THE MASTERMINDS – with Grace Lambert Smith Continuing our series focussing on the people who work so hard behind the scenes to provide great Audax events, Arrivée contributor, Grace Lambert Smith meets up with famed organiser Mike Wigley.
Before the bus pass beckons
Arrivée150Winter2020
IT WAS A PARTICULARLY sunny day in Derbyshire when I met up with renowned organiser, Mike Wigley to shoot the breeze about his Audax career. His perms have punctuated many a randonner’s season, so it was a great pleasure to meet him in the beautiful Peak District. A miscommunication meant that he arrived over an hour before me at a lovely cafe in Edale where his bike leaned against a fence and he occupied the sunny terrace around the corner. Audax riders’ bikes are easily recognisable with their full-length mudguards, saddlebag and touring pedals, so I parked my bike on top of his, safe in the confidence that this bike definitely belonged to him. Mike’s home is on the outskirts of Manchester, a city steeped in cycling history and home to many a handy rider. His first
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Cheadle Drill Hall at the start of another AUK ride
bike arrived at the tender age of seven years old when it became his freedom machine: riding to school, between friends’ houses and back home again. “I wasn’t physically strong at school and I wasn’t interested in organised sports,” he confesses, “but it’s amazing how far one can go at a steady pace, something we randonneurs know so well.” This steady pace led him to expand his horizons over the years. Attending university in Aberystwyth opened the door to Welsh adventures, a place many of us will have experienced during the highs and lows of any fruitful Audax UK season. “I remember ascending the Bwlch-yGroes on a steel 5-speed bike,” he says. “Needless to say, I walked it back then but I’ve since ridden up it on a 27-speed bike during Dave Matthews’ Barmouth Boulevard 200.” I hastened to add how many
By day, Grace is a freelance copywriter. When she’s not at her laptop’s keyboard, she can be found riding her bike around the Peak District. She’s completed a couple of SRs and a PBP and is looking forward to pedalling her bike across more countries in the not-too-distant future
ascents of various hills I walked up on my first 20-speed bike not so many moons ago. Throughout the confinement of 2020, Mike took it upon himself to do a little bit of spring cleaning. You know the sort of thing – putting those dreaded creaks and rattles to bed once and for all and sorting through the ever-increasing pile of brevet cards that inevitably find themselves scattered around the house. The trip down memory lane revealed a lot about Mike’s almost 50-year career in Audax. “It looks like I rode my first 200 back in 1974,” he remembers, but you won’t find this particular ride on his Audax palmares. This
