Penny farthing hill climb champion crowned
BBCA penny farthing racer has won a hill climb event for the second year running.
The Beachy Head time trial saw 40 participants race a three mile course on public roads in East Sussex, from Eastbourne to the top of the race's namesake cliff.
Alexandre Voisine won the event on Sunday, a year on from his previous victory.
Secretary of Eastbourne Bicycle Club 1877 and event organiser Matthew Trott said participants had travelled from as far as the Switzerland, Germany and the USA.
He told the BBC the climb up the 162m (530ft) cliff was "just on that limit" and that if it was any steeper then "we wouldn't have an event here".
"Penny farthings have no gears so basically you can't change down when you go up a hill," Trott said.
The event has been running for nine years after beginning with just five riders.
Trott said: "It's really in the last three years that it's become sort of an institution in Eastbourne and we have the crowds turn out like we had today to watch the event."
Penny farthings, which have a large front wheel and a tiny rear wheel, became popular in the 19th Century but gave way to modern bicycles.
Rider Neil Laughton said the time trial was "a tough event for people of a certain age on these crazy bikes" but was a "lovely place to cycle a Victorian bicycle".
Fellow competitor Glynn Stockton said the Eastbourne race was "a very famous event in the penny farthing community".
"It just seemed like such a wonderful, silly, British challenge to try and undertake," he told the BBC.
"It gets very steep and it gets very difficult at times but the crowds have been fantastic, all the cheering genuinely did help."
Rasta Rolla said: "It's torturous, it's difficult, it's painful, but we come back year on year and we just do it again and again.
"It's nice to see the crowds, it's almost like the Tour de France."
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