Spin Cycle Magazine - Issue 4

Cycle magazine

ISSUE 04

Welcome along once again. We hope that you’ve been taking advantage of all this lovely sunshine and getting plenty of riding in while you can – we certainly have been. Well, in between putting together this bumper edition.

Hand built wheels since 1972 Custom hand built wheels for every individual specification Multiple component choice with a wide range of colours Enquiries and orders info@petematthews.com Follow us on Facebook petermatthews.com Twitter @pianniwheels

PETE

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MAT T H E W S

To brighten your day up even further, we have a host of great features, including Paul Cooper’s exclusive interview with BMC’s Steve Cummings, who takes us through the highs and lows of his career over the last year.

Look out for our fantastic Q&A with Olympic sweethearts Jason Kenny and Laura Trott. Chris White was given unrestricted access to the pair thanks to our friends at Adidas. He was even given a bit of free kit, I think. But he refused to share it with the rest of us.

Not ones to go all ‘luvvie’ on you, we have a great first-person account on surviving Paris-Roubaix courtesy of Liverpool Century’s Trev Gornall. We use the word ‘survive’ quite aptly and you’ll find out why - he barely made it back alive. At all.

Turning back the clock, we take a look at one of the region’s local legends, Bill Bradley. He was simply one of the greatest stars to ever come out of the region. Every year, Southport Cycling Club host a memorial ride in his honour that follows some of Bill’s favourite training routes through the Trough of Bowland.

We’ve also conquered our own hills this month with the help of Strava-nut John Moore, who tackled a very ‘secret’ Killer Hill for us over near Dalton in West Lancs. This hill is so tough that you’ll struggle to get up the first few metres. Why?, well the start of the road simply doesn’t exist and you’ll have to read on to find out why.

Enjoy!

Editor James Maloney james@spincyclemag.com Picture Editor Dan Kenyon dan@spincyclemag.com Contributors Paul Francis Cooper paulfranciscooper@gmail.com Chris Keller-Jackson crankmtb@hotmail.com Trevor Gornall Design Uniform www.uniform.net Thanks go to: This issue thanks go to: Tim Wiggins, Steve Cummings, Trevor Gornall, Ken Beck, Joan Bradley, David and Mike Bolland

James Maloney Editor

All information contained in Spin Cycle Magazine is for information purposes only and is, to the best of our knowledge, correct at the time of going to press. Spin Cycle Magazine cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies that occur. Readers are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this magazine. If you submit unsolicited materal to us, you automatically grant Spin Cycle Magazine a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all editions of the magazine, including all licensed editions worldwide and in any physical or digital format throughout the world. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither Spin Cycle Magazine nor its staff, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.In relation to any medical queries, the advice given is in no way intended to replace professional medical care or attention by a qualified practitioner and we strongly advise all readers with health problems to consult a doctor.

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Cover Photo Courtesy of Joan Bradley www.spincyclemag.com

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Survival of the no-so fittest

WIGGO’s WOrld

– Every wondered if you’d survival the gruelling pavè of Paris-Roubaix? Well, Trev Gornall from Liverpool Century put his body through the pain so you don’t have to. It hurt. A lot. He’s still going on about it

– Our man in yellow, Tim Wiggins offers up some motivation Trainspotting-style

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Golden–couple

The man who loved to climb –

Olympic sweethearts Jason Kenny & Laura Trott chat about taking on The Queen, horrible winter training and the future of women’s cycling

Meet the man who doesn’t need luck

– Wirral’s Steve Cummings in his exclusive chat with Paul Cooper about the spills and thrills of his career so far with BMC

Bill Bradley could ‘dance up’ any climb he faced.

We take a look back at this humble man’s extraordinary career

The Boy –Bolland

Read all about it – Dan Kenyon gives his verdict on Laurent Fignon’s autobiography, ‘When we were young and carefree’

Splitting his time between Scunthorpe and Merseyside, David Bolland chats about taking on the Downing brothers, secret ninja training and his diet of Chicken & Chips

Killer Hill

– Dubbed the ‘Kronenbourg’ because you can have a pint at the top, this Killer Hill is so tough that you’re guaranteed to get off your bike at the start. Trust us, you will

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CLUB RIDER

– Our resident artist extraordinaire, Wheelsucker meets the Veteran club Champion

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NORTHERN ROAD WEAR

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THE GOLDEN COUPLE Words Chris White Photography Courtesy of Action Images/Jason Cairnduff & Chris Keller-Jackson

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I don’t think The Queen would race anyone at anything. If she did, though, I wouldn’t let her win. I’d never let anyone win.

IT’S NOT very often that you get invited along to the media launch of a worldwide sports brand’s new cycle clothing range. Even stranger still is being given the chance for one-to-one interviews with cycling’s golden couple, Jason Kenny and Laura Trott.

But when life deals you a good hand, always best to run with it and don’t ask questions – well, at least unless they’re about cycling and you’ve two of the London Games’ biggest stars ushered in front of you by their PR people at Adidas’ HQ in Stockport.

Admittedly, I was nervous as hell and wasn’t sure how I’d manage to get all my questions out without regressing into a typical fan-boy, then bleating out something like ‘I love you’ and being escorted out of the room by security.

Luckily, the assembled press – including yours truly – were eased into proceedings with an interview session hosted by Anthony McCrossen, who grilled Laura, Jason and Sir David Brailsford, who had also turned up, about their success post-Olympics, drinking coffee and tightly fitting cycling kit. Though, I imagine that last question was aimed more at Jason and Laura. Not that Sir Dave wouldn’t look dashing in a pair of bib-shorts.

After that, it was time to chat about the new AdiStar clothing range for 2013 with Adidas’ Jonathan Huck, Paul Dughan and James Truscott, who revealed the kit is aimed at both sportive riders and commuters. The top tier range has a 10

more technical race fit and the material used is the same as those utilised by Team GB. Niceties aside, the trio then laid down the gauntlet of a Wattbike challenge.

Turns out all three are keen cyclists themselves and even had an official company club, but I wasn’t going to let their clever mind games put me off – although there was a slight issue of trying to beat the 1000w average over 200m marker laid down by Jason Kenny.

Don’t you just hate Olympic cyclists and, well, them being fit and all that - jammy things. Just as I was trying to recover and catch my breath, I was told it was time to interview Jason.

Thank Christ it wasn’t Laura. She might have thought I was the type of pervert who calls up dodgy phone-lines with the way I was panting.

Anyway, Jason was great and very laid back. It was almost like talking to someone in the café.

CW: Seems you’re not content with being one of the fastest men on the planet riding a bike, you’re now going to try your hand at motor racing.

There’s something about driving fast on a different sort of track, isn’t there?

Great Britain’s Jason Kenny, left, cranks out some impressive watts during the Adidas British Cycling Kit Launch Photo courtesy of Action Images/Jason Cairnduff

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Laura Trott, Jason Kenny and performance director of British Cycling, Dave Brailsford, take part in a Q&A session during the Adidas British Cycling Kit Launch

JK: Yeah, there is a real kind of atmosphere to it. You get the smell, the burning and all that.

When you get into it, you learn to love it. It’s a bit intimidating to start with, but I love it. After Beijing, I went on a track day and enjoyed it.

After that, I caught the bug and just kept going back to more and more track days. Then I started looking into racing and this year will be first full season in Ginetta G40 doing the full seven weekends hopefully.

yourself up against experienced drivers and there aren’t that many people who make the crossover. I am enjoying seeing the gains every time that I got out. Whereas with cycling, it’s more difficult to find them and they’re getting smaller and smaller.

In a way, it’s good to go back to square one and find massive chunks of time every time you work.

I am really enjoying it at the minute.

CW: Not starting off at the bottom then? It’s a good series to get into.

CW: You described meeting The Queen as the “ultimate pressure”, but do you think that you could roll Her Majesty on the line? Or would you be too polite and let her win?

JK: It is, yeah. It’s a well-established one, which is kinda what I wanted, as I was looking for a kind of stepping stone. It’s good to try and measure

JK: [Laughs] I don’t think The Queen would race anyone at anything. If she did, though, I wouldn’t let her win. No, I’d never let anyone win [laughs].

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CW: Talking about royalty, did you ever get thigh envy standing next to Sir Chris Hoy? Those bad boys are bloody huge?

JK: [Pauses then laughs] Not especially, no. It’s not as though it’s anything we have ever talked about, no. I mean, other people talk to us a lot about the size of our thighs, but I can’t see myself ever considering the size of my own thighs next to his [laughs].

CW: When you got back from the Olympics, Bolton Council painted the post boxes in your home town gold to celebrate your success at the Games. Must have felt strange seeing them? How did that feel? Did you ever sneakily post a letter or postcard in one for a laugh?

Photo courtesy of Action Images/Jason Cairnduff

JK: Yeah, it was really nice and special. It was a lot like Beijing, but times 10, if you like. It was good to come back with that Olympic gold medal and witness the feel-good factor that everyone had about the Olympics. It’s just great to be part of something like that. Especially when you go back to your home town. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to put a postcard in any of them, but they’re staying apparently. I’ll have to send a postcard now and use my own stamp. Even that is bizarre.

I didn’t know anything about it until a day before we went up to our base. Apparently, they sold quite a few, which again is quite nice.

CW: The whole face of cycling has changed in the last couple of years, but how did you get started?

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Jason kenny, left, is ‘stalked’ by team-mate Sir Chris Hoy Photo courtesy of Chris Keller-Jackson (www.crankphoto.co.uk)

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JK: Well, I joined a kids club at the Eastlands Velo, which was just like a couple of sessions each week at Manchester Velodrome. That was the first and only club that I every joined. I do like other clubs that go out over Rivington and stuff like that on clubruns. Obviously, there are a few from Bolton. I think stuff like that is good and there has been such a massive increase. I think the main increase was after Beijing, where it went from not-a-lot to sort of massive. Then London has just built on that again. Now it’s getting to the stage where people are picking up bikes for kind of the first time at any age and going out getting involved. That’s really good to see. I think that’s the best thing to come out of the Olympics for me, for sure.

CW: What would be your best words of encouragement be for someone coming into cycling, either to race as a youngster or someone older like myself?

JK: Just enjoy it, really. The thing we touched on earlier about the café culture, it’s a really good side of the sport. You know, you go out on a Sunday and there will be a few clubs stopping by at the same place that I go on the A6 and it’s just really good. You can go out in a group for three or four hours. It sounds like a lot, but it passes really quick and then you finish in the café for an hour or so with a coffee and cake. It’s just a really nice feeling to come home from that. Then, if you want to ride your bike to work, you’re getting free training, if you like. I ride my bike to the track a lot. For me, it’s a 20 minute ride from my flat, so that’s an extra 40 minutes a day and it’s free training. I’d only be sat in a car for the same amount of time otherwise, so if you’re able to do that then it’s definitely worth doing. You’ll feel better for it.

Jason Kenny serves a lucky customer during the Adidas kit launch in Manchester Photo courtesy of Chris Keller-Jackson (www.crankphoto.co.uk)

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CW: What were your favourite routes round Bolton? After all, you’ve got some great rides up that way?

JK: There is one called Anglezarke that’s quite steep. I think that it’s 17 per cent. It’s steep but it’s rideable. I quite like doing that one, as it’s on a nice loop from my house. There are a few over towards Ramsbottom, like The Rake.

That’s quite brutal.

CW: Do you enjoy riding on the road as much as the track?

JK: Yeah, I do. I enjoy the social side of it all. I enjoy the cafés. I’d be in there every day if I could, so I enjoy that side of it all. Also, I like going out in groups.

CW: We run a feature in the mag called ‘Killer Hill’, which focuses on those lovely little tough

hills across the North. What are your favourite climbs near Bolton? Fancy riding one for us, if you’re up to it?

JK: Yeah, definitely if you like. Rob, my agent, who is floating round somewhere, would definitely be up for something like that. I went up Anglezarke recently for Cycling Weekly. It was good as it was after the Games and was a really wet day – really kind of moody.

Jason kenny, right, deep in focus together with team-mate and rival on the night, Sir Chris Hoy, left, at Manchester Velodrome

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Thankfully, my breathing had calmed down by the time that I was ushered over to Laura. What struck me most about her during our interview was just how bubbly she is.

Trott is a real live-wire, starting off on one topic, switching to another and then quickly rounding her answers off – all in one breath. No wonder she is so switched on when she is riding the track. She was a real pleasure to chat with. I even got a few extra minutes interviewing her. Result.

Photo courtesy of Chris Keller-Jackson (www.crankphoto.co.uk)

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CW: How are you handling the added pressure both on and off the track since the Olympics?

LT: I just tend to not think about it. I think that it’s better not to read into it or even read things that are written about me. Before the Olympics, I used to read anything. After winning two Worlds, there were articles and stuff. I’d read them and think ‘oh, that’s really good’. Then you get the ones that were closer to the Olympics that were ‘can she do it again, has she done it too early or has she peaked too soon’ and all this. So I was just like ‘no, I just need to stay away from it all’ and since the Games, I haven’t looked at them. It’s just better for me to not even think about it. The only pressure that I feel is the pressure that I put on myself to win. Obviously, I want to win. I am an athlete, that’s what I do, do you know what I mean? So, I want to win everything and the only pressure I have is of my making.

CW: We have a saying in my club that the only person we want to beat is ourselves and if we don’t, then we were too good at the start.

LT: [Laughs] That’s quite good that. I might use that.

CW: How do you feel now that you’ve a bit of a target on your back following all your success?

Especially out on the track?

