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It's a "funny" old world isn't it? I dread the winters coming round because the roads seem full of inconsiderate, and often drunk, motorists tearing around from one office party to another sitting on their mobile phones striking the fear of God into us cyclists. Fortunately, most of the time it's dark and we can't see them coming because we're being blinded by their headlights. Either that, or we're steering clear of the main roads trying to stay upright on ice covered lanes which are festooned with pot-holes. As one gets older though, the winters seem to pass by quicker than they used to and before we know it we're training in the light again and can begin to relax a bit in the knowledge that the racing season is rapidly approaching and there's everything to look forward to. There's no longer the same anxiety when we're out on the bike - we can be seen and we're safe….surely? Wrong! Having just been involved in an accident on the All Snetterton bypass in broad daylight I can tell you you can take nothing for granted. What made it even more ironic was that the other party involved was a racing cyclist! Worse still…..he rode into the back of me…in broad daylight for God's sake!! This was on a dual carriageway where there was clear vision
Anyone seen Big Ben? Lost and Found - for one issue only … maybe! S EE
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Cranks
Riders
Kit
Old Skool
Carbon
In this Issue Rounds 1 to 4 of Planet X’s old skool series - full race reports Who’s hot! :-) Who’s not! :-(
Plonker! Photo courtesy Techno for …..well just how good's your eyesight Mister? Just how far can you see down a dual carriageway…in broad daylight? Eh? There's absolutely no excuse whatsoever in my opinion. He was riding with his head down and wasn't watching where he was going. I'm not having a pop at motorists here…but cyclists. Not all of them - just those who cause danger to their fellow cyclists (and other road users) by doing what they're doing. I'm sore now. Very sore! Being mown down by a drunken motorist in the dark is one thing - being taken out by a fellow cyclist riding with his head down is something completely different!! Ride into the back of a broken down lorry and kill yourself by all means but don't go round causing injury to innocent parties by doing what you're doing. It's dangerous …okay? Ride with your head up ffs!
Where are they now? Mandy Jones—Women’s World Road Race Champion 1982 Even less Sportives than last month. Not a single CD, DVD, VHS, Betamax, Video 8, 8mm cine, disc, tape, book, advert - all “meat” a real treat! Ken Joy - the idol of the day from Booty’s era. Gambling….Franklin. Who’s doing what trainingwise....Nik Bowdler.
Onwards and upwards - Guaranteed (or your against all expectations money back) - not for the faint-hearted! - Issue No 5!
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OLD SKOOL SERIES - ROUND 1 ….CITY ROAD CLUB HULL 10 The City Road Club Hull’s running of its regular Good Friday 10 on the super fast V718 course near Hull marked the beginning of the 2009 Planet X old skool series. 150 riders were drawn to the village of Newport in anticipation of fast times – and they weren’t to be disappointed. Although it was cool, there was only a slight breeze blowing down the course which favoured the longer return leg. Traffic, which is a main feature of this course, was already building up as the first man left the timekeeper at 9 am. The volume fluctuated as the morning went on but for anyone fortunate enough to get a field placing which coincided with the boarding of the 11.15 ferry to Zeebruge this was certainly a day not to be missed. Several of the early starters returned to the HQ with stories of personal bests and the old skoolers must have wondered if there was a possibility that Colin Sturgess’s long time record of 18-48 may be beaten.
…...no hiding behind tri-bars or disc wheels…..no aero hats…just man and machine against the elements. Ian Cammish - Planet X, the old silver fox of time trialling had travelled up on the morning with one thing in mind – and one thing only – a sub 20 minute ride - his previous old skool best being 20-11. Cammish wasn’t going to have it all his own way though because the event had Ian Cammish Planet X - on the way to a narrow win with 21-38 attracted most of the country’s leading old skoolers, each - photos of this event courtesy Techno one having meticulously prepared for the event bearing in mind its significance in the national time trial calendar. These icons of the time trialling world were putting Western RC who sprinted for the line in 21-46 - well down on their reputations on the line – no hiding behind tri-bars or his entry time, but still good enough to take the lead in the disc wheels…..no aero hats…just man and machine event. against the elements. First of the old skoolers to finish was course specialist "The Sabre" (S. Ward - Team Swift) with 21-48. "The Sabre" reported that the course was running fast … although he'd seen it faster! "When Hull City played Doncaster Rovers last season it happened to coincide with a Team Swift evening 10 – the traffic was unbelievable on that occasion" he said (not!) This was quickly followed by Colin Parkinson - South
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With Cammish out on the road on his white Guerciotti, the focus of attention turned to Gavin Hinxman – Welland Valley Wheelers who was clearly taking this event very seriously. Hinxman has invested heavily in ebay over recent weeks putting together a remarkable piece of retro machinery that performed as one would expect for the amount of money involved. Hinxman was to go on to record 22-46 which included (only) one chain derailment estimated (by Hinxman) to have cost him the win.
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Colin Knapp - Middridge CRT was seen to be warming up on a retro bike but got carried away in the heat of the
don’t want it. They’re the rules and if he doesn’t like them, he shouldn’t be taking part”.
Amidst all this controversy, Cammish shot past the timekeeper with 21-38 and was immediately lost amongst the hundreds of cheering spectators that had gathered around the finish area. Cammish is reported to have been "gutted" with his time. “I honestly believed I had a 19 in me. I suppose I could have cheated and used all the aero gizmos to win the supporting event because it’s a well known fact that, together, they make 16.1 seconds a mile difference. But this is the old skool series isn’t it - and it’s my big objective of the season. At the end of the day, I suppose I must be happy with the win Gavin Hinxman—Welland Valley but I know I can go faster - I mean, Wheelers cruising round to a 22-46 it's only 21 years since I did a 20-14 in the event Sturgess broke the record moment and bottled out by donning in - no-one can go "off the boil" that an aero helmet by the time he was quickly can they?” called to the line by the time keeper, Jean Philipson. As the dust was settling, Stan Mills Yorkshire RC edged himself in to fifth place having only decided to go “We can’t have people old skool during the week when he masquerading as “old finally receiving long awaited confirskoolers” and then have them mation from the old skool committee walk away from any prizes that toe-clips and straps were not obligatory. The committee apologised they might have won”. to Mills for leaving it so late in the Phil “the Bullet” Barnes – Lancaster day to advise him of the decision but RC turned in an impressive 22-26 but put this down to the vast amount of modestly admitted to “not having "unnecessary" queries being put forgone old skool enough” and decided ward by potential old skoolers. "The not to “register” as old skool. The rules were initially, and intentionally, Planet X old skool committee, having kept quite simple….no aero helmets, none of this gentlemanly conduct / no disc wheels, no tri-bars. All we good sportsmanship blah de blah non- were asking was for people to enter in sense, hastily convened a post race to the spirit of things but we were immeeting in The Golden Plaice chippy mediately bombarded with all sorts of in Newport and decided to award “the queries …can we ride this?…can we Bullet” the 4th place prize “whether he ride that?..etc etc". The stress that likes it or not”. A Planet X official is this put members of the committee reported as having said “We can’t under has, apparently, resulted in have people masquerading as “old them "going down like flies" - at least skoolers” and then have them walk one of them has been hitting the bottle away from any prizes they might have …hard (hence his 21-38)…and anwon. We have photographic evidence other has gone off on long term sick to confirm that “the Bullet” went old leave. The latter is, however, believed skool and he must therefore accept the to have been able to up his training to prize. The voucher’s in the post – we 500 miles a week and is said to be
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intent on continuing with a similar training regime for as long as his GP is prepared to issue the appropriate sickness certificates. In the meantime, his warehouse in Doncaster has been left in capable hands and will continue to operate as normal - whether that's good or bad is open to question.
Stan Mills - Yorkshire RC...deciding at the last moment to go old skool
Overall….an excellent event organised to perfection by Geoff Blackshall and his team. Oh…and the supporting event was won by Wayne Randle - Planet X ..with an 18 something. Full Results: City Road Club Hull 10 - V718— 10 April 2009 I Cammish - Planet X 21-38 C Parkinson - SWRC 21-46 S Ward - Team Swift 21-48 P Barnes - Lancs RC 22-26 G Hinxman - Welland Valley Wheelers 22-46 S Mills - Yorks RC 24-04
BE THERE—BE SQUARE!
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? MANDY JONES - WOMENS WORLD ROAD RACE CHAMPION 1982. Testing Times’ very own (ok...its only!!) roving reporter tracks down Mandy Jones to find how she beat the world in 1982...and what she’s been doing since. When was your last race? The last International race I rode was the World Road Race in Stuttgart in 1991. I cannot find my record book at the moment but my actual last race was probably a Time Trial. Did you know it was your last race? No, in fact I had a really good winter after the 91 Worlds as I was training for the Olympics in 1992 and was really starting to feel that I was getting back into form. Unfortunately whilst out for a fairly easy MTB ride one day in Feb 92 I started having problems with my back which got so bad, that by the time I reached home I just about managed to crawl thought the door and collapse on the floor. Fortunately, because I was on the Olympic development team, I had access to doctors at one of the London hospitals where I was sent for various tests to try and find the problem. Not much luck with that so I was sent to Lilleshall Sports rehabilitation facility to work with the physiotherapist there for two weeks. They did manage to get me back on the bike but the problem was still there and it
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got to the point where I felt that, even if I was cured immediately, it was too near to the Olympics for me to get fit enough to do it justice, and I was unwilling to go half fit. What have you been doing in the mean time?
