It might have been that the seat tube on the frame was too big for the seatpost and, instead of shimming the seatpost to make the it fit correctly, the previous owner simply kept cranking on the collar bolt to keep the seatpost from slipping.
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Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
the tiniest sprinter