LT: More so now. Maybe not so much with with Wiggle Honda, as there are other riders in that jersey. But on the track, yeah. At the Worlds in 2012, it was pretty easy because no-one knew who I was. More so than the Olympics. Winning the Worlds, I could do what I wanted but it was a different story for the Olympics. For example, in the elimination race, people were riding against me rather than them even trying to ride for the win.

Great Britain’s Jason Kenny in action at Manchester Velodrome Photo courtesy of Chris Keller-Jackson (www.crankphoto.co.uk)

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Chris Hoy just walked up to me and said ‘hello, I am Chris Hoy’.

I was like ‘you don’t need to introduce yourself ’.

Instead, they were deliberately trying to do stuff to put me out. It was a bit frustrating, but once I realised what was happening, I was just like ‘whatever, do what you want – I’m still going to ride my race’.

CW: Do you think doing the road now is going to help with your track riding?

LT: I think that it’s going to make me stronger.

Like, the last two years they’ve wanted me to commit to the road a bit longer, but I’m like ‘noooooo’. Especially not before the Olympics. I just didn’t want to risk it or risk breaking an arm from a fall off my bike. Whereas now, I am going to commit to it for this winter and probably next winter. Then I’ll probably focus back to the track, but, yeah, I do think it will help. At least, I hope it will. I don’t want to be going out in the freezing cold for no reason [laughs].

CW: How do you find that? I mean, do you ever look out the window and think ‘yuck, I’m not going out in that’?

LT: Actually, because I am just doing road at the minute, I am finding it a lot better. I get up, go out for four hours and then the day is mine. I am actually just enjoying that side of it, but, yeah, the weather does put me off sometimes. The only thing is that I just don’t like turbo trainers, so I am usually like ‘right, I’m going out there’.

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CW: British Cycling announced recently that they plan to encourage a million more women to take up cycling. Do you think that will happen? Have they got the infrastructure in place?

LT: Yeah, I hope so. I think that we are just starting to look at that now. It’s a move in the right direction. As long as it keeps progressing the way it is, then, yeah, I think they will get a million women cycling. It’s just that you can’t force it.

You’ve just got to take it how it comes.

CW: Do you think BC are going about it the right way, though? Does there need to be another, say for example, a UK based Team Sky? LT: It would be nice, but I think that’s what Wiggle-Honda has tried to do. We’ve got all the track girls into that team and, at the minute, I think that’s just the starting point. I mean, I’d love to see a women’s Team Sky – it would be amazing - but on the other hand, they’re not just working with British riders. For example, me and Lizzie [Armitstead] are pretty much similar riders – although she is better than me at the minute on the road, but I just haven’t had the experience she has had on the road – we have to work for one another and then, it’s like, ‘is it going to work?’ like the whole Froomie and Wiggins thing. So, although the whole idea seems nice, I am not sure that it’s the best thing.

Courtesy of Action Images/Jason Cairnduff

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Laura Trott, centre wearing red and white kit, on the boards at Manchester Velodrome Photo courtesy of Chris Keller-Jackson (www.crankphoto.co.uk)

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CW: I think that you’re right. If there were more women’s teams with female British riders in, then that would be just as good. Wouldn’t it?

associated with ‘football’, but you need to get that out of them because not all little girls are going to aspire to be David Beckham.

LT: Yeah, I mean if there wasn’t just Team Sky and other teams followed the same idea, like they started having more and more teams, then it would be great because there would be an even spread of female riders.

CW: What inspired you then?

LT: [Laughs] I guess it’s nice. We don’t mind – it’s nice that people see that, I guess. It’s cute that they see us as a couple on, like, the track and stuff. It is nice, yeah, but at the end of the day, it’s our relationship and I never know how to answer questions about me and Jason.

LT: Well, I used to see her a few times because she used to do grass track, which her dad organised.

But the first time I ‘officially’ actually trained with her was in the gym. Which when you think about it now, it seems a bit weird because I was a little nobody and she was an Olympic champion. She just came in and helped me. It was just surreal and I kept wondering if it was really happening to me.

But the weirdest thing was when I had my first conversation with Chris Hoy. I had been put onto the British Cycling Academy programme, moved up to Manchester at 18 and went straight into this programme and I was a bit like ‘uuurrgghhhh’.

Then one day, I walked into the track centre and Chris Hoy just walked up to me and said ‘hello, I am Chris Hoy’. I was like ‘you don’t need to introduce yourself – I know who you are’ [laughs].

LT: Well, it sounds weird, but my mum wanted to lose weight and she chose cycling to do it. It was just like a family thing and, because my mum and dad went out and my sisters started going, CW: It’s not just British cycling, is it? It’s world then I was like ‘well, I want to go out too’. Then cycling as a whole? we all started to go out as a family and my mum LT: Yeah, it is. They need to do something about was losing weight, left-right-and-centre. It was it. I think that there should be, like, a set budget? I nice because everyone was happy, so that’s how don’t know? So say that Sky get a million pounds, I started. Then the whole getting into track was for example, then £100,000 of that should go to because of seeing Victoria Pendleton. Whenever the women. They should just branch off a women’s I saw her win, like her first World title, I think team. That should be a rule, but unless the UCI it was 2007, I was just like ‘who is that? She is put something in place, then there’s not a lot you amazing’. From then on, I just wanted to be like can do about it. her as she was my hero. I was like ‘yeah, I want to ride a bike and be like Vicky’.

CW: I am going to ask you the corny question now. You and Jason have been dubbed the Posh CW: When you see her now, I mean you’ve known and Becks of British Cycling? How does that make her for a while now, but the first few times, where you feel? you a bit star-struck?

CW: Should BC maybe address issues of sexism through improving the current club systems? After all, it has been the backbone of cycling in this country for generations, but are notoriously more male dominated?

Laura Trott ramps up the pace at Manchester Velodrome Photo courtesy of Chris Keller-Jackson (www.crankphoto.co.uk)

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LT: I do think it needs to start at a lower level because unless you get girls on bikes, they’re not going to know if they enjoy it or not. Like, even so much as schools getting a few bikes in, so that kids can see that it’s actually enjoyable. When I was a little kid, sport was a word that was always

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When riding your luck isn’t enough Words Paul Francis Cooper Photography Paul Francis Cooper & Emma Felton

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IT CERTAINLY has been a busy first half of the year for World Tour rider Steve Cummings.

With a heavy early season race schedule, followed by the Giro d’Italia and a support role booked as anchorman to team leader Cadel Evans in the Tour de France, the 32-year-old Merseysider could hardly complain of bit-part status in his stellar cast at BMC. He has more than matched his reputation as one of the professional peloton’s most respected and dependable powerhouses with his trademark solid and consistent performances.

Although it has been a demanding year, he’ll be happy for a season, which, in the main, has run without incident.

What a contrast to 2012, when the months between January and July were amongst the most difficult ever experienced by the good natured rider from the Wirral, and who, in the Tour de France, faced what he later described as “one of 30

the lowest points” in his professional racing career.

Seven months previously, his year had started with such promise. After two years with Sky, Cummings made the move to BMC in January, looking forward to developing his career with the ambitious and big-spending outfit.

A good friend of Max Sciandri, BMC directeur sportif, Cummings was a natural candidate for the bonhomie of the comradely team. Recruited for his strength and race savvy, Steve’s programme was to include major support roles in the Spring Classics and the Grand Tours, as well as opportunities to chase individual stage wins in his own right.

Following a good winter’s training in the Montalbano Hills near his home in Tuscany, the spring of 2012 saw him making a strong impression in the team’s pre-season training camps, relaxed, fit and confident.

His optimism, though, was met with an early

season of almost relentless bad luck after he was injured in serious crashes in February during the Tour of the Algarve, then again in April during the Tour of the Basque Country.

Six weeks later in the United States’ Tour of California, Cummings met each painful and frustrating setback with a disciplined resolve to train and overcome disheartening misfortune that could have broken the will of many riders.

His reward, as well as a chance to re-establish his inevitably bruised confidence and put the worst of the season behind him, was a place with BMC in the Tour de France – a place that was particularly hard-earned, as Cummings’ opportunities for race conditioning were significantly reduced by time spent recovering from injuries.

By the start of the 17th stage from Bagneres-deLuchon to the summit finish at the ski resort of Peyragudes, which was the last mountain stage in the Pyrenees, team leader and 2011 Tour winner

Evans was out of the reckoning for a second Tour victory, but still chasing a top-ten finish.

Meanwhile, his lieutenant Tejay van Garderen was pushing hard for the best young rider’s white jersey and Cummings, with his renowned capacity for endurance, was consistently tireless in support.

But about 15 kilometres before the start of the ascent of the Port de Bales, the stage’s fourth major climb, the personal ill-fortune that had dogged Cummings’ season and, which he had hoped to have left behind on the West Coast of America, made its haunting reappearance.

It was at the feed zone ahead of the Port de Bales that a crash brought a number of riders down.

The reigning road race World Champion Mark Cavendish and his Sky teammate Bernie Eisel were amongst them. Shots of them anxiously remounting featured in the stage’s TV coverage.

Unobserved by the motorbike cameramen, Cummings was also amongst the fallers. www.spincyclemag.com

In every other race, I would have got into the ambulance.

He avoided injury, but picked up some damage to his rear wheel and derailleur mechanism when another rider collided with him.

Keen to regain a good position at the front of the peloton for the forthcoming 19km climb, he moved off before fully checking his machine. He struggled with ineffective gears as he tried to move through the field and, with BMC mechanics way ahead in team cars near Cadel Evans and Teejay Van Garderen, he was unable to make the relative safety of the front end of the bunch.

At the top of the climb, which is regularly rendered impassable by snow in the winter and often shrouded in mist in the summer, Cummings grabbed the chance to slip on his rain jacket before accelerating into the twisting and turning road that winds from the broad open summit towards the green pasture land below.

As the pace of his tricky descent quickened to more than 60kph, a race motorbike crossed his line. Forced to brake, he made his correction but his damaged back wheel locked, pitching machine and rider helplessly towards the right side of the road, which, as a barrier to descending mountain water, is bounded by a deep concrete drainage gully backed by a high kerbstone.

Powerless to prevent the high-speed, rear-end skid, he entered the gully back first. His body hit the gully basin and bounced against its wall before being thrown upwards for its final high velocity pounding as the base of his back hit the sharp kerb edge.

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Dazed and shaken, Cummings was experiencing extreme difficulty in breathing due to the excruciating pain in his back, his leg was hurting and he had lost a lot of skin in extensive lacerations to both sides of his body.

In his own words, he was “in a mess”. Although he would later describe the crash as “the worst in a very difficult season”, he was utterly determined to continue in the race.

“I didn’t have a decision,” he said later. “I think bike riders crash and immediately look for their bike and try to start again. Only if you physically can’t go on, do you stop. If I had stopped, I would have lived to regret not trying.”

His concerned directeur sportif, Fabio Baldato, was close by and was anxious for Cummings to abandon. But, for Cummings, who had shown such determination to make the BMC Tour team, leaving the race was not an option.

Speaking later, he said: “In every other race, I would have got into the ambulance. Fabio wanted me to stop, but there was no way I was stopping. I fought so hard to get to the Tour, I wasn’t going to stop unless I physically couldn’t go on.”

Now riding alone on the descent and anxious about making the stage’s finishing time limit, Cummings received support from a sympathetic Baldato, who, following in a team car, encouraged, cajoled and calmed his injured rider.

Cummings recalls: “Once I got going, Baldato was amazing. He knew what it was like for me.

I know he had been in my situation before.” www.spincyclemag.com

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As the worried pair edged their way to the relative security of the grupetto, the race ambulance crew administered urgently needed first aid. First riders to make contact were Tyler Farrar (GarminSharp-Barracuda) and Sebastian Langeveld (Orica GreenEDGE), as they brought up the rear of the race.

In their own pursuit of the grupetto, they had caught the steadfast but struggling Cummings and, despite their own concerns over the time limit, rather than pass him, they took care and time to ensure that he was able to hold on to their newly formed lanterne rouge trio. Later, a grateful Cummings would describe the riders as “absolute gentlemen”.

Once with the grupetto, further help and support was at hand from teammate Manuel Quinziato and, old friend and GB teammate, Mark Cavendish. At Peyragudes, 30 minutes and 57 seconds behind the stage winner, alongside Quinziato, Langeveld and Farrar, with Mark Cavendish trailing fractionally behind, Cummings arrived safely within the cut-off time in the company of the comrades of the peloton whose help had been so critical in his struggle to survive in the race.

Emotionally overwhelmed by the physical and psychological strain of the day, 200m beyond the finish line he lay helpless on the road until the team doctor made a space in the soigneur’s car for their descent to the team bus. Reaching the finish line came at a huge price. But for the determined and professional Cummings, intent on redeeming his season, it was a price that had to be paid.

Cummings has a favourite saying, which may well have crossed his mind as he sat dejected in the car on its descent from the finish line.

“The victory is not reaching the top of the mountain,” he says. “It’s picking yourself up every time you fall on your way”.

Summing up his experience that day, Steve said later: “The Port de Bales was the lowest point of my season. I had reached rock bottom. But I’ve learnt in my career that, no matter what happens, if you always try your best, that’s all you can do.

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It’s a very simple philosophy, life is not fair, but you can only play the cards you have.”

Impressively, he played his cards all the way to end of the Tour on the Champs Elysees three days later and, as before in 2012, he went home to Tuscany, recuperated and trained. The Vuelta a Espana followed in September, where he turned a soul-destroying year on its head with his first ever Grand Tour stage win. Then in October, again mocking his earlier misfortune, he took the ultimate stage of the Tour of Beijing.