I’ve had a couple of breaks from cycling. My son Sam was born in September 1986 and this was quickly followed by an operation on my right calf for a tear just below the calf muscle. I had actually had this problem for a few years and it was the reason I had to pull out of the Ladies Tour de France in 1985 when I was in third place. It took a long time to get a diagnosis and that was after seeing various people. One even had the nerve to tell my Dad that it must be all in my mind, as I couldn’t possibly be winning National Championships if I was in so much pain. Maybe I should have invited him to watch me rolling around on the floor in agony after winning the National 25!
Had a few ups and downs in the next couple of years and started training and racing again properly in 1990. See above for last race! So after my cycling career came to an abrupt halt and I had had time to drag myself out of the disappointment of not going to the Olympics, I started running to keep fit, which surprisingly did not hurt my back. I competed in some fell races and a couple of mountain mara-
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thons; these are two day events where you run in pairs and have to carry all your overnight camping kit, plus navigate round the course, wade rivers and generally enjoy yourself, (or so partner and husband to be Nigel Bishop said). It definitely was not as good as cycling. Nigel and I married in May 1993, and daughter Rebecca arrived towards the end of 1994. Basically I started living a ‘normal’ life (is there such a thing?) working, bringing up a family. Instead of riding the bikes we spent our weekends walking, climbing and camping, although we did try to ride the bikes occasionally. I found as time went on I could ride reasonable distances without being crippled. Then in 1998 we made a big decision and bought a derelict barn, which for the next 8 years we worked on every hour we could to make it into a home. We spent the first two years in a static caravan, then the next four years in three rooms. It was a bit like living in a Youth hostel, with a lounge, dining room and kitchen all in one, plus bedroom, utility room and bathroom, very cosy. Then we finally finished the bedrooms and lounge and wondered how we would fill the space; now I wonder what we would do without it. The upstairs bathroom is still not finished, but it makes a great bike room and in the extra wide hallway (it was built for cows) we can fit four bikes without falling over them! Needless to say there is still plenty left to do outside on the two acres of field that came with the place, but sod that, life PAGE
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is too short.
nothing to lose so just go for it.
In 2006 Nigel decided he wanted a change of career, having worked in Health and Safety for seven years with a lot of travelling and being stuck behind a desk, so in November 2006 we bought Oldham Cycles, now renamed Surosa Cycles. I had been working for the Local Authority for nine years, which I was getting fed up with, so in 2007 I joined Nigel in the business, which is going well. Son Sam has recently joined the team, which also includes stepfather Bob Porter.
We were on the front row of the start line with Jim Hendry holding me up, then when we set off someone put a pedal in my wheel and I had to stop and get going again. That was pretty calming as you may imagine! I don’t remember much about the first lap, other than trying to stay near the front, then on second lap I got away with one of the Dutch girls, but she wasn’t strong enough to work with and we were caught just before the climb on the third lap. It was towards the end of the penultimate lap when I was on the front on the right hand side of the road that three girls made a move on the left and started to go away on the climb. I remember my legs hurting like hell and making a big effort to get across to them. By the time we crossed the finishing line to start the last lap, I had caught them, recovered enough to go past them at the line. We started working together for what turned out to be a fairly short time, because as we turned right at the next corner, taking us downhill and back towards the motor racing circuit, I attacked and got away. I do remember thinking that was too easy and that I was going to be caught back any second. The course descended quite a long way; then there was a flat section; then onto the very exposed Goodwood motor racing circuit where I was very much in sight of the bunch. After the motor racing circuit the climb started almost immediately, beginning as a gradual drag, which was very heavy on the legs, and then the climb proper to the finish. I knew the chasing group were fairly close because of the crowd shouting, which gave me a great lift; the rest as they say is history.
Photo—Courtesy Ron Good. What do you remember about The day…Goodwood etc? Did you really believe you could win it when you started? Well, despite the fact it is a good few years ago, I do remember quite a bit and certain things stick in my mind. One was being quite calm before the start, which for me was good, because I used to get very nervous before events. Part of the reason I think was because the Pursuit the week before had gone so badly, when I did my slowest ride ever, that I thought nothing can be that bad again, so I’ve got
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Did you ever consider going abroad? No not really, there were not the opportunities in the early eighties for women to do that. How did you train?
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I mainly trained with Ian Greenhalgh, my ex, who was riding as a professional at the time, so it was pretty tough going out with him. On a Wednesday we did a long ride of about 70 to 90 miles and usually had the company of Jack Kershaw, Ian’s team mate, so at least I got to sit on the back for a bit. Ian just trained as he normally would which was doing a lot of miles at a good pace and I basically had to keep up, no moaning allowed. I live in the Pennines where there are no flat places to ride, so it was like doing intervals; try hard up the hills and rest on the descents. The aim was always to win the Worlds Road Race in 82 at Goodwood so the training for the three years prior to this was geared to achieving that aim. It sounds awfully big headed to write that down now but Ian had basically sat me down, said I needed to give myself something to aim for, so why not make it the World Championships on home ground in three years time? It seemed a good idea at the time. I had ridden both the Pursuit and Road Race in 1980, where I took the Bronze medal on the road. In 1981 I rode only the Pursuit, but was ill so did not do a good ride. Then in 1982 the work paid off with the Gold on the road. In 1983 I managed 4th in the Road Race after getting knocked off by a car the day before and getting badly bruised especially my ribs, and my chain came off during the event at the bottom of the climb. It was obviously one of those years. Now of course riders specialize for certain events, which is understandable when you look at my training for the 82 Worlds in trying to accommodate doing a ride in both Pursuit and Road Race. Ian was trying to think of ways to improve my speed for the Pursuit and as he PAGE
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already had a motorbike we decided to use it to train behind. We only had access to Leicester as a track to train on, which was two hours from home, so not really convenient. So in the two months leading up to the Worlds in 82 I started doing sessions behind the bike. We would do a normal road session in the morning, about 3 hours, and then in the evening do some speed work. This involved riding out from home for a warm up, about 4 miles, until we got to a quiet section of flattish road we had found near Heywood. There I would ride behind the bike doing 30 mph, until we got to a section of road we had previously identified as a good spot for me to ride at the side of the bike, still doing 30mph, for as long as I could. I would usually do eight efforts then back home. At first I could only manage a few yards before getting back behind the bike, but after a few weeks I could ride at the side of Ian for the full section we had marked. The only problem was that what we were doing was trial and error and we did not realise how long it would take me to recover from this intensive training. I completed my final session only three days before I was due to ride in the World Championship Pursuit at Leicester and hence the reason for my awful ride, but hindsight is a great thing. In the gap between riding the Pursuit and the Worlds RR a week later, I took it very easy and was rewarded with being on top form when it mattered, but more by good luck than good judgement! Did you do any TT specific training when you knew you had a big TT coming up? If so what?
Not really as I did not have time to fit specific TT training in. My racing year revolved around domestic Road Races and Internationals and it was doing these that brought my speed on, racing abroad being much faster than in England. But I love TT’s and had begun riding them when I was 13. Event programming became one of the priorities in the order of Worlds; Inter-
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nationals; National Road Race; National Track Championships; Domestic Road Races; National 10, 25 and 50; and it was then that TT’s were used to fill the gaps which often resulted in quite a heavy weekend of racing and travel. The domestic time trials were I
Nigel, Mandy and Surosa. suppose my training for the Nationals. I always used to warm up very well for all tt’s; in most cases I would get out of the car with 15/20 miles to go to the event HQ and time it so I wasn’t hanging around too long before the start. If I did have a long wait I got on the rollers until I had to ride to the start and I have cut it a bit fine sometimes. I would then do a good warm down or ride home, or partly home, to keep up the mileage. Looking back ...what attributes do you think you had to make you that much better than the rest? Definitely a natural ability (and that’s only from hind sight) and being very competitive, but without the very hard training it would have come to nothing, natural ability alone will not get you there if you are not fit. I was brought up on fixed wheel and was a very good peddler, (something my Dad was very keen on); only graduating to gears when I started road racing at 16 years old, and even these were screwed down in ‘training’ events. Having the ability
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to pedal was definitely a big bonus. As an example of ‘pedalling’ to your readers I must relate the story of a two-up 25 ride I did with Ron Mellor on the Viaduct Course in Cheshire (hard course). Ron, a regular under the hour man, was the latest partner dad had ‘persuaded’ to ride with me in a two up. Everything was fine until after the turn when the cable broke on my front changer. To Ron’s astonishment I simply wrapped the cable up and proceeded, in the little ring, to go even faster than we went out. Ron’s comment to my dad was “Never again!” It even proved to me that sometimes you can be in too big a gear! I must admit to having my eyes opened to how hard it must be for people to put into perspective just how much training I did and how very fit I was. I had finished riding a 10-mile TT on Cheshire, I think I had done a 22.04. I was standing at the result board and two gentlemen were standing behind me, one had ridden, one had not. The conversation went something like this. “Hi George why haven’t you ridden today.” “What and get beaten by a bloody woman” (obviously someone with a fragile ego, sorry guys). I almost felt as though I should explain to him, just how much training I was doing, the fact that I wasn’t working and that cycling was my full time job, but then would it have made any difference? I’ve got to say guys I did enjoy beating you. Well we all need to have a challenge. Do you begrudge anyone what he or she can make (money-wise) out of the sport these days?
