Alf Goullet’s 1923 Spencer Special
Alf Goullet's 1923 Spencer Special
This Spencer track bike was built for the greatest six-day track racer of all time, Alf Goullet.
The bike was constructed with an extremely high bottom bracket, which was meant to keep the pedals from striking the steeply banked velodromes of the day. The fork tubes and seat stays were made with stout oval tubing, all to resist the twisting forces that Alf could generate. Pop Brennan made custom handlebars in a shape that Goullet prefered, and springy wooden rims spun everything up to speed.
Custom Brennan handlebars
Spencer head tube detail
Just one speed for Alf Goullet. Fast.
The builder, Canadian expat Willie Spencer, while being quite handy with a welding torch, was quite the bicycle racer himself. A world record holder for the quarter mile, he also won the National Sprint Championship three times in the teens and twenties, and along with Alf is an inductee in the U.S. Cycling Hall of Fame.
Alf at 100
Alf at 30
Pop Brennan and Alf
Alf Goullet, the owner of this bike, was an Australian-American cyclist who won more than 400 races on three continents, including fifteen six-day races. He set multiple world records racing various distances, and still holds the record for the furthest distance ridden in a six-day race. Alf was a superstar. At a time when the average factory worker brought home $5 a day, he earned six figures a year racing his bike (dwarfing the salary paid to Babe Ruth). A real winner off the bike as well, Alf retired from cycling in 1925 and lived in good health and prosperity to the ripe old age of 103.