There are some stories in cycling’s history that are forever epic in the hearts of cycling fans. We all have a favourite, a distant or historical race, a feat of courageous riding, or a decisive victory.

They are there, tucked away in our memories and framed by our imagination, on tap to remind us of everything that has inspired us about the sport.

The ascent of the Peyragudes, in the 17th stage of the 2012 Tour, is famous as the point at which Bradley Wiggins effectively became the first British rider ever to secure general classification victory in La Grande Boucle. During the same stage, the story of endurance, camaraderie and resilience in Steve Cummings’ dogged refusal to accept defeat on the Port de Bales deserves its place in history too.

This article is abridged from Paul Cooper’s chapter in the forthcoming book on the Tour de France entitled ‘Golden Stages’, which will be published by Sports & Publicity on June 11th

Previous page: Cummings receives treatment from an ambulance following a disastrous stage at Port de Bales during the Tour de France 2012; Opposite: Steve during the sprint laps of final stage of the Giro in Brescia this May

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Survival of the not so fitTEST Words Trev Gornall Photography Dan Kenyon, Trev Gornall & MainDruPhoto.com

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That’s a total of 27 secteurs of the biggest, meanest cobblestones you could wish to never see. This is no Coronation Street.

LIKE everyone who has ever ridden, I’ve experienced some hard days on the bike. My first ascent of Alpe d’Huez was emotional and brought with it a self realisation and belief that often you are better than you think you are.

Those hard days aside, nothing quite compares to Saturday, April 6, 2013. There was no great climbing involved – just a relatively short and flat 170km (105 miles in old money – or a ‘Century’).

Unfortunately, roughly 52.3 km of that was the infamous pavé of Paris-Roubaix.

Now that’s a total of 27 secteurs of the biggest, meanest cobblestones you could wish to never see.

This is no Coronation Street. The stones are as big as your head, battered and churned-up by the farmers of the region using these lanes to access their fields with their tractors, in various states of repair – some ok, others not so.

How did all this come about? Well, on the Thursday evening, I had been on my regular chain-gang ride with the Liverpool Century Road Club. When I arrived home – having been battered by the wind and chilled by the cold – I had a missed call, text and email all of my dear friend, Mr Fitz.

He’d booked a hotel near Roubaix. His intended travel partner had just pulled-out. He was riding the Paris-Roubaix Challenge on Saturday. Would I join him? My head is not normally functioning that well after the ‘chainy’, but this was a lot to take in.

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I wasn’t sure if it was even feasible to get there and back, but a quick check of the P&O Ferries website revealed it could be done. A five-hour drive to Dover, 90 minute crossing, 90 minute drive to Roubaix from Calais, and I should just about make it in time to register for the ride before it closed at 7pm on Friday evening.

Easy-peasy.

After getting the ferry booking confirmation back via email, I emailed Fitzy, who had already texted to say he was going to bed due to his 6am start.

We were on. I would see him in Roubaix – given a fair tailwind. I slung some LCRC kit in my bag and hit the hay some time after midnight.

The alarm appeared to go off about five minutes after I went to sleep… it was actually four hours, but it was going to have to do. I dressed quickly and grabbed the Giant TCX from the garage. It was still set up for riding Cross – knobbly tyres and MTB pedals. No bottle cages, no tool bag, computer, pump or spare tubes.

Trying to get my brain to function at 05:15 after four hours sleep is no mean feat. THINK. If I was to forget pedals, or tubes, or pump, or whatever at this point, the effort and expense would all be in vain. Fortunately, I had made a ‘to-do’ list the night before. Unfortunately, I had also left it on my desk.

Thankfully, the drive to Dover was relatively smooth and I managed to get on a the ferry prior to the one I had booked. Unfortunately, there was www.spincyclemag.com

a medical emergency on board and the crossing was delayed by an hour due to missing our berth in Calais.

During the drive to Roubaix, I called Mr Fitz en-route and he was already at the velodrome.

He’d registered me and picked up my ride number. We met at the hotel just outside Roubaix and unloaded the bikes. There were a bunch of Dutch guys in the hotel bar drinking Leffe. They sniggered at my cross bike, which they appeared to consider was somehow not in the spirit of the occasion. What do the Dutch know about riding bikes?

We then made a swift visit to the Super Marché across the road. Here we panic-bought all kinds of stuff that we didn’t need and would later dump. It seemed like the right thing at the time, but this is 44

what happens when men are put in charge of food buying.

Next, we set about finding an Italian restaurant to do some carb-loading. The pony-tailed maestro on the hotel reception found a place in ‘downtown’ Tourcoing and wrote the address down for us. It was a short five minute drive and we arrived around 6pm. It appeared to be closed. Not just the restaurant, but the town.

An encounter with a waitress through the restaurant window established that they would open at 7-bells. Via the medium of international sign language, Mr Fitz managed to gesticulate our desire to ‘mange’.

We demolished a massive pizza, massive salad and two massive lasagnes. Oh, and a cheeky glass of red each. Then we rolled ourselves out of the

restaurant and back to the hotel to set about some ‘bike mechanic-ing’. You can tell by how we have address the terminology, that we had little knowledge of what we were doing.

Fortunately, Mr Fitz had the presence of mind to remember to bring a track pump...which assisted the tyre swap. Not before I’d managed to blow a tube – much to the amusement of the Dutchies in the next room, who gave a loud cheer. I blamed Fitzy’s track pump for having a faulty pressure gauge.

Mr Fitz is ‘kind of a big deal’ in the pro-cycling world. And he’d taken his preparation for this ride quite seriously. He’d even arranged a special meetup with a pro-team mechanic to get some tips on how best to survive Roubaix.

Fortunately, I had no time to prepare or to

ponder on tyre selection, tyre pressure, bike choice, ride strategy, what to eat, when to eat, what to wear... blah, blah. My only guidance was a conversation I’d had with Roger Hammond a couple of years earlier, when some of the lads had discussed riding the Tour of Flanders sportive.

I asked Roger what he thought of amateurs wanting to ride such a route: “Seems like a really good way to wreck your bike,” was his muted response. Those words have stayed with me.

Hence, there was no way I was taking my half decent road bike and that was pretty much the sum total of my pre-ride thoughts.

For the second time in two nights, I felt as though I woke up no sooner than I had went to sleep. Eight hours sleep in two days didn’t feel like ideal preparation for riding Roubaix. www.spincyclemag.com

I looked every inch the classic sportive-riding nob. Luckily, Mr Fitz upstaged me on that front in a natural wool hat and Rapha jacket.

Not only that, but the weather forecast was not encouraging minus 1-degree at the start at 07:00 and a maximum of 3-degrees.

For that reason, I pretty much dressed in every bit of kit I had brought – a long sleeve base, short-sleeve jersey, long-sleeve jersey, gillet, buff, winter hat, two pairs of gloves, leg-warmers and overshoes. I looked every inch the classic sportiveriding nob. Luckily, Mr Fitz upstaged me on that front in a natural wool hat and Rapha jacket.

We loaded the car and made the 90-minute transfer to the start in Busigny. As we drew near to our destination, the snow at the side of the road added to the nerves. Neither of us had brought full-on winter kit, but we’d just have to manage.

A quick call of nature lightened the load, which was promptly followed by stuffing as many bars down our throats as we could to the point of feeling sick. Then there was a final photo, accompanied by slightly insane ‘what the hell are we doing’ laughter, before we headed for the start line arch and immediately hit the road without any sense of ceremony. Within minutes, fingers and toes were frozen to the point they could not be felt. We jumped on the wheel of a couple of Spaniards, both riding Specialized Roubaixs. Surely these guys knew what they were doing. They even had a support vehicle. They soon dropped us.

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It wasn’t long before we hit the first secteur of pavé – a cheeky little 2km intro rated three-stars for difficulty by the organiser, with five-stars being the hardest.

As the front wheel bobbled over the jagged cobblestones, it quickly became apparent that gripping the bars tightly for fear of letting go was not going to be a long-term strategy – it just hurt too much.

The vibrations reverberated through my whole body, especially the legs. Calf muscles, in particular, seemed to dislike the high frequency wobble. I made it through the other side intact and looked around for Mr Fitz. Nothing. A minute later, he emerged.

Both his bidons had been launched from their cages by the ferocity of the vibrations. He had been concentrating so intently on the road that he had not even noticed at first. The prospect of riding 160km more with no bidons was not attractive, so he’d gone back to locate one at least.

Both somewhat shell-shocked, we spent the next ‘smooth’ section discussing how intense the pavé had been and how we might tackle the next secteur. I think we were both more than a little intimidated that we still had another 26 secteurs to negotiate, but we didn’t talk about that.

As we passed through those early secteurs, we quickly discovered that there’s a very good reason www.spincyclemag.com

why the pros often seem to prefer to stick to the channels along the sides of the pavé. While it can be tricky to negotiate the curb stones that edge the cobbles, and some of the ground can be soft, or loose, its infinitely more comfortable than the bone-shaking vibrations of the pavé.

It requires complete concentration, a few centimetres either way and you risk face-planting the stones – and that can never be good – or slightly less life-threatening, going head first in to a ditch.

Mr Fitz told me afterwards that before the ride he was “determined to smash those cobbles, tackle them head-on” and that there was “no way” you would see him “riding in the channels”. Later, he admitted that “after one secteur I’d had enough already”. He was not alone and it was hard to imagine that there was anything else worse to follow.

Famous last words, as we now faced the Arenberg Trench – one of the most infamous stretches of pavé on the Roubaix route. At 2.4 km, it is far from the longest secteur but the stones are absolutely huge and so unevenly distributed that the height difference from one to the next is massive.

They appear almost like stepping stones – great ravines in between each one. It was absolutely horrible and I am pretty sure that I could even feel my brain smashing against the inside of my skull.

I really don’t think anything can prepare you for five-star pavé – not even lots of three or fourstar pavé – and I emerged through the other side feeling like I’d just gone a couple of rounds with a cage fighter.

It’s fair to say, in this moment, I felt no sense of achievement whatsoever. I just wanted to get this bastard ride done before it beat me. It was becoming a war of attrition. Mr Fitz looked a bit white too.

Liverpool Century’s Trevor Gornall tackles the infamous pavé of Paris-Roubaix Photo courtesy of MaindruPhoto.com

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On we pressed, through the grey gloom, the biting wind and the near freezing temperature.

The middle of the ride gets a bit hazy. All I can really remember is that Mr Fitz had three flats in a row and we spent at least half an hour, probably three quarters, stood by the roadside in the freezing cold, trying to fix a puncture with fingers so cold that you couldn’t feel them.

When Fitzy had his blow out, for some reason his computer got knocked out too. So I was the only one who had any idea how far from home we were and diligently counted down the klicks like an over-enthusiastic primary teacher.

With 5 km to go, Fitzy looked at me and kind of shook his head. “I’m done,” he said. I wasn’t feeling too hot myself to be honest, but this wasn’t really what I wanted to hear. We made our target the final feed zone.

Another refill, much needed toilet-stop, stretch of the back and we were ready to hit it hard again. There’s just seven more secteurs to go, we told ourselves. Sadly, we were wrong – there were eight. Oh, and so what if it included the fourstar Camphin-en-Pevele and the historic five-star Carrefour secteurs – consecutively – we could do it.

By now, it was almost impossible to hold the bars on the pavé secteurs. My hands were so battered and sore.

I had pain shooting up my wrists and lower forearms. After several hours on the bike, a constant regime of finger and toe wiggling, stretching, eating drinking and concentrating on not crashing had really worn us down mentally as well as physically.

Oh, and by now, my ‘gooch’ was giving me grief too from the constant hammering. I guess this was partially my own fault, as I’d left the saddle on my cross bike – a bike I’d never ridden before for more than two hours at a time. I was forced to adopt an out of the saddle style for the final few secteurs.

As we left what we thought was the final secteur, our spirits were raised – that’s the hard bit done, its smooth road all the way home. We were going to do this. We had survived without any www.spincyclemag.com

major incidents – no crashes, no broken limbs or smashed teeth. Our joy was short lived, as another secteur of pavé loomed in to sight.

Glances were exchanged, but nothing was spoken.

Nothing else for it, just to ‘man-up’ and get through it. We ploughed through it – painfully slowly – seemingly riding through every single cobble in turn. Emerging from that secteur, we were more cautious. Was ‘THAT’ the final secteur – or was there yet another one lurking? As we dragged ourselves closer to the outskirts of Roubaix, the area began to look more built-up.

For the first time in maybe seven-hours or so, our spirits were really lifted. As we headed in to downtown Roubaix, not even the heavy traffic – the first we’d seen in a whole day of riding – could spoil the experience.

Going under the red kite signalled just one-kilo to go and suddenly a little spring returned to the legs.

Before you could really prepare yourself for what was about to hit, we were inside the velodrome on the smooth hallowed surface.

People were cheering us and the sense of fulfilment, as well as sheer relief, began to wash over us. Mr Fitz hugged the cote d’azur like it was his first born, but I was keen to ride the banks and ventured high above the thin blue line.

I quickly dropped down to the comfort of the red sprinters line in case I suffered the indignity of a slip and fall in the Roubaix Velodrome – not the memory that I wanted to take home after 170km of battering myself.

As we approached the finish line, Mr Fitz extended his hand and I grabbed it with what little energy I had left.

Crossing the the line together, the handshake became an embrace as we free-wheeled to the end, hugging each other absolutely exhausted.