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Not really, times change and thankfully for the better, it’s no good having regrets about what might have been. It would have been great to have the support the GB teams get now, because living on the dole to pursue your dreams is not easy, but I got lots of support from my family. My Mum and Dad ran me all over the country to races and bought me equipment when they could. It may interest readers to know that on my bronze ride in the 80 Worlds I was riding a second hand Bob Jackson, slightly too big, which my dad bought from Derek Whitham, along with 3 pairs of wheels, for £50!
Daughter Rebecca is now 14 and has been riding at Manchester Velodrome for the past three years and is now venturing out on the road. She has done some circuit races and two 10m tt’s up to now, so I said in a moment of rashness that I would ride the M&DLCA 10 with her. It is also the Manchester Ladies 60th Anniversary this year and I had mentioned to one or two of the members that I would ride. So having committed myself I am now trying to get to a reasonable stage of fitness so that I can beat the time I did in this event in 1975 as a 13 year old (30.54), my first ever 10. So keep your fingers crossed for me, it will be my first race for 18 years! I am only managing to do about 70 miles a week, which is two rides to work and back, 10 miles each way, plus a two hour session on Manchester Track with the Vets on a Friday morning and 30 to 40 miles on Sunday with Rebecca. So unless I can fit some more riding in I don’t think I will be racing regularly. I will probably just ride a few locally if they fit in with Rebecca’s racing. Any idea how many miles a year you used to do?
….on the comeback trail? Sometimes even strangers helped out. A gentleman named Tommy Millar sent £500 through the post to enable me to buy a track bike as he had seen me ride at Leicester in the National Track champs when I won the Pursuit, on a borrowed bike that was too big for me and I will be forever grateful to him for his generosity. I still keep in touch with him. You say you’re going to enter the Manchester Ladies 10 m tt in April- you still keeping fit then. Can you see yourself riding tt’s on a regular basis? I don’t know about keeping fit as trying to get fit. I started riding the bike a bit more regularly 18 months ago. I also do Pilates for my back, so up to now it’s been OK.
S EE
Training always started in January. From then and throughout the racing season I rode about 300 to 350 miles a week. In the winter I worked and would get there on the bike but most winter miles were done at weekend when we would go hostelling or go on the West Pennine Club runs, sometimes as long as 125 miles in the day, with a couple of stops for food. The last stop usually involved beer as well, an old West Pennine tradition. I could usually manage about half a pint and then make my way home, still sober of course, leaving Ian, Dad and company to wobble their way home later.
ing memories of things I said or did at the time. One particular memory was that after winning the World Road Race in 82 I was being interviewed by Hugh Porter, and I remember saying that I was going to take some time out because I needed a break. It obviously wasn’t practical to do that, taking a year out when you are reining World Champion would be a bit odd. But as I mentioned earlier I was so focused on the goal of winning in 82 that neither Ian nor myself had looked any further than that. We had not considered the knock on effect of all the publicity and the effect it would have on our lives, which was something I found very hard to deal with at 20 years old. You don’t get training on how to be a World Champion! (or maybe you do now, let’s hope so). Regards Mandy First Places in National Time Trials 1982
10 miles 23:14 50 miles 2:01:37
1983 10 miles 23:05 25 miles 59:06 1984 1985 10 miles 23:42 25 miles 1:00:05 1986 1987 25 miles 58:37 50 miles 2:07:04 1988 1989 1990 25 miles 1:00:47
Bearing in mind I also couldn’t drive so went everywhere by bike, including club dinners and we didn’t count those miles.
POST SCRIPT!!
1991 10 miles 22:24 25 miles 1:00:18 50 miles 1:58:04 1991 I rode a 100 as well giving me the B.A.R. 25.766
While I have been writing this article and having to think back, it has started trigger-
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OLD SKOOL SERIES - ROUND 2 EAST ANGLIAN CC 25 The Planet X old skool series moved on to Norfolk for the second of its retro events. Following the success of the Good Friday City Road Club Hull 10, riders were looking forward to another fast event - this time on the A11 Attleborough bypass on the roads to be used for this years National 25 miles championship (the second most prestigious single event in Norfolk after this event - the East Anglian CC promotion). The heaving mass of cycling enthusiasts that were gathered in the Headquarters at Morley before the start of the event speculated whether or not Michael Hutchinson - Quick Gear Innit might be tempted into going old skool. His name was clearly on the start sheet and he had even been offered the loan of an old skool bike by Ian Cammish - Planet X, presumably looking for an excuse not to be able to ride after an unaccustomly slow 21-38 at Hull the previous week. Going old skool is not something that can be taken lightly though and Hutchinson, possibly unable to cope with the associated stress and pressure, chose to leave it to the experts opting for the easy way out by riding the supporting event instead. Organiser Paul Lynch and his team pulled out all the stops to put on an event which is likely to go down in history as one of the most talked about for years - especially if its winner fulfils the potential shown during the event. Against all expectations, 66 year old Adrian Perkin - Godric CC from Loddon in Norfolk pulled off the finest win of his long career by covering the 25 miles in 1-39-04. This left regular old skooler Cammish shaking his head in disbelief…"Who'd have thought that Adrian would pull a ride out like that eh? The word on the street is that he has been piling in the miles over the winter but I wouldn't have put him down for the win…would you? All credit to the guy!" Perkin was unavailable for comment pushing the paparazzi aside as he skipped down from the stage after accepting his awards. He was clearly very happy with his morning's efforts but wouldn't be drawn into making any predictions about his future participation in the series preferring, instead, to keep all the other old skoolers in the dark! Perkin's "spoils" for a little over an hour and a half's effort? £50 Planet X voucher, retro hat and all the spot prizes. Hutchinson who won the supporting event with a 49 something walked away with £25 and was left wondering what might
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Adrian Perkin—Godric CC upset the established stars with a stunning 1-39-04 - photo courtesy Mark Cozens www.mphotography.co.uk have been. Local experts believe Engers' old skool record of 49-24 would never have been in danger in any event - "If he
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(Hutchinson) could only manage a long 49 with all the aero gizmos he'd have been lucky to have scraped under the hour without them wouldn't he?" Cammish, in the meantime, would dearly have liked to have been taken up on his offer of the loan of the bike but found himself having to put his reputation on the line for the second week running. Unfortunately, a broken spoke led to him "packing " at the Little Harling turn with 7 or 8 miles still to go and while he was coasting back to the finish he was involved in a collision with another rider. "That just goes to show how dangerous all this modern technology is doesn't it? I've had my reservations for years. How can you expect time triallists to safely cope with all that speed without special training? It's like giving some young 17 year old who's just passed his driving test a Bugatti Veyron to play with isn't it? Total madness. The rider had no chance at all. He was travelling so fast he just didn't have the time to take evasive action - noone's reactions are that quick. He just rode straight into the back of me. I hope the CTT will review the use of tribars, disc wheels and aero helmets as a result of this. What more can I say….other than what an awesome ride of Adrian's?"
More retro-loveliness (other than the honorable Mr Perkin...facing page)..to the right!
More Planet X old skool series events coming up—you’ve been warned. Everyone deserves their 15 minutes of world-fame. Ride just one and see what our on-the-spot reporter makes of you and your earth-shattering performances! Ride two and risk the chance of getting mown down by one of those lunatics let loose with all the aero gizmos. Ride four and, providing two of them are 10s and two are 25s, you WILL be in with a chance of the top prize….a brand new old bike worth a thousand pounds and six pence. Be there be square. Coming soon: Saturday 16 May - Team Swift 25 V232 - Entries to S Beldon, 3 Kingsley Rd., Adel, Leeds LS16 7NZ Sunday 7 June - Hitchin Nomads 25 F1- Entries to R Bland, 30 Bevington Way, Eynesbury, St Neots, Cambs PE19 2HQ Saturday 13 June - Dursley 25 U46B - Entries to M Hallgarth, 5 North St., Wickwar, Glos GL12 8NQ Get your entries in now - and don’t forget your big yellow kiss! It makes the organiser’s day. S EE
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KEN JOY POST-WAR SUPERSTAR by Peter Whitfield Time-trialling is almost as much about the past as about the present: when you race you are always measuring yourself against the times, the riders, the champions and the records that preceded you. Those other riders provide the inspiration that makes you want to be part of this unique sport, and time and again when you talk to the great riders they tell you about the stars they looked up to when they were starting.
