Peter Georgi reflects upon a life on the bike and a year on his LANDRACE.
12 Months In Numbers
November 2024 (first ride on the Tupelo) To November 2025
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20,165 km
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769 hrs 45 mins
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193, 773 m climbing
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490, 775 calories
The LANDRACE Landscape - Behind The Numbers
A whole year has passed since that smooth seductress, Titanium came into my life…
I've skirted with the grey matter in the past of course. Titanium bolts on my old Campagnolo Super Record rear mechs and brakes, titanium bottom brackets and pedal axles, and who can forget the bling of an early Ti bottle cage? But never before has titanium been the bike rather than bits.
It really is a wonder which somehow seems to become a different bike for different people
In November 2024 though, my riding changed forever. In the basement of a boutique cycle fitting wizardry emporium... I was presented with a Landrace Tupelo from Cyclefit.
20,000km later and I feel I am only just getting started on a surprising and highly rewarding journey.
Getting On...
I am getting on a bit now, 60 years old in a few weeks and have been cycling since I was 14. My first “race" bike was a battered old Claude Butler, which quickly got replaced by a Holdsworth 531 and a chainset I earned from a week’s work in a bike shop (Colin Lewis Cycles). That saw me through my schoolboy years.
Then came a too-big Columbus tubed Saba - but it had Campag bits on and the guy we bought it off (road trip from Devon to Llandudno to pick it up) gave me a load of Campag tools. 
Peter Georgi at 18 (left) losing to Keith Reynolds in Launa Stage Race
Senior Years (and moments)
As the senior years arrived, I bought my first new frame, an aluminium Duralinox. A few of those came and went before being replaced by the remarkable 3-tube carbon frame from Peugeot, only to be superseded by its flashy 9-tube cousin. I even had a 531SL Peugeot that was a great criterium bike - short wheelbase, high bottom bracket and steep angles. Trouble was, it was a bit bendy being a very light steel tube.
Unable to get the right size carbon tubed Peugeots, I changed tack and ended my early-life racing career on a 753 Argos handbuilt frame. The BCF, forerunner to British Cycling gave me the tubes and I had to pay for them to build-up - oh the heady days of a well-funded governing body…
When I came back to Masters racing at around 40, I trained on a 531 Geoffrey Butler before getting a Brain Rourke frame handbuilt for me. I raced on carbon fibre Giant TCR’s.
Not My First Rodeo
It’s fair to say then that I have ridden a few different frames over the years. But for as long as I can remember, I have been fixated by the idea of a titanium frame. Something about those adverts claiming it to be, “The Last Frame You Ever Buy” just resonated with me. So, as the dangerous-decade begins I am finally on my forever frame.
Tupelo Honey
The Landrace Tupelo is the creation of Phil and Jules, the culmination of decades of work fitting superfit and not so superfit people to bikes. It really is a wonder which somehow seems to become a different bike for different people.
Flick through the Cyclefit and Landrace web sites and you will see that the bike has been created with easy riding and gravel in mind. It I can be the perfect winter bike, can take mudguards and 32 mm tyres, and is impervious to the wet.
In November 2024 though, my riding changed forever
Peter Georgi at 59 - guiding Tour 21 around TdF route on his LANDRACE Tupelo
Old Rouleur
But me, being the old rouleur that I think I still am, I have created a more race like feel.
I have ridden this bike for a year now; through the winter, fully kitted out with guards and a large saddlebag, and through summer, stripped down. I transferred my position from my last race bike and can ride all day on long rides and also spend over an hour in the drops ploughing into a headwind.
I am incredibly fortunate to be a ride leader on Cure Leukaemia’s Tour21, where a group of amateurs ride the whole route of the Tour de France, one week ahead of the pros. That means I ride the complete Tour route every year - this year I chose to ride my Tupelo. It was perfect.
We are not racing and some days ride for over 10 hours (actual pedalling time). To be honest, I was a fraction worried about riding what is essentially a winter bike on an event that demands a lot and where everyone else was on their race bred World Tour copies. I should not have been. Not only did the bike work out perfectly: it was comfortable, reliable, secure on rough ground, super stable on fast descents and purposeful when I had to sit for hours on the front of the group. To my surprise, it also turned heads. So many people commented on it along the way. There is something magical about titanium - in a carbon dominated homogenous world, riding a shiny metal frame that glints in the sun really does stand out.
All day on long rides and also spend over an hour in the drops ploughing into a headwind
So, one year down and 20,000km ridden on my Landrace Tupelo. Would I go back? No way. These really are frames for life. My only goal is to get a 2nd one….
I grew up in an era that valued having both a training bike and a racing bike - now I suppose they would be my winter and summer bikes. But the idea of having two versions, one set up with mudguards, robust tyres and always ready to go when the weather turns; the other stripped downed and blinged up just seems like the perfect system.
A final thought…
Racing in the 80s, we'd spend ages polishing our bikes with the legendary metal cleaner - Solvol Autosol. Hours were spent on the Super Record seat post alone.
Well now, with my titanium frame and seat post, I can polish again. Somehow, this bike gives me more than just something to ride. It brings my cycling full circle. It reminds me of the time when cycling was new, racing at home and abroad was the goal and everything still felt possible.
I don’t race now, but I do ride, and even though I am 60 I still believe I can get fitter, faster and lighter. I still chase adventure and I know that there is a long way to go.
A year ago I would not have thought that a few simple tubes of titanium could boost me so much…
But they have.
Thank you Tupelo.
Postscript:
We will be building Peter a V2.0 Tupelo for front-line guiding duties, fast rides and Sunday-best. We are looking forward to his feedback. He is the best ambassador - a champion's history and genetics. He is flying The Midlife Cyclist flag for all of us.
Phil & Jules
