Textima TT Pursuit Track 24/24

This team pursuit track frame was made by Christian Pyttel and Frank Böhme in the Textima research and development centre in Karl-Marx-Stadt in former GDR in 1983. One of the numerous ideas they had was to use a 24” front and back wheel to reduce spacing between the team pursuit drivers trying to take more advantage of the slipstream. Wind channel experiments with puppets in a team of four were made and compared to a team of 27/27 textima pursuit bikes. The testing was commissioned from the FES institute in Berlin. For testing, probably just a 4 of these 24/24 frames were made in 1982 and 1983. The experiments showed that the effort for the first team rider was reduced slightly, but the effort for rider 2-4 were significantly higher compared to the 27/27 pursuit bikes. That`s why the construction with smaller wheels never made the final leap to series production and competitions.