“When I was just coming into timetrialling,” says Ray Booty, “Ken Joy was the idol of the day, the supreme champion, the rider every clubman looked up to and dreamed of emulating.” And Joy in his turn used to say that Frank Southall was his hero, and that he dreamed of winning the BAR title as often as Southall had, and of writing his own name in the RRA record book as often as Southall’s. Those with very long memories will vividly recall Joy’s fame in the early 50s. Tall, powerful, smooth-pedalling, wellspoken, perfectly-mannered, he seemed the incarnation of the amateur athletic ideals of strength, grace and dedication. He was the superstar of cycling’s postwar era. True, Reg Harris was a world champion in that era; but Harris was
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like a gladiator in the exotic world of international pro sprinting. Joy was a clubman, a Sunday-morning timetriallist, with whom all other clubmen could identify – the only difference was that he was up there with the gods. Clad in his black strip with his sunglasses, he looked cool, powerful, and ahead of his time. Joy first grasped time-trialling’s big prize, the BAR championship, in 1949, and he tightened his grip on it year by year until 1952, a run of four victories equalled only by the legendary Southall in the early 30s. In each of those years Joy’s margin of victory became more emphatic, as he pushed the record average speed ever higher, breaking the 100 and 12-hour records several times on the way, and leading his club, the Medway Wheelers, to four successive BAR team titles. The only reason he did not go on to take five or six BAR’s was that in 1953 he signed as a professional for Hercules, to attack the prestigious place-toplace records, and his manager was none other than Frank Southall himself. His successes during the 1953 and 1954 filled the cycling press each week, as, alongside Eileen Sheridan, the pair rewrote the RRA record-book for Hercules, and Joy was confirmed as still without doubt the master time-triallist in the country. “I was a child of the 1930s,” says Ken. “I grew up in North Kent, on the Isle of Sheppey, and started racing during the war years. I rode a 25 in 1:4, but my first 100 took me over 5 hours and for most of that time I was promising myself that this would be my last attempt at the distance. The agony must have worn off pretty quickly, since two weeks later I was riding my first 12. But my prayers were answered that day when my tyre blew to pieces and I was off the hook. Soon afterwards I received my call-up papers, joined the Royal Corps of Signals, and never touched a bike again for
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almost four years. I was in the D-Day landings, and went on into Germany. I was demobbed in 1946, and by 1947 I started to get back up to speed. I worked as an engineer in the Medway dockyards. So many cyclists then were engineers, fitters, mechanics, draughtsmen – that sort of thing. I was pounding out the training miles, evenings and weekends. I did regular runs of up to 80 miles, as hard as I could all the way, on a fixed wheel of 69 inches. All my racing was done on 82 or 84 inch fixed. In 1947 I landed my first comp record when Pete Beardsmore and I teamed up to take the tandem 100 record down to 3:49:35. I remember that as a smooth, trouble-free ride. The following year we took the 30 record with a 1:2:43. These were on fixed too, I think of around 100 inches. Everyone rode fixed then. In 1948 we drew up a plan of campaign to have a really serious crack at the BAR team competition. At the finish of the season, Beardsmore took the title from Albert Derbyshire, and I was third. Roy Enfield made up the Medway team. Going for the BAR team like that was a full-time commitment. None of us had cars, so you rode out to events on the Saturday, stayed in digs, and rode home again on the Sunday. With the training too, it took up your whole life. 1949 was a repeat performance, except that I came out on top, ahead of Beardsmore and Ken Whitmarsh. It’s interesting that you could win the BAR at that time without getting under two hours for the 50. I made my first RRA record attempt that year too, the London-Brighton-London, but it was rather comical as I fell off twice, but still got the record! When they interviewed me that year I said I couldn’t see myself ever getting married, as I had no time and no money for anything except cycling!” 1949 was the beginning of Joy’s fouryear reign as king of the BAR. There were so many great rides that it’s difficult to do justice to them, but perhaps PAGE
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the most emphatic proof of his superiority came in three successive weekends in June 1952. Like many of the great BAR multi-champions – Booty, Griffiths and Cammish – Joy’s greatest strength lay in the 100, where he was virtually unbeatable. That year he
nuses for any records broken. When he signed the contract, he was able to marry Janet Gregory, herself a champion cyclist, who had won the national 50 at the age of 18, and who went on to set comp records at 50 and 100 miles.
claimed to know nothing about roadracing, saying he used to time his moves when the others were slowing down to take their feeds! But all was not plain sailing at Hercules. “Southall may have appeared to be a genial man,” recalls Ken, “and his prestige in the cycling world was immense, but I found he was a hard taskmaster, and we didn’t hit it off at all. It amazed me that he didn’t go in for any strategic planning, in fact he hardly communicated with me at all. He would just knock on my front door, any night, any day, and say, “The wind’s in the right direction – we’re going for a record!” On the day I got the straightout 100, believe it or not I had done a 75-mile training run in the morning, when Frank turned up, shoved some food into me, and whisked me off to the start. No wonder I only got that record by less than a minute. There was no reconnaissance of the routes, no special clothing provided for bad weather, no medical advice, nothing. I’m glad I got those records, but I have to admit I don’t have very good memories of those times.”
struck his first blow in the Anfield 100, taking 11 minutes off the existing course record, with a time of 4:15:57. When this result was announced over the PA system at the Bank Holiday meeting at Fallowfield track, the crowd let out an audible gasp of amazement. They would have gasped even louder one week later at the result of the Wessex 100: almost 6 minutes off competition record, with 4:6:52. This was the ride that really started the count-down to the sub-four-hour 100, which came four years later. Even this didn’t seem to exhaust Joy’s appetite for 100’s, for the very next weekend he recorded 4:9:39 in the Broad Oak event, despite losing several minutes with a puncture. Three majestic 100s in three weeks, followed by his 12-hour comp record of 264.8 gave him an unassailable lead in the BAR, and made a fitting end to his amateur career. That winter he was approached by Frank Southall, and his life as a professional record-breaker began the following spring. For the record, his contract with Hercules was worth £10 a week, before tax, plus bo-
Record-breaking was a strange and lonely form of racing, often starting in the cold and the dark at 2 or 3 in the morning to avoid city traffic, with no competition but the shadows of the men who had ridden the same roads five or ten years before. But Joy’s two years with Hercules were glorious ones that yielded eleven records, including all the classics: the 100 miles, the London-Brighton, London-Bath, London-Portsmouth, and Land’s EndLondon. Two of his records still stand today: Pembroke-London, in which he averaged 24 mph for the 241 miles, and the ride that many consider to be the highlight of his entire career: Liverpool-London, where he brought the time for the 201 miles well inside 8 hours, a truly sensational achievement in 1954. It’s often forgotten that Joy didn’t occupy his entire season with half a dozen record attempts: he was pressed into the road-racing team alongside Robinson and Bedwell, and in the 1954 Tour of Britain he rode strongly to finish 17th overall – amazingly good for a pure time-triallist. He
And there were failures too in those years, two in particular that cast their shadow over Joy’s brilliant record. The first came in September 1953 when Joy and Bob Maitland, the BSA professional, were sent to France to ride in the classic time-trial the GP des Nations. Given Joy’s status as the god of English time-trialling, the expectations at home were very high. When the news came that he had been beaten by a 19-year old French rider by the incredible margin of 20 minutes over the 86 miles, the shock waves reverberated throughout the nation’s clubrooms. This defeat has gone down as something of a black legend in British cycling history, supposedly proving that our time-trialling was hopelessly out of touch with reality. No explanation ever emerged in public from the riders as to what had happened, but the facts were these: Ken had never even seen the course, because on the day before the race Southall insisted on towing him around the French press offices. That evening Ken had to prepare his own bike while Southall and his friends
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were out on the town in Paris. Ken almost felt he was being made a fool of, and had no morale at all at the start. If he had had three or four days to settle in, plus some decent support, it would surely have been a different story. The name of that young French winner by the way: Jacques Anquetil. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of all came in what should have been the climax to Joy’s career: the End to End attempt in August 1954. The bare facts of the ride are these: the wind was favourable from the start, but it was exceptionally cold for mid-summer, with intermittent heavy rain. Joy started fast and put up a superb first 24-hour time of 475.75 miles, which was easily an RRA record and well ahead of the RTTC comp record too. He then had 30 hours left to cover the next 400 miles – less than 14 mph. Sounds easy for a champion rider? But Joy had never ridden further than a 12-hour before in his life, and he had just set a new 24-hour record. The wind was swinging around north-westerly, knocking him back to 10 mph in the worst places. It continued cold and he wasn’t eating properly, suffering bouts of sickness. He struggled on, but the end came north of Stirling after 590 miles. He had done as much as any man could, but he knew he would not survive a second night. That 24-hour record – which was Southall’s idea – had been achieved at the cost of the End-to-End record, there’s not much doubt about that. It was later discovered that Ken actually had a stomach ulcer, in spite of which, just three weeks later, he was thrown into the world pro road-race championship in Germany! Needless to say he didn’t finish, but nor did any other British rider. After this bruising, he took a few weeks off, then he was back over some of the End-to-End roads again for a new Liverpool-Edinburgh record: just outside 9 hours for the 210 miles. This was a magnificent time, that lasted until Gethin Butler broke it in 2001, and, although he didn’t know it then, it was Ken Joy’s last race. His contract had another year to run, and in February 1955 he was due to set off for the continent with the rest of the Hercules team in a road-racing cam-
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paign which was to culminate in the Tour de France. How Joy would have fared in that campaign we’ll never know, because just before the departure date he came down seriously ill. He missed that whole trip, and never came back to racing. There was no announcement, no
and I wish I could wipe away the years and try out some of the new methods and the new equipment. On the other hand it’s all very serious now isn’t it, very clinical, and I don’t think the riders have as much fun as we did. It was a different world then.”
public farewell, no interviews, he just slipped quietly out of the sport. It was a sad end to his six years of greatness. As an ex-professional the rules in those days meant he would not be allowed to time-trial again, so at the age of 33 his career was over.