We managed to stay upright until a young French lady awarded us our medals. Fitzy then collapsed in a heap on the grass in the track centre.

Our riding was not yet done for the day. We still had a 5km transfer back to the hotel to negotiate.

However, this was completed without delay, or disagreement or any form of wrong turning, 50

mis-directions whatsoever. And it was no-one’s fault because we didn’t go wrong – much. Tempers were certainly not lost, either. But it just might have been a bit further than we’d hoped.

As we arrived back at the hotel, we spied the Dutchies – still drinking Leffe in the bar. I think that they did the ride…but I cannot be certain.

The next day, we could not even look at the bikes and so spent the morning exploring the velo club at the Roubaix Velodrome, mooching around the team buses and waiting for the real event to arrive.

We got some dubious take away food and were abused by a Napoleonic Gendamerie, with smallman syndrome. Welcome to France. We found a suitable viewing place inside the velodrome, watched the race unfold and witnessed one of the most exciting finishes inside the velodrome that I can ever remember. Cancellara even did a ‘Fitzy’ on the velodrome turf.

What a completely crazy weekend. Thursday evening, I had no incline of even watching Roubaix live, never mind riding it. Sometimes the best things that happen really are the most unexpected.

On the ferry home, I was able to sit and contemplate for the first time. I thought about the pain and discomfort that I had just put my mind and body through. I wondered why I could not take the grin off my face when I’ve just done something so brutal and horrible to myself. It’s totally counter-intuitive that you should derive enjoyment from this.

So thank you, Mr Fitz. Thank you for affording me the insane notion of riding the Paris-Roubaix Challenge with no notice or preparation. It was one hell of a ride at the ‘Hell of the North’ and it was a privilege to be there at your side the whole way. Well, mostly a little bit ahead of you, but who is splitting hairs here.

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The Boy Bolland Words & Photography Dan Kenyon

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DAVID Bolland is a boy wrapped in family support. We’re sitting on sofas in David’s great grandmother Gertie’s living room in Netherton on a Saturday afternoon, as she potters around next door in the kitchen getting his chicken and chips ready in the oven.

Meanwhile, David’s uncle, John, is pretending to enjoy the Giro on the TV – although I suspect that he’d rather be watching footy on the other side. Then there is David’s dad, Mike, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor, ready to answer questions on his son’s growing success.

It would be wrong to think that this is the old familiar tale of a pushy dad living his dreams through his kids. The two of them seem to have a quiet partnership more reminiscent of a professional soigneur and rider rather than a demanding dad and his protogé.

David’s already in the state of mind that looks to save energy when not on the bike. Carefully seated, there’s no fidgeting and he barely moves a muscle during our interview, as well as speaking slowly to choose his words carefully.

On the other hand, Mike is more energetic but has the same quiet, measured way of speaking.

David sits back and allows his dad to describe much of his career to date – although he’s happy to gently interrupt and take over the conversation when he has a point to make or something needs correcting.

Mike has been with Liverpool Mercury for years and raced a little in his time before crashes took both his pace and nerves from him. His work as a metallurgist has taken the family over to Scunthorpe, where David does most of his racing and training in the east with his team, Bike Box Alan.

Before the interview, I’d asked for David’s palmares and was presented with four-paged of Excel document, listing every race and placing since David was about six.

Listed in place order rather than by date, it showed a steady column of first to fifth places since 2009, as well as a elevation chart that could be mistaken for the upwards profile of the last 20k of a summit finish stage.

DK: Your dad raced a little was that the start of it all for you?

DB: Sort of. I had a Tonka bike and that broke, so we went to a bike shop in Hepworth and they had a little road bike, so we got that.

DK: And as your dad had a road bike, with drop handle bars, you wanted the same?

DB: Yes. It was kind of like that. I liked the look of the bars.

MB: It was a proper race bike – a copy of the Peugeot team bike, with fancy lugwork and three gears.

DK: Have you still got it?

MB: David would never give it away. That’s his special bike. His first four races were won on it.

DK: But you’re a bit tall for it now?

DB: Yeah, but I can still ride it. I won my first races on it. They were floodlit cross races and would have won a fifth, but they changed the course for that race and added a 200m metre slope which I couldn’t get up on my three gears. I was beaten by a girl on a mountain bike, but she was pushed up the hill.

DK: Your daughter Robin raced for a while and may yet go back to it do. It’s a family affair?

MB: My wife, Tracy, and I like to say that both kid’s feet never really touched the ground between push chair and bike. Robin and David were born a year apart and so were in a double buggy being pushed everywhere by Tracy. When the buggy wore out, I took it down the council tip by the Steel works in Scunthorpe, went to chuck it in the metal recycling container and it was the old cliché – I saw two kids bikes. Those bikes came back home with me and the kids were soon on those without stabilizers.

DK: Do you remember many of your races David?

DB: I can remember quite a few. When I used to do the cycle-cross races, I started out with flat pedals and Campagnolo leather straps. By the time I’d got strapped in, they’d be half a lap up on me – but by the end, I’d be a few seconds clear or in second.

DK: You do all the disciplines. Out of track, road, time-trial and cycle-cross, is there a favourite?

DB: I like them all. I enjoy cross, but probably track is the best.

DK: Is that because there’s less stopping and starting and more chance to use consistent power?

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DB: It is the power, yes, but also the speed that I like. Last week, when I won the scratch 10-miler, we were averaging over 30mph. I’m still on youth gears, but it’s the short and sharp bursts of energy that do it.

their critics, but they bring on kids. It was a stepping stone – a family of cycling. If you look at your Wiggos, Ben Swift and Victoria Pendleton, they’ve all done BSCA and it’s a who’s who of cycling, really.

DK: You’ve have a pretty good record of 1sts and 2nds over the past three years – especially on track. Quibell Park in Scunthorpe played it’s part?

DK: How did you join Bike Box Alan?

MB: I had a mate who was the caretaker at Quibell, so David kind of grew up on that track.

We had no fixed gear bike of our own, but there were some spare small bikes from the Manchester Velodrome. The first time we turned up there to train, there was the British School of Cycling Association event going on and Lizzie Armistead, a schoolkid then, was there. BSCA might have

DB: I was looking for a team, as Liverpool was too far to travel to train really, and the Mercury have no proper youth squad. A mate, who was a year older, was with Bike Box Alan and encouraged me to try for them.

DK: And you race both track and road for them?

DB: And timetrial as well. There’s eight of us now from South Yorkshire.

MB: With Maxgear, as well as other teams, there’s lots happening now in Yorkshire and the North West. There’s an acceptance now that you can be a club member and ride for a commercial team.

Bike Box Alan have been great. They are, or were, Yorkshire’s top point-scoring club in the BC rankings.

DK: So there’s a lot of competition within the team?

MB: You could say that. David’s peers are the likes of Connor Swift, Ben’s brother, who won The Yorkshire Junior Division Champs this year and Ashley Proctor is a 1st Cat and won the Lincoln Grand Prix. We’ve had lots of advice from Terry Dolan, who has said that David needs to step up and ride for a race team now, as well as start aiming for the nationals as he develops. www.spincyclemag.com

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DB: I’ve stepped up a lot from last year. I’m doing something every day now. Intervals and riding the hills over in Rotherham.

DK: Rotherham. Ahhh, so you’re part of the Downing Brothers secret training club then? I hear Russell works the group hard?

MB: ‘Russell Downing’s Bitches’ they’re called [laughs].

DK: Both brothers seem to be involved in bringing local young riders on. How does it work?

DB: Dean did a lot with DHL sprint school, but it wasn’t run last year, as the Olympics were on.

MB: David’s coach is Paul Williams. He’s 62 now.

He lives close to Dean and trained both brothers when they were David’s age, as well as the likes of Wayne Randle and John Tanner from Planet X. All sorts of different people. He introduced David to The Downings and he gets out on their chainy ride when he can.

DB: Their chainy’s on the Tuesday and I have school, so I get out with them mainly in the school holidays. Last time I went on their chaingang, Russell and Dean were there. Ben Swift and I were on the front with Russell, who was really pushing me. Putting the speed up by half a mile-an-hour and then again. It must have got to like 26mph on the front. When the next two came up and took over, Ben said ‘you were going pretty hard then’.

DK: It sounds like great experience for racing?

DB: When I was eight, I actually beat Russell in a timed pursuit. We we both last men and I beat him.

MB: [Smiling] I forgot to mention that. Must put it on the palmares.

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DK: Going down the park for a knockabout with Wayne Rooney or Jamie Carragher is just a dream for people who play footy, but with cycling you’re there – training with national champs and pro tour riders.

DB: That’s the magic of it.

MB: They’re testing David and teaching him all sorts of tricks to watch out for. Then with Paul and Frank Kelly, it’s all really bringing David on.

There’s a bowl of hills over near Rotherham we call ‘The Secret Hills’. I’ll following behind in the car with Paul and we’ll go up and down the hills.

I might drive 120-miles in total - driving David out there, David riding the hills and then driving back. David can ride with the Downings for 40-miles and match them, but he needs to start building up to 60 to 70-miles as he approaches 18. Then there’s checking David’s progress using Strava.

DK: I was going to ask you about Strava, as it’s so popular with amateurs. I don’t use it myself.

I don’t see any point at my age in trying to beat 18-year-olds. But for David, the numbers must be useful.

MB: With Paul’s training, it’s all about average times and keeping a consistent heart-rate and everything with that is going right. We don’t use Strava all the time, but it is good to see how he’s doing against some pros as he develops. There’s a hill climb battle on Bib Lane and I think Dean holds the record over the steepest section.

Malcolm Elliot’s done it in less than a minute. For the full length of the hill, David’s now just two seconds down on the best time. We’re not pushing for it, though. David’s there to train and the time he set was on the fourth lap, but it’s good to know we’re doing something right. We thought he was pretty handy, but we didn’t realise that he was that handy. We can set Strava aside now. Leave it alone for a while.

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DK: And how are Bike Box Alan pushing you?

DB: I’m doing more training in now in the week.

I’m doing 200 to 400-miles.

DK: So what’s the next stage? National champs must be your goal?

DB: And points. I’m aiming for my 2nd cat licence in 2013. After that, it’s 100 points for 1st class and the 200 points for league.

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DK: Do you want to go down the route of GB talent team or would you just aim to turn pro?

MB: It depends whether Team GB come back to him. Two years ago, David and his contemporaries in East Midlands did the Tour of Scotland.

DK: Stepping up from 10-mile races to 55-miles must have been hard?

DB: It was, but it was a good experience. It set me in good stead when I came back to the shorter one

day races. In the early season races, I hadn’t really been fit but riding the Tour of Scotland made me stronger and would again now.

gave us a master class in skills and routines on the Tour of Scotland and I train with them when I’m over on Merseyside.

DK: You’ve also had support from Phil and Vicki Thomas and the Liverpool Mercury CC, who took you to that tour.

MB: Phil Thomas said that he thought David had come out of the Tour of Scotland the strongest of the riders he took there. He was impressed. Many of the riders from that race in 2011 went onto the Talent team. Unfortunately, David’s birthday being on Christmas Eve meant that he just missed out on racing in a younger groups. He’s

DB: They’ve been great for advice and help. I was riding with them all the time at one point. Phil

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been racing against virtual men in the under-14s, but now he’s coming on in terms of growth and building power. He’s always been riding for the following year, but he’ll soon be at the point where he can compete on the same level.

DK: Apart from ‘The Secret Hills’, what’s this I hear about ‘Secret Ninja’?

DB: [Laughs] You can’t mention it... it’s secret.

MB: Calling stuff ‘secret’ is just a bit of a joke. We call stuff that we do outside of the group rides and team rides ‘secret’ as it sounds better than special, so it ‘secret hills’ and ‘secret ninjas’, which is me on a moped and David riding behind.

DK: Like Merckx used to train and how Rob Hayles works with Cavendish?

DB: Yes. Although, we are still working on it. I went into the back of the moped the other week.

Dad changed down gear for a hill, the moped slipped back and I didn’t brake in time.

MB: David’s in transition right now. He has some exams, but he’s very much put his heart and soul into cycling. As his mum and dad, Tracy and I are just there to support him in his dreams. And if his dream’s to be a cyclist, okay. I’m not going to say that he’s crap or whatever, or that he isn’t going to make it, but we’re not going to push him too far the other way either. We’ve seen other people who’ve got to David’s age with equal ability, as good as or even more, and they stop cycling because they’re pushed too hard.

emotional sense, even though we’re in Scunthorpe.

DK: It must have give you great confidence to be signed by a proper team?

DB: Yes. It’s good. The kit’s good too. I’ve got a proper helmet now. The one that I had was from Aldi Express and didn’t tighten properly. Now, I have a Kask helmet and I’m happy for that.

MB: It’s an expensive sport. I may have spent £300 last month just for him to race. It’s significant, but Bike Box Alan supports them for the national races and our local TLI races, so that all helps.

DK: Are you still training as father as son?

MB: I wish. We went out last Wednesday...

DB: [Cuts in...] You were hanging off the back in the little ring [laughs].

DK: So ,when you get back from training, does your dad have your recovery drink ready and give your legs a rub down?

DB: [Laughs) No. DK: Has he got you on a special diet at all?

DB: [Laughs] No. Uncle Chris: [Dragging his eyes from the Giro] Chicken and chips.

DK: It’s a lot to focus on even for adults. Look at Andy Schleck, at the moment. That’s a battle of will power, as much as leg power.

