Hi oldbrit
I'm very proud of the fact that my late uncle, Tom Dilkes (RIP) won the Scarborough road race back in the 1930s. I still have an Imperial Petrel cycle built, I believe, in Sparkbrook in the 30s and owned by him. Very light frame; so light, in fact that the tubes were very easily dented. I have ridden it comparatively recently with a fixed wheel which I fitted back in about 1963 when still at school. I lent it to one or two school friends and they rode it without much experience of a fixed wheel and found the experience "interesting".
Bizarrely, my mother used to use it for CTC Southern Family section runs back in about 1952-3, but she could never get the hang of the Sturmey Archer 3-speed gear with which it was then fitted! You can imagine how she got on with driving lessons!
Terry D