Cleric - France
1997 1st Stage and 1st Overall - Renin - France
1996 11th National Road Race Championships
1996 1st Eastern Cyclo Cross Champion
1996 12th National Road Race Championships
1995 69th World Mountain Bike Championships - Metabief France

Bike spec -
Alan Rochford of Shorter Rochford Cycles and Peter Ruffhead Arctic Building Services are responsible for getting me set with this bike for the season. Both of them should have there names in flashing lights for there help. Am I particular about my bike?... N0, details - yes and not any bike. The size has too be tospot on for me.

I have raced plenty of bikes over the years, some are very good and some just that bit better - and this frames comes into the just the bit better category - I suspect this is because the quality and build of the frames.

Frame - Very Very nice. 56cm cc 56.5cm CT. I used to ride 77.5cm CTS and after a few years I dropped to 76cm (probably not enough stretching), I now ride 78cm (no growth spurt!)

Forks - Carbon (look very nice)

Handlebars/stem - Carbon Bars - 44cm anatomic (always ridden slightly wider bars) 12.5cm stem

Seat pin - Carbon

Saddle - Flite

Chainset - Ultegra 53/39 175cm - the ratio is perfect for any course.

Pedals - Speed Play - used to ride the old Ultegra pedals with the small cleat - these become discontinued and I had great trouble finding a pedal / shoe combination that gave the same lateral movement which I need with pedaling.

Gearing - 11-23 big gears

Wheels/hubs - Race with Vuelta carbons

Tyres - Stelvios

Brakes - Ultegra

My best moment on this bike was - mmmh.

I have not had the bike too long - although not too hard. I commute from Brighton to London daily with the bike and train. We have had a couple of weeks recently where the weather has been fabulous and having been doing this commute on a banged out road bike for sometime. I decided that I probably need to do a bit more then I've been doing to be competitive. So I have a couple of rides where I have left earlier and avoided the train altogether and cycle up thorough the south downs on a perfect morning, strangely not much traffic and seemed to be going twice as fast then I have gone for years and in love with cycling and the bike - and when I returned I convinced my wife I was now sooo much fitter.

I would swap it for? - no - really happy with the bike.

Your bike - we want to feature your bike, whatever type it is - contact us, john@londoncyclesport.com

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