MB: You’re right. Were there to support David with both as much as we can. He’s in a good team now and we’re close to the Mercury, in an

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The man who loved to climb Words Ken Beck, Ray Green & Geoff Hornby Photography Archive photos courtesy of Joan Bradley

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He was a natural. Bill just loved to climb. He was like a ballet dancer – he would dance up.

A TOP of Boundary Hill, nestled in the beautiful surroundings of the Trough of Bowland, lies a modest plaque adorning the boundary stone that once signified the divide between Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Unless you’re directly searching for it, the plaque is barely noticeable and chances are that you’d probably ride past without every knowing it’s there.

There is nothing grandiose in the slightest about its appearance – no overbearing gold etchings carved into the stone or bidons laid down at its base, as if to worship a fallen cycling God. Like the man himself, this small monument is modest, humble and honest – just like Bill Bradley, whose racing career is steeped in as much history as the hills he loved to climb so dearly in the Trough.

His widow, Joan, said: “He was a natural. Bill just loved to climb. He was like a ballet dancer – he would dance up. Whenever we would go on rides, Bill would ride up to the top and then back down to see where I was.

“Next thing, I would feel his hand on my back and I’d start going up the hill at speed. Once I was at the top, he would go back down to help someone else up who was struggling. We would call it the ‘hand of God’.

“I had just turned 19 when I first met Bill. At one time, the Yorkshire and Lancashire clubs used to go up to Ingleton for Bonfire weekend.

I was in the Bradford Racing Club and I had broken my elbow, so I wasn’t able to ride my bike 68

there and thought that I wasn’t going to miss it.

“Later that afternoon, one of the boys in the club, Rolland Potter, had to work late and told me that he was going up in his van and asked if I wanted a lift. I wasn’t doing anything that weekend, so I went up in the van.

“We were in the Wheatsheaf pub, like we always were. I was with one of my friends, who I went running with, Joyce. Bill was sitting with Jack Lowe and Geoff Hornby in the corner. Joyce nudged me and said ‘that’s Bill Bradley’, as he was ‘the’ rider at the time. I just replied ‘oh yeah, I think it is’.

“Anyway, we started to get ready to go over to what was called the ‘institute’, where there was a band playing and we would dance. Before we left the pub, Bill was still sat there in the corner, so Joyce said to me ‘go ask him if he is alright’. I said to her ‘you ask him if he is alright – I don’t want to talk to him’.

“She said it again, so I just asked Bill if he was ‘alright’. He just said ‘yes, I am coming over in a minute’. That’s all I said to him and I walked off. When he came into the institute, he made a beeline for me. That’s what he was like, you see.

He’d obviously sat there in the pub and thought about it.

Previous page: Bill racing up Winnats Pass in 1957; opposite: Bill climbing the Gross Glockner in the Tour of Austria

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Reg Browne (Manchester), Bill Bradley (Southport), Ian Sanbach (Stoke) and Norman Taylor (Newcastle)

“We chatted a bit and that was it. I didn’t think that I would hear from him again. Later in the week, Bill rang my club’s secretary to find out my name, address and telephone number. Then he rang up and spoke to my father to ask if he could take me to a dinner, where he was a guest of honour.

“That was it really. Near the end of November, I went with the club again to Ingleton and met his family. We were engaged in May, but I didn’t see him again for all that year because it was the Olympics, Worlds, Peace Race and Tour of Britain. Then we were married in the November.”

Although it has been 16 years since Bill lost his fight against cancer at the age of 64, his memory still lives on thanks to the efforts of his old clubmates at Southport Cycling Club. Every July, they host a popular memorial ride in his honour that 70

retraces one of his favourite training rides through the Forest of Bowland. Bill didn’t just like hills, he loved them.

“Bill had been in the England team with me in the past and was the best home based climber we produced in England in the 50s and 60s,” revealed former British road and track legend Dennis Tarr, who paid tribute to Bill before his own death in 2001. “If he were on the start sheet, you would expect to race 1-2mph faster as a general rule.

“I was in some of the races, which he did some of his best rides in the Tour of Britain, Isle of Man and Tour de L’Avenir, as well as later when he turned independent and then rode in the professional races. Bill was a modest man – a gentleman. The action and events around him did not ruffle him, but he was quick to respond by his rides and contributions.”

Despite being regarded as arguably the greatest British amateur road cyclist of all time, Bill worked full-time as a telephone engineer throughout the whole of his career – both as an amateur and later as an independent.

He saved most of his annual holidays until February and March, so as to have days off midweek when he could go on the long bashes to Settle or Ingleton.

These long rides were the foundation of his amazing stamina and only the brave or foolhardy would accompany him, as it usually meant four hours after a brief lunch stop pedalling into a strong headwind on the way back to Southport.

Showing no sign of his previous exertion, Bill would dance over Parbold and Ashurst Beacon the very next day on the 50- miles ‘bit and bit’ hammer after work.

Like most great champions, Bill combined natural ability, dedication, determination and a love of his chosen sport – something that stayed with him to the end in 1997.

So how did he first get into cycling? Well, his first job was as a telegraph boy with the Post Office, which involved being paid to cycle round Southport.

Bill’s first tentative pedal revolutions into riding long distances came when a group of work friends roped him into joining them for a tour of North Scotland.

One night, they couldn’t find accommodation in their price range - less than 7/6d - so the intrepid mates cadged digs at a farmhouse with three eccentric bachelor brothers. Imagine Bill’s surprise when he noticed that they were dismantling a torpedo on the dining room table. www.spincyclemag.com

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At 16, Bill surrendered his status as a pro cyclist when he transferred to the telecommunications department at the Post Office.

He continued to develop his interest in cycling with Our Lady of Lourdes Youth Club, but – at first – scorned the racing side of the sport until he inevitably realised his rare talent.

Strangely, for a man of his talents, it wasn’t until he was 20 that he started racing. Bill would later state that he felt this was beneficial to his future development and, although a certain regime had worked for him, it may not work for someone else. He also seldom offered training advice, but would occasionally suggest that someone should “change down and pedal faster”.

Surprisingly, for a rider who was to become less than enthusiastic about time trials, Bill’s first notable victory was in the 1956 Otley CC Mountain Trial.

He beat Stan Brittain’s course record by more than two minutes. Then in July, he was the first rider to beat two hours on Brock, when he took two minutes off the course record held by Billy Holmes.

Bill also managed to clock 4hrs11mins in the Bath Road Club’s 100 on the same day that Ray ‘The Boot’ Booty beat four hours for the first time on an August Bank Holiday Monday back in 1956.

Later that month, Bill rode for the Merseyside team in the BLRC “Oats” 1,000-mile race, where the first stage from Skegness to Manchester was supposed to be 154-miles, but, in fact, ended up being much further – a staggering feat by today’s standards.

Bill finished last in the leading group of five in 8hrs30mins, but then was rewarded with a third place the following day with a time of 7hrs7mins – six minutes behind winner Peter Ward and a whole 30 minutes ahead of the main group of 17 containing such luminaries such as Bryan Wiltcher and Gino Goddard.

Sadly, Bill would later develop knee trouble after two wet days and was forced to withdraw, but would later save his season with an impressive third place in the RTTC Hill Climb Championship.

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His 1957 season started much the same, with a hilly time-trail win that set a new course record in the Nelson Wheelers Circuit of the Dales. Bill went on to win the Otley ‘50’, beating Stan Brittain and Alan Ramsbottom, before clinching victory in the Anfield ‘100 with a time of 4hrs19mins.

Later that year, Bill accomplished his most memorable ride to date when he won the Gross Glockner climb in the Tour of Austria. The stage was 89-miles long and the weather very warm

that day. Oh, there was also the matter of the route going over the ‘steep’ side of the climb – a distance of 12.5 miles, to an altitude of 8243-ft.

Bill managed to drop the Austrian Mascha two miles from the summit and topped the Glockner in 56mins 53secs, beating the record held by the Angel of the Mountains, Charly Gaul, by 1min 9secs. Mascha caught Bill on the descent and they finished together at Spittal, where Mascha had the consolation of winning the stage.

During the World Youth Games later that year in Moscow, Bill broke away alone two laps from the end only to be caught 3km from the line. He also managed to find time to ride time trials at home and took fourth place in the BBAR, where his 12-hour distance of 255 miles remains a club record.

In 1958, there was no season opening wins in a hilly ‘50’. Instead, there was a rare success for a British rider in May – a stage win during the Peace Race on the 111-mile penultimate stage from Tabor to Brno.

Bill slipped into a seven-man break after just seven miles. Despite the presence of the Russian, Bierienin, who was second overall, the break stayed away. Sensibly, Bill didn’t wait for the gallop and, four miles from the finish, he slipped away to win by seven seconds. Talk about lucky number seven, eh. The British team featured well overall, with the three B’s Brittain, Blower and Bradley – all finishing in the top 20.

The Peace Race held in Warsaw during 1959

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Although Bill seldom discussed training matters, he certainly knew what he required to hit peak form – a two-week stage race. With that in mind, he started the first Milk Race in June in superb condition following his exertions in Eastern Europe.

After third places on stages one and two, Bill held the yellow jersey equal on time with Harry Reynolds. Harry then managed to equal Bill on points, as well as time, to share the leader’s jersey after the third stage.

Sadly, the fourth stage was a bad day for Bill and he dropped to 16th overall. He did not feature again until stage nine – just 74 miles from Weston Super Mare to Ilfracombe.

Ian Sandbach was first over Porlock Hill, but Bill caught him and agreed that his opponent should take the primes, stage and time bonuses – his reason being that he did not want to take the lead this early in the race from overall leader, Sweecks.

Imagine Bill’s face when he found out that Sweecks had suffered mechanical trouble, which meant that the time bonuses he had gifted to his fellow escapee in an attempt to avoid the pressure of the leader’s jersey had come back to haunt him.

“It was a privilege to be in the same team as Bill,” revealed Sandbach, who sadly passed away in 1999. “He was quiet and unassuming. He had a brilliant race sense and ability not only to climb, for which he was famous, but he had that special ‘something’ that wins races.

“I rode several times with Bill in the British jersey. We first formed an allegiance in the very first Milk Race. Bill was in a mixed amateur/ independent team with Elswick Hopper.

Trade team sponsors naturally want maximum publicity, but Bill got no help or favours from the independents.

“After a few days, I was the only survivor of the Midland team. We agreed that I would help him for general classification and he would help me for the King of the Mountain. We both finished in second place in each category. Both the general and the climber’s jerseys going to Richard Durlacher, who was later to become a Tour de France star.

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It was a privilege to be in the same team as Bill. He had that special ‘something’ that wins races.

“I ‘retired’ at the age of 22 years to start a University degree course. Bill, of course, went on to achieve remarkable results for many, many years – often against Eastern and Western European teams, who it is generally excepted, were ‘coached’ by guru doctors, etc. We both returned to racing again at the Worlds Veteran Road Race Championship in Buxton during 1994. Unbelievably, Bill romped away from the field and was only just beaten by a Belgium exprofessional, who had been racing throughout his career. Such was Bill’s natural talent.”

Another loser that day was Johnny Morris, who was penalised five minutes for verbally abusing a Belgian rider that knocked him off while struggling up Lynmouth Hill. It wasn’t that the Belgian was unduly sensitive, but rather that the incident occurred within earshot of a bus queue of pensioners.

The next day, Bill made the mistake that was to cost him the race. After just three miles, Richard Durlacher escaped with Stan Brittain, Dave Bedwell, Doug Collins and the abusive Morris.

In his book, ‘Where There’s A Wheel’, Chas Messenger puts Bill’s reluctance to chase down to him being in awe of Stan Brittain. Some years later Bill admitteded that “a good big ‘un will always beat a good little “un” – he was almost certainly comparing himself with ‘Stan the Man’.

“I first heard the name of Bill Bradley one evening at the Bootle Cycle Track,” revealed Brittain. “I was talking to one of Bill’s club 80

mates, Bob Bird, who told me about this young lad who he said was going to be a ‘good un’ and that night he was.

“When Bill retired from racing, he kept riding his bike. He would take it on the family holiday, usually to France, where he would find Col or two to climb, which, as you know, was his favourite pastime.

“During his 43 years with the Southport Cycling Club, he would always be encouraging and took a great interest in the junior members.

“Bill also liked his trips away with the lads, both here in the UK and abroad. Believe it or not, he enjoyed his Thursday night out at the pub with myself and a few of his old pals for half a pint of bitter.”

Bedwell ended up taking the stage, while Bill finished in the bunch at 11 minutes. Durlacher took the jersey with Stan at four minutes and Bill third, a depressing eight minutes down.

Lady Luck smiled the next day on Bill, when the tables were reversed with both Durlacher and Brittain trapped in the bunch. Meanwhile, Bill escaped in a group of 20 riders that gained seven minutes on the chasers. Ron Coe won the stage, while Bill was third and jumped to second place overall within a minute of the Austrian.

Despite the leg-bending climb of Whitedown, where Ken Laidlaw took the prime, the last stage to Thames Ditton the next day saw no change in the overall. The Belgian, Torbeyns, won the final sprint from Ron Coe, who was to feature in a different way in the 1959 race. www.spincyclemag.com

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Bill’s good form continued with a second place in the Manx International behind De Wolf. Not surprisingly, Bill was selected for both the Empire Games and the Worlds, where he finished 10th and 18th.

As Schur won the World Title, a ‘revenge’ race was held in East Germany, where Bill was second.

He rounded off his amazing season with fourth place in both the BLRC and RTTC Hill climb championships.

Bradley’s 1959 season began with an impressive ride in the Berlin-Prague-Warsaw, where the British team was a powerful unit and all six riders finished the race.