Fun it may have been, and Ken speaks about it modestly now, but he left behind him a legendary reputation for speed, endurance and elegance – all classic qualities from the classic era of time-trialling of which he was the king.
Looking back now, Ken sees his amateur years as the golden ones. “I only did it because it was fun: the training weekends, riding out to events, the digs, the camaraderie – that was the great thing: the racing was almost secondary! When I look at today’s times I’m just amazed,
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GAMBLING ON... Mick Gambling contributed around 5000 articles, race reports, interviews etc for Cycling Weekly, formerly Cycling. They encompassed a 40 year period, 1965 – 2004 and half that period, to 1985, included light-hearted pieces. Many were topical for the period, although some are still relevant to the present time. A taste of these will be produced on a regular basis. Mick is still alive and pedaling in Norfolk. It’s going to be a bad day when…. TIME TRIALLING 1.You ask for an early start in an event marked pm in the handbook and when the start sheet is received you are off at 5.15 am. 2.You have accidentally entered two events starting at the same time on the same day. 3.There is a noisy party next door and the national championship is tomorrow. 4.You wake up to find a good forecast has turned into rain and gale on the windows. 5.It is five minutes to starting time when the seam on your skin-suit splits and parts of you fall through it. 6.The timekeeper keeps shaking his watch. 7.The pusher-off pulls you back on the even numbers. 8.Your ankle hits the crank on every revolution. 9.Your rival goes smirking by on the other side of the road slip-streaming an army convoy. 10.A marshal is missing and you are in the fast lane of the southbound carriageway of the M1 but going north. 11.You feel a rhythmic bump from your back tubular. 12.You are caught by somebody with a bald head. 13.You miss two feeds in a 12 hours event and see your helper drive out of a wood with your girl friend. 14.You reach the official sponge / drinks station but the former is sticky
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and the latter gritty. 15.Cycling Weekly is late. TOURING 1.You ride 80 miles and then find the hostel car park full. 2.The girl giving you the “come on” in the hostel common room is the only one you don’t fancy. 3.You drop a bottle of beer in front of the Warden. 4.The Warden catches you leaving the girl’s dormitory. 5.You have had a night in a dormitory of snorers. 6.You find your shorts are not baggy. 7.It’s Friday the 13th and you are descending a wet mountain pass. 8.A 10 miles short cut takes two hours. 9.A group of “rockers” on motor cycles
think you put two fingers up at them. 10.Your tour leader is lost. 11.You can’t find the field in which you pitched your tent. 12.There is a cow in your tent. 13.The bottom falls out of your saucepan. 14.Your tin opener has been left at home. 15.Your bottle opener has been left at home. 16.You have camped in a mosquito infested area. 17.You think you may have been bitten by a snake in the night. 18.The bird outside your tent is a vulture. 19.Rex Coley finds a holiday camp at Cape Wrath.
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ROAD RACING. 1.You didn’t receive a start sheet and a clubmate rings you to ask why you are not on it. 2.You are signing on and remember your racing shoes are sixty miles away, under the stairs. 3.You need one more point to become first category but your licence and crash hat have been left at home. 4.Your girl friend / wife says she wants to take up racing. 5.A star rider loans you his expensive pump and you break it. 6.You are first to the bike check and the examiner is showing off. 7.Deep Heat embrocation has somehow reached a delicate area. 8.You get dropped in the neutralized zone.
9.Your chain derails and gets in a double loop. 10.Your gear mechanism touches the spokes in bottom gear and it is a hilly course. 11.The service vehicle rams you. 12.The wheel you borrow in a crisis won’t go in the frame without deflating the tubular. 13.You notice on a steep descent that your brake shoes are reversed. 14.You get lapped on a 10 miles circuit and your workmates have turned up to watch. 15.You want to “pack” and the “sag wagon” is ahead of you. 16.Your name becomes a misprint in Cycling Weekly.
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OLD SKOOL SERIES ROUND 3 - CATFORD 10 Catford CC recently hosted the third of Planet X's old skool events on the legendary Q10/19 course on the Tonbridge bypass in Kent. In 1981 Dave Lloyd - Manchester Wheelers, broke competition record on the course with a 19-11. Only one other rider has gone faster old skool….Colin Sturgess with his record 18-48 ride in 1988. With the possibility of fast times, and the generous prizes on offer (provided by the competition's sponsors Planet X and PowerBar), north west Kent's leading old skoolers (and one or two others) couldn't help but be drawn to the country's major event of the weekend and the hundreds of cheering spectators that lined to course must surely have been well pleased to witness yet another chapter in British time trialling history. People remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the assassination of President Kennedy. Others remember, vividly, when the first man walked on the moon. Well Colin "the Power" Parkinson's incredible 22-15 will similarly etch itself in people's minds as being one of the most remarkable rides of all time. Just what can be said about the man? After being annihilated by Ian Cammish - Planet X in City Road Club Hull's Good Friday showdown (where Cammish "stuffed" him for 10 seconds), "the Power" got up, dusted himself down and rearranged his training schedule to reverse the finishing order in the space of just two weeks.
...I stuffed my face full of barley sugars two or three minutes before the start and kept sucking on them.. While other riders were complaining
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Colin “the Power” Parkinson - South Western RC showed what could be done with the right preparation—Photo courtesy Mike Anton http://www.mikeanton.com/
about the cold, the rain, the wind, the altitude etc etc "the Power" shot round the course in his own inimitable fashion. "Up at the start I must admit I was finding the rarefied atmosphere hard to cope with but once I'd dropped down to join the A21 I started to benefit from the change in altitude and just went from strength to strength. I'd ridden the course back in the 80s and remember people getting the "bends" then as a result of not preparing properly so I stuffed my face full of barley sugars two or three minutes before the start and kept sucking on them, swallowing at regular intervals, as I descended the hill to prevent damage to
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the lungs and the build up of nitrogen etc. I simply spat out the gooey orangey mess when I hit the A21 (so that I could breath properly) and the rest, as they say, is history". Cammish (who'd, perhaps, not done his homework quite as well as “the Power”) looked pale, drawn and extremely shell shocked as he weaved his way from the finish back to race headquarters. From his decompression chamber he was able to carry out his post race analysis and issued the following statement to the World's eagerly awaiting Press. PAGE
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"I'm a broken man" he admitted. "I'm lost without the lucky skinsuit I was wearing last week when Patrick Ellis crashed into the back of me in the East Anglian CC old skool 25. It got ripped to shreds and I had to wear a different one today. I'm not usually superstitious but that tells you something doesn't it? Apart from that, I've absolutely no idea what went wrong today. I felt great up at the start, really light-headed and ready to take on the world - just like a Saturday night out on the lash - but started getting problems on the decent when I got speed wobble after hitting some greasy orange coloured slime half way down. I just never recovered. Totally gutted!" The overall competition is hotting up as old skoolers continue to "bank" their events. Gavin Hinxman - Welland Valley Wheelers, riding his second old skool 10, spent a few days familiarising himself with the course and went home well happy with his 23-55.
“I felt great up at the start, really light-headed and ready to take on the world - just like a Saturday night out on the lash” Phil Young - Herts Wheelers could have been mistaken for a pro road racer from the 70s as he manoeuvred his way, quite expertly, around all the Zimmer frames parked neatly in the race headquarters' car park. Young went on to finish in 27-03 then announced to the Press that he intends gaining a top place overall in four straight rides - something that has never been accomplished before. Adrian Perkin - Godric CC, didn't take part in the Catford CC 10, but is believed to be keeping a watchful eye on proceedings. Those closest to him have inadvertently let it slip that Perkin took several days to recover from his East Anglian old skool 25
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Gavin Hinxman—Welland Valley Wheelers warming up on his not-so-retro turbo. The “riser block” is a classic piece of 4”x2” from the 80s—photo courtesy Mike Anton (so much better than any of those taken at the event by that nice Mr Kimroy-Silk). ;-) epic. He is said to have been overheard whispering to a close friend "I never thought that riding a 25 old skool would take as much out of me as it did. All those whipper-snappers charging around doing incredible 10 mile times are in for a rude awakening when it comes to the 25… mark my words!" Perkins' views are shared by Cammish who doesn't believe there are enough hours in the day to do a 25 old skool - "Was Perkins' East Anglian 25 time legitimate? I can't believe we used to go that fast all those years ago. I'd forgotten just how incredibly hard it is! I can't blame Hutch for not wanting to take part - let's face it, if he thought there was a chance of taking Alf's record, and the £500 on offer, he'd have had a shot last week in the East Anglian event wouldn't he?(Hutchinson rode the event - but not old skool.) No…just too hard for mere mortals like Hutch! ;-) Leave it to the likes of "the Power" and the right honourable Mr Perkin - respect where it's due eh?"
