"*(although I am still confused by the large miles Tommy racked up in the summer, which Tommy aficionados claim wasn't him being motor paced, but those miles seem anomalous if he wasn't)"
Everyone forgets that Tommy was engaged in a race within a race to take the Nicholson record first. He had two major impetuses (sic), firstly Bernard Bennett was catching him and possibly on target to overtake his mileage and get to the new record before him. Secondly, Raleigh and his coach Charley Davey were on his case as well making sure he was constantly pushing the envelope and hence demonstrating the superiority of their gear vs that of New Hudson. Many of Tommy's big days were witnessed by HH England of Cycling magazine and not once did he ever comment upon any drafting/motor pacing Godwin was doing. His 348 mile day case in point, it was documented in detail and Godwin's splits clearly show a series of 20+mph sprint hours followed by recovery. That is how he rode, hard then soft, then hard then soft, driven on by his coach. He was time triallist before and this would have been natural to him. Both Kurt and Steve have ridden differently, both of them ride at a more constant rate, Kurt somewhat faster. We find it hard to understand Godwin's year because we put everything within our frame of experience. We do not understand the concept of giving up EVERYTHING to take on this record. Steve and Kurt have not given up everything, a lot but not everything. Godwin was driven by greater forces and as a result suffered more to achieve his goal. This allowed him to somewhat coast to the 100k miles at a mere 200 per day average ;-), he also had a financial incentive to do it in 500 days exactly as I outline in my book.