On the stage to Brno – scene of his stage win two years earlier – Bill, Brian Haskell and Dave Bedwell got into a break of 16 that stayed away for 200kms.

Adler won the stage with Dave (fifth), Brian (eighth) and Bill (12th) helping win the team award and, as the break had gained 12 minutes, Great Britain jumped to third in the overall team race.

Bill returned to the UK in great form ready for the start of the Milk Race. Stage one the previous year was 146 miles, but this time the organisers went one better – quite literally – and increased the distance by a further mile spanning from London to Skegness.

Although a climber himself, Bill was clever enough to escape in a group of 15 containing quality rouleurs Ron Coe, Harry Reynolds, Owen Blower, John Geddes and Vin Denson – not bad company for a long break.

Bill must have got plenty of shelter from all those six-footers because at the finish, he was either the strongest or the cleverest as he countered an attack by Geddes almost within sight of the finish to win by eight seconds.

Stage four was the Milk Race equivalent of Luchon – Pau in Le Tour. Just to read the names of the stage towns immediately conjures up images of suffering, pain and heroics.

Whitley Bay to Morecambe was 200kms of cycling drama. Like many of the great stages that form the history of our sport, it was a tactically simple day.

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Within a few miles, a break had formed and, as the early climbs took their toll, just Bill, Brian Haskell and the Belgian De Keyser remained.

As the Belgian was dropped, the two grimpeurs continued with their Trans-Pennine epic.

The climb of Deepdale reduced both to walking and Haskell again took the prime. As the race moved from Yorkshire into Lancashire, Bill was on ever more familiar roads. At Bolton-le-Sands, he said goodbye to his weary colleague, riding away to take a momentous victory.

Brian lost two minutes in the last three miles, but had secured the King of the Mountains, Meanwhile, Bill now led the race by almost 10 minutes from his ‘team-mate’ Ron Coe and the order was again reversed for the point’s classification.

The next day’s stage went through Wigan, the home-town of Bill’s mother. No doubt his relations were out in force to cheer him on, but the battle for the stage was between three giants of the road – Geddes, Coe and Brittain, who finished in that order leading in a group of 16.

Strangely, the crossing of the Mersey must have inspired the Merseyside riders. In total, there were six in that group, including Kenny ‘The Captain’ Hill.

Elsewhere, the remainder of the race was remarkable for two things. On the ninth stage, Bill’s England teammates Harry Reynolds and Ron Coe were sent home by their manager Tiny Thomas for riding in the interests of their trade team, Elswick Hopper, rather than Bradley.

It had been clear from the first stage that the Elswick riders were combining against Bill and things became intolerable on the 139-mile stage from Porthcawl to Bath.

A solid break formed containing Geddes, who was second overall, and three dangerous Belgians, as well as Bill’s two so-called team-mates, Coe and Reynolds.

When England manager Tiny Thomas saw that his riders were working with Geddes, he decided to withhold their feed as punishment.

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He was one of the most intelligent riders that I have ever met. Amicable, with a quiet sense of humour and always humble.

Meanwhile, Bill did his best to organise a chase by the bunch and keep everyone rolling through. Even Bernard Pusey, who had a high overall position and stood to benefit by Bill’s predicament, gave him a helpful push.

John Perks took the stage from de Keyser and Vin Denson. Alas, due to the furore surrounding the withdrawal of Coe and Reynolds by Tiny Thomas, his win went unnoticed. However, he had the perfect answer the following day, when he won again and this time received due credit.

“My first recollection of Bill Bradley was racing in the Manchester area,” explained Perks. “I was an established roadman and honestly thought I would win the event – the main opposition being Pete Ward.

“I crashed towards the end of the race and quickly regained the break only to find Pete still giving orders like a sergeant major – forgive me Pete.

“He was remonstrating with the others for not working hard enough and let one rider slip away.

You have guessed it, it was Bill. He won the event and this, incidentally, was on a flat course.

“As time went on, I met Bill at more important events and we were both selected for the Worlds at Reims and Zantvoort. I had the pleasure of being in the same team for the Tour of Sweden, where he won a stage to take over the yellow jersey.

“Unfortunately, he lost it the next day – mainly 92

through lack of strong team support. But he never vented his feelings on others that really had let him down.

“As the records show, he had this uncanny knack of reading a race and getting in the winning move quietly.

“Doing just enough to keep the break running smoothly, Bill would remark ‘now lads keep it together’, encouraging the lesser riders to just roll through to do their bit – even easing a little on the climbs to keep the break together.

Then, when he was ready, and with a touch of ruthlessness, he would attack at just the right time, to score yet another win.

“He was one of the most intelligent riders that I have ever met. Amicable, with a quiet sense of humour, always humble, always quick to give praise to others, help and encouragement to riders who were first setting out on their careers.

“I will remember him for the good times that we had together when representing our country, as well as the gentle ribbing he would give me over the time he beat me in a sprint finish, which he said was the highlight of his career. It makes you wonder what Bill may have achieved if the cycling scene had a professional class as strong as that of the Continent.”

Big Jim Hinds dominated the rest of the race by winning three stages in five days. The last stage was a formality for Bill and was won by Merseysider, John Ryan. www.spincyclemag.com

Falcon and Viking teams side-by-side. It’s a mystery why they’re stood together, but Bernie Burns is first on the right, while Billy Holmes is third from right

Although Bill had won the Milk Race by a massive margin, it was clear that the man of the second week, Jim Hinds, was also in superb form.

So it proved in the Manx International, when the tall Southerner won and Bill was again second. Later that month, the funniest man ever to race a bike, Bill Baty, had the last laugh on Bradley, who was again second in the National RR Championship.

“I first met Bill in the Isle of Man during 1959,” explained Bernard Burns. “I was 19 when we shared a ride together the day before the main circuit races. We talked about racing and training.

“Bill had just won the Milk Race and I was impressed and have a lasting respect at the way he was able to talk freely and say ‘never mind it’s better to do a good ride in the Viking Trophy and do a bad ride in the International race’. Bill was 94

up with the stars of the day like Stan Brittain, Ron Coe and John Geddes.

“At the National Road Road Championships, Bill talked to me at the race and was an inspiration for me to gain fourth place, which Bill Baty won and Bradley finished second. In fact, he was an inspiration to all that knew and raced with him.

“Bill was very knowledgeable about cycling generally, a vast knowledge of racing tactics. He learned to sprint and was an outstanding climber.

“I was in the Falcon team with Bill in the 1965 Tour of the South West. I had won three out of five stages and Bill started to push me when I was struggling to stay in contact with the leading group. I told him ‘leave me and look after yourself ’, when I started losing touch. He didn’t.

That was how he was – prepared to work for the

team and keep me in the yellow jersey. He went on to win overall, but was quite willing to help me while I had the yellow jersey and keep the team in contention for the team prize. I finished fourth and Bill won overall. Bill will be remembered for a long time for his achievements and it was a pleasure to know and race with him.”

Fortune soon turned sour for Bill, when he crashed badly during an evening training ride while descending and suffered severe injuries. He spent eight days in Ormskirk Hospital.

Having landed on his face and broken his nose, Bill was obliged to withdraw from the Worlds.

Luckily, the enforced rest did not affect his form and, by September, he was racing again – winning a stage in the Tour of Sweden and then the Tour of the Peaks.

The 1960 season got off to a flying start with two stage wins – plus the overall victory in the Buxton Red Rose Two day. Bill was in superb form, finishing 10th on general classification in the Peace Race.

On training rides early in the season, he did not seem to stand head and shoulders above his clubmates. Then when he returned from the Peace Race, Bill was something else. He just seemed untouchable.

This, you will understand, was a race that killed lesser men. Others would train all winter with riding the Peace Race as their only goal for the season. Most would return destroyed and demoralised for the rest of the year. Yet Bill, who would only have raced four or five days before he went overseas, returned in superb form. www.spincyclemag.com

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Two great bits of news awaited Bill when he returned home and prepared for the Milk Race.

Firstly, the organisers had restricted the event to amateurs following the shenanigans of the previous year; secondly the opening stage was from Blackpool to Morecambe.

Well, these were hilly roads that Bill knew like the back of his hand, but the second stage was the reverse of the previous year’s monster stage – this time 136-miles from Morecambe to Whitley Bay. Despite the cold and rain, Vin Denson and Doug Collins broke away shortly after the race was de-neutralised. By the climb of Ribblehead, there were about a dozen in the lead and the dreadful weather encouraged the group to remain intact until Stanhope.

With a tail wind appearing for the first time, Bill decided to strike out alone. His lead increased all the way to the finish, where he crossed the line seven minutes ahead of the Dutchman Lotz, Ramsbottom, Holmes and Hinds, who had got together and managed to limit their losses to nine minutes.

Amazingly, despite the distance, hills and rain, only four out of the 83 starters abandoned.

The stage average was 39.5kph for 217 kms, which was pretty amazing given the terrain and conditions.

If you’re not impressed just take a look at the average speed for some of the undulating Tour de France stages and you will see that even today they are no faster.

During the next day to Scarborough, Bill took the prime and then waited for a group including Holmes, Hinds and Denson. Unfortunately, there was a long drag about five miles before the finish.

Bill opened a small gap just before the top and, as soon as he crested the summit, he put his head down and rode hard to the line and a second stage win.

Bill races down a hill on the front during the Milk Race in 1959

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Stage eight was a 24-mile time trial in Somerset, where Holmes had cut into Bill’s lead by winning the time trial in 53 minutes. Mistakenly, Holmes was first told that Bill had done 56-46 and had lost the jersey.

Luckily, they soon realised the error, but had the embarrassment of telling Holmes that Bradley had been two minutes quicker and still had a 90-second lead. If Holmes thought things couldn’t get any worse, he was mistaken. The next day, he

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was penalised a minute for not handing in his race tally.

Stage 10, which included five primes, was 118-miles from Porthcawl to Aberystwyth. If Holmes still had hopes of winning, this was his last chance to do so. Alas, it was not to be.

Bradley took two primes with time bonuses and won the sprint from a small group to take the stage. Holmes was now at five minutes and resigned to second place.

Dogged by routing problems, the following stage to Manchester was marred by controversy and cyclists throwing tantrums. McElvogue was in a lone lead and assured of victory, but went off course to let Bill Baty take the stage.

When McElvogue finished five minutes after Baty, he was outraged. His team manager demanded that McElvogue be declared stage winner or they would go home. He wasn’t and the Midlands team withdrew. Strange that, as we are

pretty certain McElvogue was a Geordie.

On the last stage to Blackpool, Brian ‘Pee Wee’ Pearson launched an early attack. He took six primes on route as the race passed through numerous towns in Lancashire.

Pearson was only caught by the hotly pursuing bunch within sight of Blackpool Tower, when the 30 riders left in the group hurtled down the Middle Walk with Londoner Alan Jacob taking the stage from Ken Hill.

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Brian Lapworth finished eight hours behind Bill to take the lantern rouge, while Holmes had the consolation of sneaking the points jersey from Bradley, who – not surprisingly – took the King of the Mountains.

Anybody who may have thought Bill was just a big fish in a small pond was shown the error of their ways a few days later when he matched soon-to-be World Champion Bernard Eckstein, of East Germany, in the Manx International.

Despite the presence of England mate Doug Collins, the German convincingly won the sprint, leaving Bill second in the Manx for the third time.

Two days later, the majority of the domestic riders moved from Douglas to Lancashire to ride the Preston Grand Prix. The 100-mile course was a leg-bender round Longridge.

Nine riders formed at the front, including Bill, Jim Hinds, Alan Ramsbottom and Brian Haskell.

Then, at the finish, Bill showed that he could convincingly out-sprint the few riders able to stay with him on a hilly course. Although it wasn’t quite the Weekend Ardenais double, a second and a first in two long hilly races within three days highlighted his quite amazing powers of recuperation.

In July, Bill confirmed that he was by far the best roadman in the country by out-sprinting Alan Ramsbottom to take the British title. He then finished 17th in a group sprinting four fourth place at the Worlds in Sachenring, East Germany.

His amazing form led him to be selected as an Olympian for a trip to Rome, where the British team time trial squad of Bradley, Holmes, Hinds and Laidlaw were second at the first turn after 10-miles, just 10 seconds behind the Italians and way ahead of the East Germans led by Schur.

Sadly, Bill was stung in the eye by an insect and abandoned, leaving his team-mates to finish 14th.

Luckily, there was still the road race – held on a flat course over 109-miles. Bill Holmes rode an attacking race and then crashed, but regained the field. In the finale, Kapitanov and Trape (Italy) had a lead of two-and-a-half minutes over 39 riders, with just a single nine-mile lap remaining.

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Bill confirmed he was by far the best roadman in the country by out-sprinting Alan Ramsbottom to take the British title.

Bradley had ridden into a field without falling and was a further half-minute behind. At the line, Kapitanov outsprinted Trape by five centimetres and then 20 seconds later, the Belgian Vandenberghen (future Tour de France yellow jersey) won the bronze medal in a sprint from the bunch containing Bradley.

Think about it - over the last lap, the bunch had pulled back more than two minutes on two Olympic champions (Trape won a Gold in the TTT) yet Bill, alone and unaided, had caught the bunch.

Perhaps the leading duo would have finessed on the run-in, but it was still a remarkable ride.

Bill finished about 15th in front of Holmes and Hinds, who were also in the bunch. Ken Laidlaw was at 3min 20sec.