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Full Results: Catford CC Old Skool 10 - Q10/19 Saturday 25 April 2009 C Parkinson - SWRC 22-15 I Cammish - Planet X 23-05 A Branson - Ashford Whls 23-16 G Hinxman - Welland Valley Whls 23-53 J Hemming - Addiscombe CC 24-55 P Young - Herts Whls 27-03 S Payne - Central Sussex CC 27-07 J Maund - Headquarters Club 27-17 Dr A Mills - Lewes Wanderers CC 32-51
Sod it...a gap! If just 8 more old skolers had taken part this page would have filled up quite nicely. You chicken or what? Experience is showing the aero gizmos make two minutes difference in a 10 - so says to55er. “The Power” has already got one over the to55er - so God help Mr Bowdler and co if he decides to go for the BBAR when he reverts to all the trick gear!!
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TOP FIVE TARMACS - by Ann O’Raque We can all be pretty "sad" at times can't we? A recent meeting with Luke Evanshttp:// www.crazyaboutbelgium.co.uk/ lead me to flip a coin to see whether I should be giving you "my" version of "Cycling Weekly's Ride with…Ian Cammish" (because that's what I was meeting Luke for)…or an insight into what I consider to be the 5 fastest stretches of tarmac in the country…ever!!! (one of the more riveting topics discussed during our "ride"). At this moment in time, I can imagine Luke is quaking in his size 12s (my Mrs is intrigued to know, by the way, if the size of a man's feet is indeed directly proportional to the size of his manhood…answers or propositions please on a postcard or sealed down envelope fao Luke Evans at the Cycling Weekly office). Fortunately for Luke (and Cycling Weekly's credibility now I know exactly how their "Ride with…" pieces are put together) ….. it was tails….so I'm going to bore you to death by talking about tarmac. Not just any old tarmac mind you, but the type that testers' dreams are made of. Tarmac that is so smooth and "fast" that the bike goes by itself…..tarmac that leads you to believe it's equally as fast whichever way you're going…..tarmac that tells you it's all downhill with a tailwind. There are stretches of road like that, I'm sure you'll agree? So….if you had to list your favourite stretches of
Fast cars + rippled concrete = shattered ear-drums and, at the very least, a necessary change in under-pants! tarmac, where would they be? In fifth place, I'd rate the A34 Oxford bypass - the bit just North of Peartree roundabout! Ok so it's not tarmac - it's that awful rippled concrete sort of stuff that some people just don't get on
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with. For some reason though (yeah I know…it's the traffic) it is VERY fast…or should I say "was" very fast because the course isn't used any more
In third place I'd have to rate another stretch of road that isn't used for testing anymore - the A12 (E72) between Marks Tey and Feering. Although this
Where’s your favourite stretch of tarmac?
due to the volume of traffic. To be quite honest, the noise of it alone was enough to put the fear of God into anyone. Fast cars + rippled concrete = shattered ear-drums and, at the very least, a necessary change in underpants! Fortunately for us testers, new courses keep springing up and the advancements in tarmac technology means we're getting superfast surfaces without it having to be "bedded in" by wagons. One such stretch is local to me - the A428 (F2) just east of Cambourne. I'd rate this in fourth place because it's simply lovely jubbly - smooth as silk - the black stuff (not sure of the correct technical term but black is better than white) - and a good fast training road for me (aren't I lucky?).
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had been "chipped" I always found it fast in both directions. Loved it! Runner-up? The A11 (E2) south west of Six Mile Bottom. Local enough (for me) to ride out to if ever I'm needing a "fix" from something other than the A1. It's no coincidence I live where I do you know!! Good fast bit of tarmac which (almost) appears to be downhill both ways. Top tarmac for me? Well, have you ridden "boro" lately? Come to that, have you ridden "boro" in the last 35 years or so? There's a stretch of A1 (V153….well it was in my day!) between Sinderby and A61 flyover that is REALLY fast - both ways. The tarmac's that black stuff (again) and it's
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well smooth due to all those wagons that have been charging up and down it for years! Although part of the A1 further south has been upgraded to motorway standard this particular stretch of tarmac hasn't…yet! It's been used for testing for as long as I can remember…in fact this very same stretch of road was being used in the early 80s when I broke the 50 record. Still as smooth and as fast (if not faster) today as it was then. Without doubt, one of the seven wonders of the time trialling world - hmmm, a topic for a future edition of Testing Times lurking in the under-growth there!! If you haven't seen it, I'm sure coach tours can be arranged if there is sufficient interest. Just let me know. Of course, if dual carriageways aren't your cup of tea, there's always "Electric Brae" you know…you heard of that (if not, Google it….fascinating!)? Shortly after my professional contract with Raleigh drew to a close (you like the way I nonchalantly slipped the fact that I used to be a professional racing cyclist in
there?) Hovis were looking for someone to ride around Britain for a couple of weeks to promote National Cycling Week…and Hovis! Through Mike Breckon, Raleigh's Marketing Services Manager at the time, I got involved and spent fourteen days touring around all the main Hovis Mills / factories in the country. Good company (took along my mate Tony Cork as my mechanic….he didn't know one end of a monkey wrench from the other but his sense of humour more than made up for it!), excellent food, nice hotels (mostly…..the B & B at Selby left a lot to be desired though!)…and the money wasn't bad either! Anyway....I digress! During the ride, we found ourselves up in the west of Scotland. While we were there, someone mentioned the famous "Electric Brae". I'd never heard of it myself but apparently there's a stretch of the A719 south west of Ayr that goes downhill whichever way you go along it!! Honest!! Unfortunately my appetite for food far outweighed my appetite for knowledge
and to be quite frank I couldn't be arsed to get in a car and drive out to see it for myself … although the support crew did! I preferred to remain seated at the dining table to see just how far I could get through the sweet trolley before the person paying the bill got back! On hindsight I wish I'd gone to have a look now….quite a revelation by all accounts! Perhaps a Cycling Weekly all expenses paid "Ride Electric Brae with Cammish" beckons (during which we could see how many of the local distilleries we could take in along the way)? Shall I make it the best out of three then Luke? Now where did I put that coin?
BE THERE—BE SQUARE!
Spotted by eagle-eyed Anton at the Catford CC old skool 10 - two lovely examples of retro-ness! Anyone seen BikeDoc? Might have defected - last seen posing in ….sshhh...Cycling Weekly!
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WANTED! Even more old skool riders claim your 15 minutes of world fame. Ride an old skool event - win a prize - and risk getting the “p” taken out of you in the “press”(and the term “press” is being used very loosely here!). PAGE
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VIEW FROM THE BACK by Ian Franklin I’m moving to Thailand at the end of April, so my days wearing a number 4 or a number 9 on the dual carriageways of southern England are somewhat numbered.
land. The event I chose for this momentous occasion was the Beds Roads ‘slowest 90’ time trial on the F1. As is usual, I prepared myself immaculately – those of you who think us scrubbers don’t put in the ground work should think again. My legs were beautifully shaved and oiled in the morning, my
him later). From the start sheet it was difficult to work out who was likely to beat me and who wasn’t. Indeed, my up and coming club-mate, with a 56 pb to his name in his first ever season, was seeded on a 9 – whereas me, yes lowly me, had to wear a number 1. However,
...I opened the valve on my Barum tubular and let the air out .. on the long drive in at 5am (most sensible folk are still in bed at that time or tailending it at some nightclub) I fantasised – or dreamed – that I could do a ‘2’ or a ‘3’ and I would have been happy with that. Like all great riders I reported to the timekeeper just 20 seconds before the off. The course took me southwards, out of Station Road and onto the A1 and I bowled along quite nicely at 30mph. I briefly imagined that I could actually go faster than a ‘2’. Whoopee, at 2.37 miles into the event my average speed was 25.2mph! But reality struck when, unfortunately, at 2.38 miles number 42 came searing past me and rapidly disappeared into the distance never to be seen again. I adjusted my thinking and decided that there must be a following wind and if I got inside a ‘4’, then it would be a worthwhile ride and give me a sense of achievement for my last ever 25. Such hopes rapidly disappeared as I got to the turn in 34 minutes having been caught by anWith Fat Freddie bearing down on you, what do you do? Well you let your other speed monster, but I could see a tyres down don’t you? rider in the distance and kept my motivation by trying to catch him. On Sunday I rode what may well be my last ever ‘25’ – unless I can do a Sir Nob of Two Ghiblis and start a CTT in Thai
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bike was polished with Windolene and I was secure in the knowledge that I had meticulously followed the training programme set by my coach (more on
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even a 22mph ride goes flying out of the window. Three more riders came past me in quick succession and then, just before the chequered flag, the chap* in a borrowed skinsuit caught me for 9 minutes. Soon after he said “That was so annoying, I only did a 1-00-16”. “Hey fella”, I thought “I’d give my right hand for that ride – and there you are moaning about it!” But isn’t that the point? Even the fast guys are never satisfied. So what’s this about my coach? In any business, a service provider or supplier likes to advertise his wares or clients or whatever. Put yourself in my coach’s shoes. Would you advertise the fact that you’ve been coaching the guy who came close to last in a Middlemarkers’ event? Is this a case of lousy coach – great client, or is it the other way round? Shouldn’t someone, Matt Bottrill for example, offer to pay my coach to train Michael Hutchinson? The investment would be worthwhile, would it not, if Matt won the national ‘25’ relegating the previously omnipresent Hutchinson to 51st place or worse! That’s the way to do it Matt! But in fairness to my coach, who will
remain nameless, if it weren’t for him, my ride in the Beds Road would have been a 1:19, not a 1:09. I’m not asking for sympathy – only understanding. I have been tortured with slow rides all my life as the following story shows. In issue 4 of this time trialling fanzine, I promised that I would tell you of why I flatted my own tyres so that I wouldn’t get beaten by Fat Freddie. Well, Freddie was fat and also a bit of a mess – he didn’t look cool and ultra slick like me and we always had to wait for him on club runs. At the club night on Friday he told me how he had prepared for the 25 on the Q course nearby and that he was going to break evens for the first time (more likely to break wind I thought to myself). My best at that time was, curiously, a 1:9:30 which was exactly the time that I rode in Sunday’s Beds Roads event. On the start sheet they had him at number 9 and I was number eight in front of him. Fine, I’d just ride away from him, I thought. On the day I settled into my rhythm, uphill and down dale. Number 10 came, past, followed by numbers 11, 12, 13, 15 but no sign of Fat Freddie, so I contin-
ued at my usual snail’s pace secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be last, Fat Freddie would. I never look backwards in a tt, I just get down to it and focus ahead but at about 20 miles into the event I had a sixth sense. I thought I heard some snorting, or belching or some such sound and so sat up, turned round and my God! there was Fat Freddie bearing down on me like some monster juggernaut. Oh bl**dy hell, oh bother and oh heck... all sorts of panic set in. What shall I do? Climb off, that’s it, simply climb off. And I did and opened the valve on my Barum tubular and let the air out – I had no choice. I took a long time to pump it up and made a great show of it so that people would see that some thing had gone wrong. “It’s a mystery”, I said to my clubmates within earshot of a jubilant Fat Freddie at the tea stall, "it must be the valve, I couldn’t have done it up properly.” Off course, if I had been older and wiser as I am now, I would have recognised that the looks I received were not sympathy, they were allknowing.