Bill started the 1961 season with a change from his previous campaign plan. His aim was not the Milk Race, but the newly introduced Tour de L’Avenir that shadowed Le Tour itself.

Accordingly, he started the season on a lower key – not that his club-mates noticed any reduction in severity of the Southport’s hard-rider runs.

Bill rode the Peace Race without unduly exerting himself with fourth in the KOM. In the Milk Race that year, Bill finished 11th overall and 14th in the climber’s competition.

Bradley fans throughout the country were wondering if the great man was over the hill. He knew differently and the two weeks light exertion around Blighty had brought him nicely into form.

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The Tour de L’Avenir started at St Etienne with a hard first day that murdered the field.

Ramsbottom lost eight minutes, Dalton and Holmes 13 with Bill even further back.

But the next day to Grenoble saw a remarkable recovery by Ramsbottom. He first closed a three-minute gap to a break of about 20, then broke away with Zilverberghe before outsprinting him on the Grenoble track to take the lead.

Not bad for a sewing machine mechanic from Clayton-le-Moors.

Fate then played a strange hand to Alan. The timekeepers had miscalculated and awarded the leaders jersey to Cardoso, from Portugal. Bob Thorn then checked the figures and discovered that Alan was the rightful leader.

Cardoso tearfully handed over the jersey, but it was too small for the Lancastrian leader and he was obliged to spend the day in the colours of Great Britain after rejecting the offer of wearing a makeshift yellow tee-shirt.

To add further insult to injury, he lost the lead that day and so never got to wear the prized tunic. Meanwhile, Bill rode steadily without doing anything spectacular and finished 20th at 24 minutes. After both the Alps and Pyrenees, the undulations of County Durham held no fears for Bill and he crushed the opposition in the Vaux Tankard race to win by almost four minutes having dropped Billy Holmes fifteen miles from the finish.

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Bill enjoys a slip of tea during the Peace Race

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The National title race was held in August on the Clypse Circuit in the Isle of Man. With 10 tough climbs, the race was ideal for Bill and he duly out-sprinted George Bennett and Keith Butler in a three-up sprint.

Then at the Worlds in Berne, Bill had mechanical trouble and, although he regained the field, he could only finish 43rd. Bill was not normally one for speculating on bad luck.

Many years later, he did reveal that he was on the form of his life at Berne. Bill felt that the effort he made to regain the bunch may have been sufficient to put him in a medal position had he not suffered misfortune.

Bill started 1962 started with a trip south to take second behind Albert Hitchen in the Archer Grand Prix. He again won the Red Rose Two-day and then was third behind winner Albert Hitchen in the Corona Tour of the South-West in May. For the Milk Race, Bill was demoted to the North team. He delighted his relatives by winning a prime when the first stage passed through Wigan, but that was it really.

Meanwhile, Norman Baty finished fourth and Ken Hill fifth, both winning stages, but Bill finished 17th and the North Country squad finished third just behind England and Poland.

Bill’s modest ride was not unexpected. He had deliberately missed the Peace Race so that he could use the national tour to come to form for the Tour de L’Avenir in July. Managed by Bev Wood, the British team included Bill Holmes, who had finished second in the Milk Race, George Bennett, Arthur Metcalfe, Peter Chisman and Ken Hill. Britain also included a ‘ringer’ in the well-built form of Irishman Peter Crinnion.

The Irishman made a good start, finishing fifth on the first stage. The second stage from Bordeaux to Bayonne was 115-miles over gently undulating roads with a few hills near the end.

Temperatures were so high on the day that the tar on the road started to melt. Despite this, the race average was more than 26mph and an endless succession of attacks resulted in a break of 14 forming 40-miles from the finish.

The break included the eventual winner Gomez Moral, future world champion and Tour winner Jan Janssen, world pursuit champion Nijdam, French champion Bazaire and Dutch locomotive Huyens, who was to win the time trial a few days later.

Not surprisingly, a break of such quality pulled away from the bunch and had a lead of over four minutes at the finish, where Bill was ninth. This ride demonstrated Bill’s ability to match the best amateur riders in the world.

On the stage to Montpelier Bill, Bennett and Metcalfe got into a 10-man break. Twenty kilometres from the finish, Bill and Arthur broke away together only to be caught just 3kms from the line.

The Alpine stage included the climbs of the Vars and the mighty Izoard, but none of the British team were at the front during the finish. At the start of the day, Nijdam held the yellow jersey.

He eventually lost it after being reduced to walking on the Izoard. Eventual winner Gomez de Moral, who was sixth in the Tour of Spain, won at Briancon and took the jersey from the pedestrian Dutchman, while Peter Crinnion finished seventh overall and Bill ended up as the leading Briton in 21st place at 22 minutes.

A week later, Bill was again in County Durham for the Vaux Gold tankard race over four laps of the toughest course in Britain. After just 8-miles, Bill’s Southport team-mate Ginger Bates took the fiver for the Bollihope prime and when Bill joined him, they pressed on – soon to be joined

by Tour de l’Avenir team-mates Crinnion and Chisman. For the rest of the peloton, any chance of victory was now well and truly gone.

Tragedy struck after 100-miles when Chisman touched Crinnion’s wheel and fell, bringing down Bates. Chisman was first up, but Ginger needed a bike change and neither was able to rejoin the two leaders.

With 11-miles to go, Bill left Crinnion and, at the finish, he had opened up a 2min20sec gap. Dave Bedwell outsprinted Kenny Hill for third place at just over five minutes and Chisman finished 7th, but poor Ginger Bates - hoping to double his career winnings in one day - finished 12th. www.spincyclemag.com

The seven stayed together until the finish, where Bill beat Nuttall by the width of Dunlop No.2 after making a late surge.

Unbelievably, Bill was not selected for the Worlds by the BCF. Luckily, he had his chance to prove his worth during the Usher 112-mile Silver Tankard race near Glasgow, where selected riders Pete Gordon, Wes Mason, Ken Nuttall and Hugh Porter were on the start line in Glasgow.

The Scottish riders also not going to the Worlds were out to gain selection for the Commonwealth games in Perth, Australia. Among the most active were Gordon McNaught and Bert Waugh, then riding for West of Scotland but now a migrant and riding for the Kenton Road Club in Middlesex.

Bill got in an early move together with Nuttall, Mason, Porter and about four others, but the break was caught. Of the early escapees, only Bill, Nuttall and Gordon made the second split of seven with 75-miles covered.

The seven stayed together until the finish, where Bill beat Nuttall by the width of Dunlop No.2 after making a late surge, while Pete Edwards had to settle for third - thereby ensuring that all three podium places went to riders from the North West.

For the World Championship, Dick Goodman and Keith Butler joined the defeated quartet from Glasgow. Again, the BCF ignored Bradley. They believed his results in the World Championships did not justify his selection for this year’s competition in Italy.

But in every title race he ever contested, Bill had 110

been in a potential medal position as the finale developed. Strangely, that was not good enough for the ‘blazer brigade’. Instead, they selected a team that managed two finishers – Goodman (36th) and Gordon (59th ) – and who was the lone victor? Bongioni, who finished two minutes behind Bill in the L’Avenir.

What the BCF did not understand was that Bill had changed. He was no longer a winged climber, specialising in gruelling stage races, but an all-rounder that could climb.

It was no surprise that in 1963, Bill said goodbye to the amateur ranks and signed as an independent for the four-man team run by his long-term supporter Harry , who had backing from Castrol Everyman Oil. Bill’s first season as a paid rider began with yet another stage win in the Red Rose Two Day, but this time he was only second overall.

Despite having failed his National Service medical, Bill rode and won the Grand Prix de Gezira in May. The next month, he once again travelled to the Isle of Man. However, this time it was to ride the pro race. To no-one’s surprise, Tom Simpson won with Bill finishing 13th.

Every year since 1959, Bill had ridden at least two fortnight-long national tours, but in 1961, he had ridden three – he must have felt at a loose end. However, he did have one long race when he finished third in the 200-mile London - York. He also rode the Tour de St Laurent in Canada. www.spincyclemag.com

Predictably, the 1964 season started with a second overall behind Bob Addy in the Red Rose Two Day. In April, Bill’s home supporters had the opportunity to see him in action on local roads during the Skelmersdale Two Day. On the first stage, a classy break of 11 got away, including three Tour of Britain winners in Bradley, Holmes and Chisman.

Also included were Holmes’ Falcon team-mates Burns and Hitchen, Barrow boys Cowley and Betttsorr and, from the newly formed Kirkby CC, Paul Rutherford, who was known by all who had seen him in the changing room as ‘Rubberfoot’.

While the break was watching Hitchen, he arranged for Holmes to win ahead of Burns with Roger Gray finishing third.

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Meanwhile, the second day started with a 12mile time trial won by Bill’s Quinn-Everyman teammate ‘Big John’ Geddes. Then in the afternoon, the riders faced six climbs of Ashurst Beacon.

A break of 10 formed and Bill had to again contend with the three Falcons. This time, Burns won and Holmes took the overall by three seconds from his team-mate while Bill finishing sixth.

May saw a repeat win in the Grand Prix de Gezira, then a stage win and third overall in the Tour of East Anglia, where a youthful Brian Tadman revealed many years later that he never once saw Bradley pedal throughout the two days.

Not true of course, but it is easy to understand what ‘Tadders’ meant. Despite his early successes in time trials and an unequalled record of lone

wins in major races, Bill was no mug.

He understood the importance of marshalling his resources and the Holmes style of constant attacking, with little thought of the final outcome, was not for Bradley. Holmes often got into an early break, but his unbounded enthusiasm would see him doing twice the work of his co-escapees.

Albert Hitchen would then deduce that Holmes would keep the breakaway, but had no hope of winning. He then call Bradley and Burns to the front, where they would have to work like dogs to bring back the break. Albert would then take the race with his magnificent sprint. Suprisingly, Holmes was always amazed that the break failed to stay away despite his forceful riding.

Bill finished fourth in London - Holyhead that June before winning the Chequers Grand Prix in

August for what was probably his only win in the Home Counties. This win prompted the headline “Bradders is Back” in Cycling Weekly, which was odd as Bill had never been known as ‘Bradders’ nor he had ever been away.

Bill again rode the Vaux Tankard Race. Terry West won in a sprint from Arthur Metcalfe with Bill third in front of Albert Hitchen. Gosta Pettersen was in the group, but crashed just three miles from the finish.

In September, Bill lost a two-up sprint to Albert Hitchen in London - York and then won the Tour of the Peaks by three minutes. He then rounded off his season with another trip to Canada for the St Lawrence Tour.

Against strong opposition from the Poles, Russians and Belgians, the British team did www.spincyclemag.com

The peloton containing Bill and his team-mates races through the countryside during the Peace Race

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a fantastic ride on the final 130-mile stage to Quebec. Sixty miles from the finish, Arthur Metcalfe broke away with a Swiss rider before being quickly joined by Bill.

They stayed away to the finish, where they worked the Swiss over with Arthur winning alone and Bill out-sprinting the Swiss. For his final season in 1965, Bill signed for Falcon and it was expected that he would spend the year working for Albert Hitchen.

This was indeed the case, but that didn’t prevent Bill from winning the eight day Corona Tour of the South West. That same month, the Falcons faced the ‘continentals’ led by Tom Simpson in the 265-mile London -Holyhead.

A workman-like break escaped, including Simpson, Shay Elliott, Bill and Albert Hitchen.

When Simpson proposed to Hitchen that the ‘continentals’ should take the first five places, Albert asked Bill what he thought.

He wasn’t impressed and told Albert not to agree...yet. As the group reached the Nant Francon Pass, Bill went to the front and led all the way up the climb, setting a fast pace.

At the top, Simpson offered Albert third place. Tom won, Shay Elliot, braking as he crossed the line, was second and Albert was third. Bill, sitting up to check that the deal had been kept, was seventh.

Bill had another brush with the ‘pros’ in the Isle of Man, where Jacques Anquetil out-sprinted a rider who had been professional for less than two months. He was none other than Eddy Merckx.

Bill finished 16th. Five days later at Torhont, Eddy won his first pro race.

In July, Bill won the Thornhill Grand Prix before travelling to Chard in Somerset for the championship in August. The Falcons had decided that Mick Coupe from Sheffield was their strongest rival and they tried to cover all his moves.

Bill warms up on a set of rollers during an exhibition on health in London. He was sent by his employers at the Post Office

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At the start of the last lap, he and Albert Hitchen were together in the lead until Albert rode away on the last climb to win alone. Bill finished eighth.

Bill’s last win was in the Leicestershire B. Race in September, then he hung up his sprints after coming fourth in the Criterium des Vainquers.

After a nine-year break, Bill made his first comeback at the age of 41 in 1974. He improved his 25-mile time and again won the club BAR. He also competed in bunched races.

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On one memorable occasion at Birkenhead Park, Bill got away from a field of 100 with John Cleworth, who was one of the most talented of his era at Kirkby CC. They stayed away to the finish, where – not surprisingly - Bill was second.

That year, he was third in the Vets Road Race Championship.

In 1985, Bill again rode a few races with his best result being second in the Veteran’s Hill Climb Championship. Then in 1994, Bill achieved what

many consider to be his most memorable ride.

He rode just one race that year – a week after returning from a two-week tour of the States by bus and without his bike.

During the World Veteran Road Race Championship in the Peak District, Bill was second in his class. Sadly, just a few short months after that race, Bill was found to be suffering from the illness that was to kill him.

Although it will be for his racing successes that

Bill will be remembered, he was also a life-long clubman. He was chairman of the Southport for more than 25 years and helped organised the annual schoolboy races at Victoria Park.

During Bill’s time as chairman, together with the able assistance of the club’s secretary, Ken Beck, membership increased regularly and reached 124 in 1991, which is remarkable for a club in a small town blessedly isolated on the Lancashire coast.

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Every year, Southport host a memorial ride in honour of Bill. The Bill Bradley Memorial Ride has two routes – a 40-miles route for beginners and an 80-mile route, which takes in some of Bill’s favourite training rides over Quernmore and Waddington Fell.

All the money raised from the event is donated to MacMillain Nurses Charity. In our opinion, this is one of the best kept secrets in the North West. Organised by David Livingstone and Bill’s widow, Joan, it takes in the beautiful scenery of the Trough of Bowland. We ride this event every year, so hopefully we’ll see you there on Sunday, July 21st. For more information visit www.southportcc.com

After meeting in a countryside pub, Bill and Joan were married just over a year later on November 12, 1959

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SPIN CYCLE MAGAZINE PRESENTS

KILLER HILLS

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Nº.04

Long Heys Lane _ KILLER HILLS Distance: 1.5 Miles Avg Grade: 5.6% Lowest elevation: 90ft Highest elevation: 524ft Popularity: Ridden 280 times by 95 people KOM: Michael A (00:06:45 - August 23, 2012) QOM: Bronwen V (00:17:25 - May 13, 20123)

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WE’RE back in the fair parish of Dalton near Parbold, this issue for Killer Hills. Dalton sits on both the north and west slopes of Beacon Hill, which includes not just the climb of Ashurst Beacon and Crow’s Lane, but also Crow’s silent sister – the mad one that’s been kept in the attic all these years, Long Heys Lane.

Skimming along Lees Lane one afternoon– at near pro-rider pace, of course – I passed the private fish pond on the left, with the various notices forbidding this and that. Here, I wondered

once again whether the side road on the right, which that features the grammatically incorrect sign ‘Dingles Bungalow’, led all the way to the top of the beacon in one steep and swift ribbon of Tarmac? The answer is not quite, but it’s still worth taking a look.

The residents of Dalton live in a relatively unspoilt patch of Lancashire. Who can blame them if they like to keep it that way? Leaving access lanes that join to busier roads to crumble into disrepair is a sure way to avoid too much

traffic past your house. Long Heys Lane is one such road. At the summit, where the lane pops out just before the Prince William pub, there is a ‘dead end’ sign. Don’t let this dissuade you though – it’s a lie. But then, we want to start this hill at the very bottom, not at the top – ’cos that would be cheating. Turning off Lees Lane at the bottom of Long Heys Lane, you climb a section of concrete road and then a section of extremely rutted track just passable on a road bike. It’s at this point that the road steepens again. Once www.spincyclemag.com

through the trees, there is a 100 metre section of lane that’s been washed away to bare bedrock, gouged banks and exposed tree roots of biblical wrath.

This is strictly 4x4 territory, which is fine for the locals as it means most flyer tippers turn around right here. Luckily, cyclists are made of sterner stuff and it’s a lovely climb on a cross or mountain bike.

If you’re on a road bike, it’s pushing time - but only as far as the next right-hander, where you’re back on a fairly decent surface again for the duration. Once back in the saddle, there is lovely fresh woodland on your left, as the lane takes you west across the vale.

You’re now right above Lees Lane, with fine views over to Parbold Hill, until you reach a set of houses and a curious concrete bridge on your left spanning a stream. It looks as if it was built for livestock, but a resident informed me that it was built by a neighbour that bred pigs.

Nothing to do with livestock though - ‘he was a just bit crazy for DIY concrete’. The neighbour is long since deceased, but his work stands - a little frayed at the edges, like some crazy work of a Lancashire Ozymandias.

Anyway, back to the business at hand. The road kicks up here to 12 per cent for two short stretches - through the trees and around another right-hander, where your thighs start to scream and then the hill hits you with a final tough section before adding a little light headwind as a cherry on top. You’re now at the top of Ashurst by the most direct and quiet route. It’s steeper then Crows and according to John Moore - our model for this issue – it’s a regular route for mountain bike groups such as The Woollybacks, as there are handy access lanes off the climb at a couple of points and the rough rocky road at the bottom is a perfect technical surface for year-round climbing.

With council budgets skimmed to the basics, it’s unlikely that the road will be restored anytime soon. Maybe the residents and council have reached an unspoken agreement to pretend that the road is impassable?

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It’s a shame for cyclists, as installing even a thin strip of asphalt along one edge for the 100 missing metres would make Long Heys Lane a superb climb for roadies. Also, with only a handful of houses along the route, it wouldn’t be too inconvenient for residents to meet the occasional cyclist. Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of generous joined up thinking that council highway departments and non-cyclists are known for.

Talking of which, if I owned the Prince William pub at the top of Ashurst, where groups of cyclists stop for a breather in the car park every day of the week, I would have flirted with the crazy idea of opening a cycle café in that empty barn next to the pub and take advantage of the roaring trade in tea and cake for those weird folk in Lycra. Just a thought...

If you have a mountain or cross bike go take a look at Long Heys Lane. Even with a road bike, in the dry, it’s possible to pick your way over the rough bits and enjoy the rest of the climb. Give it a go and remember to smile at the locals – it’ll help get them used to the idea that bicycles are back for good.

Words & Photography Dan Kenyon

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WIGGO’S WORLD Words & Photography Tim Wiggins

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CHOOSE Cycling. Choose to ride. Choose to train. Choose road racing, cyclo-cross, time-trials and cross country.

Choose bulging legs, low body fat and the upper body of an eight-year-old. Choose tiredness, pain, aching muscles and energy drain.

Choose a bike. Choose clip-in pedals. Choose a jersey and shorts in matching colours. Choose early morning club runs and late night turbos. Choose a team. Choose village sign sprints and interval training. Choose lactic acid searing through your muscles as you strain on the hills.

Choose far away races, long drives and wondering who the hell you are on a Sunday morning. Choose

the breakaway. Choose risks. Choose clipping the apex and feeling your rear wheel skid on a drain cover. Choose energy gels, caffeine, cake and protein shakes.

Choose mind numbing, spirit crushing winter rides in hail and snow. Choose your turbo music.

Choose dance, trance, rock and pop to make those monotonous revolutions seem more varied. Choose “That” race. Choose the celebrations after a team victory.

Choose team banter. Choose watching The Giro and The Tour. Choose competition against the odds. Choose the unlikely victory. Choose the cycling tan-lines. Choose the mountains, the

flatlands and everything in between.

Choose the off season with social rides and twitching muscles, just wanting to start racing again. Choose to dream. Choose to aim as high as possible, you might just get there.

Choose Life...but why would you want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. I chose Cycling. And the reasons?

There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got a bike.

For more inspiration about racing or training, visit Tim’s blog at www.timwiggins.blogspot.co.uk

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CAKES & COGS DON’T you just love the energy bar business? Take some cheap-as-chips oats and sugar, combine them with a few bits of fruit and nut; add some guff about ‘slow protein’ and ‘amino acids’; slap it in glossy wrapper that’s impossible to open without using your teeth and then market it at 500 per cent mark up. It’s a wonder some of these companies haven’t gone into the shampoo business.

I was once a believer. I thought a pocket full of shiny bars give me the edge and admittedly, saving that rather nice strawberry and chocolate bar for the last climb of the day is a psychological boost you just don’t 130

get from petrol station trans-fat packed flapjack. Try saying those four words with 90-miles in your legs.

Of course, you’re paying a premium for not having to make it yourself. But it’s actually easier than you think to produce your own energy bar that is just as good. That list of exotic ingredients on the side of the bars you buy – ‘zinc, manganese, protein’ – well, a walnut has the same properties.

I’ve tried a few recipes over the past two years. Rice and ham balls were an acquired taste that I didn’t acquire, but my recipe is a variant of Nigella’s breakfast bar adapted by Mr John McGrath of ‘Cheapa’ fame.

It’s a recipe so simple a chimp with a pair of oven that the mixture is a inch high. mitts can follow.

- Stick into a pre heated oven for one hour at no more than 130ºC. Ingredients: - Take it out and let it cool.

- 200gms of oats.

- 200gms of whatever combination of fruit and nuts That’s it. Told you it was easy. You end up with a firm you want. flapjack style bar with plenty of good carb and if you - 1 tin of condensed milk. include nuts – all the protein content you need.

A 65g energy bar retails at £1.20. Factoring in Here’s what you do: cooking and ingredients, mine cost less than half that - Mix the first three ingredients together. with plenty of oats and fruit left over for the next - Flatten the resulting mixture into a non stick tray so batch. This recipe makes 12 big bars. Enjoy. www.spincyclemag.com

to be young and CAREFREE I HAD heard only good things about Laurent Fignon’s autobiography – We were young and carefree – and it doesn’t disappoint. Fignon’s answer to the eternal question ‘Are you the bloke who lost the Tour by eight seconds?’ was always ‘No. I’m the guy who won it twice.’

Fignon was one of the last of the attacking generation – those that rode the whole season and tried to specialise in it all. He won his first Tour de France in 1983 at the age of 22 and narrowly lost the Giro in 1984. Cue plenty of entertaining shenanigans about vinegar being thrown at him by spectators, helicopters ruining his time trial and the whole Italian section of the peloton – regardless of teams – ganging up to deny him his victory.

Fignon won the tour De France again in 1984 by over 10 minutes, winning five stages himself and with his Renault team, securing 10 stages in all which puts Team Sky in perspective. He won the Milan San Remo twice and came back to finally vanquish the dastardly Italian nation by winning the Giro in 1989. His career spanned the end of Hinault’s reign, the beginning of the specialist event riders like Le Mond and then on into the nightmare of serious doping in the early 1990’s.

It’s a superb translation from French by William Fotheringham. Fignon’s Gaelic insouciance and spirit just shines. Only Fignon can get away with lines such as ‘cycling is a capricious mistress: so close to you and sometimes so distant’. It’s a beautifully crafted account of all aspects of pro cycling from dealing with managers, rubbish team mates and the mighty Le Blanc and the whole 132

structure of the pro tour. It’s also very funny.

Showing a two foot tape worm he’s found up his rear on a rest day to the nearest journalist to prove the reason for his lack of form isn’t something you could see Cav or Cancellara doing – and sharing cocaine for recreational purposes with the Colombians on the Tour of Colombia might, these days, no longer be wise.

Especially, if you’ve never taken it and after finding the first line produces no reaction, you make the classic mistake of snorting a whole gram at once. ‘My head turned inside out. I felt I was producing ideas so fast that my mind couldn’t keep track of them.’

On the subject of performance enhancing drugs, Fignon’s pretty perceptive. He initially rode in a period when doping meant amphetamines, perhaps a little cortisone and was pretty unscientific. In a chapter titled ‘On a street corner’ he describes finishing his career on the 1993 tour, the day after his lone breakaway over the Telegraph is brought back by over 40 riders fuelled on EPO – many of whom would never have got close to him in the mountains under normal circumstances. Fignon rode the next day’s stage to savour being in the mountains and the end of his era. Just before the last col, and outside the cut off, he stopped ‘on a corner somewhere’ and climbed off the bike.

There’s so much in ‘We were young and carefree’ that is relevant still to pro-cycling and in ‘A whiff of authenticity’ Fignon looks towards a cleaner age where real champions could win on merit again.

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the wind, my eyes sparkle a little. Passion is a happier thing than pessimism.’

A pundit for French television and Eurosport, Fignon died of cancer in 2010 aged just 50 and the French press suddenly realised what authenticity they had lost. Greg Le Mond summed him up well as a rider who tried to play it fair and stopped when he couldn’t.

“He had a very, very big talent, much more than anyone recognised. He was a great person, one of the few that I find was really true to himself. He was one of the few riders who I really admired for his honesty and his frankness. I believe he was also one of the generation that was cut short in the early nineties because he was not able to fulfil the rest of his career.”

I’ll have to see how things go this year. With our daughter, Gail, having the new baby, I haven’t been getting out as much as I’d like. And the weather.. it’s been bleeding ‘orrible, hasn’t it? Like stair rods.

Bumped into Sid Rogers last week.

You remember him.? No, you do.

That jolly bloke at the reunion last year? Put on all that weight? You remember I told him: “you’re now taller lying down...” Of course he’s not been well...

Did the TLI crits the other week.

Met some bloke who said: “I remember beating you in 1963 at Blackpool.” Silly bugger showed me a photo of him coming 7th and me 8th. Well, I wasn’t having that, was I? He was nowhere near me come the line and I said: “How about that for the longest come back in history.”

Might try for the Nationals again this year. Apparently, it was won last year by some cheeky bugger with only three others in his age group. He was off the back until they came down in a crash. Well, I’m not having that. By the way, you know your saddle’s too high, son?

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Fignon suggests that he never had a nickname that stuck. He was Fignon. ‘From the beginning to the end. Whether people liked me or not, whether they were impressed by my exploits on the bike or not, whether or not they felt I was an exceptional champion, I remained Laurent Fignon. Just Laurent Fignon.’

There’s no ‘just’ about it. ‘We Were Young and Carefree’ is a great epitaph for a clever man and a fine rider.

Next issue

Available from Yellow Jersey Press, ‘Laurent Fignon - We were young and carefree’ is priced at £12.99

CLUB RIDER ...every club has ’em

THE VETERAN CHAMP

by Wheelsucker

Next Issue: ‘Jerseys of Glory’ Is your club one of the chosen?

Thanks for dropping by again and see you again in August. www.spincyclemag.com