LOST AND FOUND
Lost - fast man and current (?) contributor to Testing Times. Answers to the name of Bikedoc. Last seen riding off towards the Cycling Weekly offices on his Lynskey. Lost - any semblance of decent form, traces of which were becoming apparent during the East Anglian old skool 25 on 19 April 2009. A chap I happened to knock into may know reasons for its disappearance. Any help in tracing my beloved form would be greatly appreciated - advice, or preferably donations in the form of Bank of England vouchers (which always help…let's face it!), to the Ed please.
Found - Mandy Jones - Women's World Road Race Champion 1982. What a nice lady! Move over Vicki P…or is this just an old skoolers "thing"?
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Found - Gregg Kinsell - Fast man of the 80s. On the come-back trail - already at race weight and simply bubbling over with enthusiasm. Could a Webster, Cammish, Kinsell trio be on the cards for the National TTT?
Found - sure fire way of going fast! Super Hard Intensive Training or S**T for short. Contact Playtex - not Planet X.
For Sale…Make me an offer I can't refuse for my white Guerciotti. (Not that I'm not enjoying the old skool series Dave… honest!!). Serious offers only any offers at all please to the Silver Fox at Planet X.
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ROAD RECORD BREAKING We somehow managed to slip a sly question in at the bottom of the "feedback form" recently handed out at the end of last month's C20 summit asking what the world leaders would like to read about in Testing Times….and why. The majority of those who bothered to respond asked for more time trial orientated articles… because the Country's leading cycling magazine doesn't cover that particular aspect of the sport anymore. Surprisingly, we also received a few requests asking for articles on Road Record Breaking…because that epitomises what going fast is all about…doesn't it? Well I'm not going to argue with that! How many other sports can you choose your own course and then wait until the wind is blowing the right way before "activating " your attempt? Well that's what RRA record breaking is all about…honest! OK, so there are a number of place to place records to go for but if it's out and out speed you're after then submit a schedule for one of the "set distance" records. These range from 25 through to 1000 miles - and, believe me, you can use whatever roads you like…even if it starts at the top of a mountain and finishes at the bottom of it. The beauty of these, you see, is that they're "straight out" records…you don't have to turn round and go back the way you came… and you can wait until the wind is blowing in the right direction before you attempt them! (No…you haven't died and gone to heaven…it really is like that).
...the RRA secretary at the time has since retired on the proceeds of our notice fees and is reported to be living a life of luxury in a beach-side villa somewhere in the West BUT….it's not as easy as it appears. Believe me, I should know - I've tried it! For a start, you've got to bear in mind that the current holder of the
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record no doubt took full advantage of all the possible benefits and completed his record ride off the side of the steepest mountain in Britain when the country was experiencing its strongest gales for decades. So no records are going to be easy ones to beat. When I rode professionally for Raleigh in the early 90s my remit was to "go for as many RRA records as possible - with particular emphasis on Ray Booty's 100". So... I looked at a number of courses acknowledged, in the past, as being the best. I went and looked at Plynlimon in Wales, Braemar in Scotland and Bowes Moor in the Pennines. We had each of these courses measured and submitted schedules to the RRA something that has to be done in advance of the attempt. We also had umpteen other courses measured up and down the A1 and along the A14 so that every possible eventuality was covered depending on which way the wind was going to be blowing. At one time we must have had many dozens of schedules sitting on Edwin Hargraves' desk waiting to be activated (Edwin was the RRA secretary at the time he's since retired on the proceeds of our notice fees and is reported to be living a life of luxury in a beach-side villa somewhere in the West Indies...not). It may be worth mentioning here that even the submission of a record schedule isn't straight forward. Depending on which record you're going to be attempting you'll need to send the RRA a (vast) number of schedules….as few as 50 but as many as 200!!! Yep…that's 200 photo-copies of the same schedule. So..if you're planning on going for something like the End to End (Lands End to John o Groats) your schedule alone will be MANY pages in length….imagine having to photo-copy all that lot and then getting it lowloaded to Edwin ....the Royal Mail would be misled into thinking it's Christmas! But even that pales into insignificance when compared to the problems
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you'll experience when trying to get hold of your time-keeper and observer (s). The approved officials are all listed in the RRA handbook and one would (kind of) hope that because they've agreed to be listed they're all free, available and willing to do the job. Well they may have been full of good intention when they "signed up" BUT imagine how jarred off YOU'D be if the wind never materialised and the attempt kept having to be postponed. Strange how previous appointments suddenly crop up when you ask them to help out isn't it?
Averaging over 36 mph for 25 miles is quite…urm… exhilarating to say the least. On the assumption then that you've found the fastest course in the country, had it measured, tied down your time keeper and observers, prepared your schedules, submitted them to the RRA (I warned you it wasn't as easy as it appears didn't I?) you've then got to sit and wait….and watch the weather forecast…. because you've got to give two clear days notice (by phone to the RRA) that you're actually still sane, haven't suffered any serious nervous or depressive reaction bought on by the stress associated with RRA record breaking and wish to press ahead with the attempt! If…and it’s a big IF..the forecast is right and you actually get the opportunity to go for it…there's nothing to beat it! Averaging over 36 mph for 25 miles is quite…urm…exhilarating to say the least. Give it a go and experience ALL of the emotions….you certainly won't forget it! (Just don't ask me to get involved in any way will you?) PAGE
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NIKB’S WINTER TRAINING We catch up with the men’s 2008 BBAR Nik Bowdler - Farnborough and Camberley CC to find out how the winter’s training went.
least I would have some 10 speed. However it never seems to work for me, I very quickly de-train. I did the early season ten I did last year but considerably off the pace compared to last year.
I restricted myself to only using the 57 ring no matter how steep the hill
UK that require the full use of a triple, like when climbing Mt.Teide, but lots of short steep climbs. I restricted myself to only using the 57 ring no matter how steep the hill, which I regretted shortly after eating a cheese sandwich and three slices of "anti bonk cake" only to turn the corner and confront a 1 in 5 hill. I managed to get over the top in 57x21 but for the rest of the ride I suffered with stomach
“Preparing for last year I didn't stop training after the season finished and trained right through winter with a training camp in January in Tenerife and started racing full on in February. I did this as all my key races were all in the first half of the season and I wanted to be in peak form by May. The plan went almost perfectly, so I guess it would have been expecting a bit much to be able to repeat it.
……struggling to fit in the regular 3 – 3.5 hours a day commute……. In contrast, preparation for this season has been quite different. I had a holiday in November without my bike, the first time in about 7 years, but I'd managed to keep ticking over and had reasonable form for the Christmas 10. I was ready to book another training camp abroad but various factors meant that I didn't and January was not a great month of training, struggling to fit in the regular commuting (3-3.5h a day) which is the backbone of my training. I was ready to ramp it up in February but the weather put a stop to that. Snow and ice meant two weeks completely off the road - the longest spell in 9 years! I did attempt to go back out on the road but a day too early and slid off on black ice. Fortunately no serious damage, just minor cuts and bruises. I had to resort to the turbo, which for me is a desperate measure. I thought I would try to make the most of it and do hard intervals, only 1 hour a day (as much as I can stand on the turbo), so at
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Due to the state of the economy and my bank balance, I couldn't justify a trip abroad, so I booked a week off work to do a credit crunch camp here in the UK. I was ready to face the storms and usual weather at this time of year but unbelievably, high pressure moved over and it was the best spell of weather all year. I made the most of it and was doing 45hrs/day over the North and South Downs, which with good weather for me is some of the most enjoyable parts of the world to ride in. I even stopped to refuel at a cafe for a cappuccino and flapjack, sitting out in the sun it was almost as though I was in Tenerife.
March ended up being the best month yet with about 80 hours There are no major mountains in the
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pains. Don't try this at home kids plan your route and eat at the top of a climb not the bottom. March ended up being the best month yet with about 80 hours, including a couple of races as recovery rides, although compared to last year that puts me about two months behind. I've just had a "recovery" week as I had to work in Sweden and then look after my sons at the weekend - so no danger of over training. Not being a pro I've learnt over the years not to plan in recovery weeks, as real life always gets in the way with enforced off the bike time. Last year was probably the year I had the least number of enforced layoffs so I was able to train and race almost continuously, and resulted in my best ever year”. PAGE
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OLD SKOOL SERIES - ROUND 4 BATH CC 10 The best old skool turn out so far! Bath CC hosted the fourth of Planet X's old skool series on the superfast U47 course between Cirencester and Swindon on Saturday 2 May. Eleven (that's eleven…yes 11…honest) of the Country's most retrominded reprobates converged on the flatlands of the A419 to do battle "old skool". Those down to start included most of the big names in old skooling with the exception of "the Power" Parkinson and the honourable Mr Perkin who were no doubt preferring to keep their powder dry in anticipation of future crusades of this classic nature. The absence of the competition's two leading lights left the door open for others to take the limelight and if anyone craves for recognition it's Ian Cammish Planet X, for so long the bridesmaid but never the bride. Almost three weeks without a win in the competition, Cammish must have been wondering if another success was ever going to come his way. Well come his way it did - but it was a close run thing with seasoned old skool specialists chasing him all the way. The car park at the Ashton Keynes race headquarters looked like a mid-summer early morning car boot sale as rider's machines were carefully unloaded from their carriages and painstakingly put together by their skilled and trained mechanics. The riders themselves prepared for what was to come by carrying out their own tried and tested pre-race rituals. Cammish sat alone in his Ford Anglia warming himself up as only he could - the windows quickly steaming up as the car shook from side to side in its relentless, rhythmic manner almost in time with the Beach
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Boys' "Good Vibrations" which blared out from his in-car cassette system. Eventually, all fell quiet and there was a brief lull….an air of eager anticipation until… eventually, the silver fox himself stepped out to quickly jump onto his famous white Guerciotti and off to do battle. No interviews, no autographs, nothing - total 100% commitment.
….if anyone craves for recognition it's Ian Cammish - Planet X, for so long the bridesmaid but never the bride. Gavin Hinxman - Welland Valley Wheelers on the other hand, chose to warm up on his turbo in full view of the gathering crowds and seemed quite relaxed about what punishment he was about to put his body under by signing autographs and waving to his cheering fans. Ralph Dadswell - Antelope RC had spent most of the preceding seven days preparing for the event up on his loft where his treasure trove of classic componentry has been stashed away from prying eyes and ebay bounty hunters alike. The rewards for this venture into the unknown (for anybody other than Ralph) was his prized Roberts lopro complete with crazy 24" front wheel - already responsible for 24 minute 10s this season in preparation for the showdown between giants from yesteryear (the bikes not the riders!).
Odds on a win by Janes were running at 25-1 Allen Janes - Bristol South CC had contacted the competition's Secretary midweek for clarification as to whether or not his Argos from the 80s met the highly stringent criteria for qualification. Bearing in mind that the Country's leading Cycling magazine had once chosen to carry an arti-
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cle on Janes's machine, and the high esteem in which that particular magazine ("Cycling") is held by thousands of time triallists worldwide, Mr Secretary considered it "inappropriate to risk a public outcry" and gave the "all clear" so that Janes was able to give the punters what they wanted. Odds on a win by Janes were running at 25-1 as he left the timekeeper at almost ten to nine. Event organiser Rob Pears had kindly grouped the old skoolers together in the middle of the field. "I'm not prepared to put anyone at risk - I heard about the unfortunate incident in the East Anglian 25 (where Cammish was ridden into by someone unable to handle the speed associated with using all the aero gizmos), so thought it best to keep this ..urm…special category separate from those choosing to cheat. In any event, what ever they've got could be catching…best to quarantine them eh?" So the acknowledged stars set about the task in hand but there were also those intent on creating the upset - those, who have for years been on the verge of world recognition, but until given an opportunity like this have been unable to quite bridge the gap. Now was their time! Mike Hallgarth - Anfield BC was one! He proved to be the first rider that Cammish has been able to catch going old skool! Hallgarth is proposing to put forward a motion at the next CTT AGM that there should be an extra line to complete on race entry forms where some
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acknowledgement of this rare fact can be made known. Hallgarth recorded a magnificent 27-41 on his lovely blue Condor - and went home a happy man getting so close to Cammish - "It must have been within 9 inches as he came past".
Mike Hallgarth—Anfield BC - pleased as punch to get so close to Cammish.
David Summers - Bath CC and 23-23 machine ....honest!
David Summers - Bath CC set the crowd buzzing in disbelief as he crossed the line on his single speed On-One Pompino 23-23 after leaving the time keeper. Local knowledge suggests that Summers knew a short cut to the turn….and another on the way back. Whilst the win went to Cammish, not unexpectedly due to the absence of "the Power" and the honourable Mr Perkin, the ride of the day must surely go to young Tom Marshall - Chippenham Wheelers who actually recorded a personal best 10 mile time of 22-56. Established old skoolers were seen to be ushering Marshall away from all the "do-gooders" and were heard to be explaining the benefits of all the new-fangled aero gizmos to the likeable Junior. "You'll go minutes faster you know…now bugger off and leave the competition to us old farts will you?" Full Result Bath CC 10 - U47 - 2 May 2009 I Cammish - Planet X T Marshall - Chippenham Wheelers G Hinxman - Welland Valley Wheelers M Harris- Banjo Cycles D Summers - Bath CC R Dadswell- Antelope RC T Woollard - Northover Vets A Janes - Bristol South CC J Maund - HQ M Hallgarth - Anfield BC B Griffiths - Clevedon RC
22-24 22-56 23-06 23-14 23-23 23-26 24-34 24-59 26-02 27-41 28-50
.....if anyone craves for recognition it's
Ian Cammish.... (sad innit..you’d have thought he’d have grown out of all that?). S EE
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NOB OFF……. the back A LEGEND TAKES TIME OUT WITH NOB’S BIOSHEET
Most Embarrassing Moment? Sitting at a dining table next to Gino Bartalli and not knowing who he was until we were introduced
What’s the most trouble you have gotten into? Only the depth that varied (RAF Secrecy laws do not permit further exposes J)
Now for a truly great insight into a true Legend as I went off & contacted (rare species these days) Sir John Pritchard BEM (did I get that right?) & interrupted his newly found lease of life living it up in his Barrachi House & wielding great power still on his MTB in his local welsh hills frightening the locals to death. To get this legend to type on new fangled technology let alone e-mail is a task in itself but true to his word he came up with the goods after a few drinks & here below is his truthful affidavit (we did not take an oath) quick fire honest to goodness answers. So read away if you wish to have a laugh. Full Name? John Pritchard
Who was your boyhood hero?
Current Job? Retired
Should be 6'3" but unfortunately 5'11"
Floyd Paterson when in school and later Eddy Merckx
Weight?
Biggest influence on your career?
Perfect for 6'3" (we’ll believe you John Honest J)
Too many to mention but Paul Bennett is one and also a Dr Hardman, a sports scientist from Loughborough University (what about the wife J)
Height?
Place of residence? God’s Own Country (Very Welsh) Current Club?
Campagnolo or Shimano? Both - whatever Condor's gave me!
None Most Memorable Moment? After the birth of my kids it has got to be winning the National 25
Favourite Musical Group or Singer? Foreigner Education Attainment
Current make of Car? A Ferrari aka Ford Focus Estate Married or Single? A murderer only gets 1 life sentence I've served 2! only kidding Pat (Pat’s John beloved wife) Best TV show? C.S.I. (now would include New York, Miami also) Best Film? All 'Bourne' films
One above milk monitor
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Favourite Actor or Actress?
quickly - once he arrived of course!!
Harrison Ford
Favourite clothing material (PVC, Lycra, wool etc..)
Favourite Drink?
Of course PVC on a female and lycra for cycling clothing
Brandy and coke
Both
Why, thank you John for your replies & we can safely say you can now retire to enjoy the restful peace in the Welsh outback & keep taking the pills.
Is there anyone thing you would change throughout your cycling career?
We thank your wife for letting you out to play & put this piece together for Lord Cammish.
Favourite Food? Anything Italian Chocolate or Vanilla Ice Cream?
Quite happy with the way it has gone Favourite Bike you would like to own? Naturally a Condor first but a De Rosa would also be nice Wet shave or dry shave? Wet What advice can you give to up & coming cyclists? Play golf 10 years from now you will be…? Probably pushing up daisies… What can’t you live without? Riding my bike - once again sorry Pat! Who would you share a desert island with if marooned & why? Alan Rochford because the time would pass really
Sir Nob of Two Ghiblis
The old skool needs you! Join up now! Limited to only 120 riders per event—so hurry!
S EE
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