CONTENTS

The Fabulous Elscar Cycling Club 9Furious Riding: Jean Robic 20Being Robic 38The Fraternity of the Buckshee Wheelers 46Itinerants 61From Bidlake to Beijing via “The Leaguer” 83Warsaw–Berlin–Prague 129A Racing Cyclist’s Worst Nightmare 151The Anatomy of a Road Race 159Nutters 168First Race, First Club 184Pusey and Me – Alter Egos 197The Day a British Tour was Lost and Won 216The Old Man and the Bicycle 228

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THE ANATOMY OF A ROAD RACE

Shefeld, like Rome, was built on seven hills. There the comparisonends. The industrialised, soot-blackened, knife and fork capital of my birth was somewhat light on architectural splendour, and its residentsso necessarily tightsted that throwing a coin into a fountain and

making a wish would resemble the act, not of a dreamy romantic, but

proigate candidate for the loony bin. Nevertheless, this abundance of hills ensured the city’s cyclists became well-practised climbers, oftenwith attitude. Talking to them of the Cotswolds, Chilterns, KentishWeald, any place in the ‘soft south’, you invited a knowing grin andsome contemptuous reference to nursery slopes. Even the Lakes,Northumberland, Yorkshire Dales, Welsh mountains and precipitousCornwall only bore grudging comparison with their beloved HighPeak. It followed that practically every local race was held inDerbyshire. The climbs, descents and brief intervals of at to recoverand plot induced a sort of Victor Sylvester foxtrot rhythm – slow,slow, quick, quick, slow – about as far removed from the quickstep of the Belgian kermesse as you can imagine. In between much watching

and waiting – slow, slow – the race would burst into life with very

aggressive climbing to pare the bunch down and speedy descendingto ensure the dropped riders rarely made contact again. Each lap ornew hill and a few more non-climbers pealed off, until only the doyenof mountain eagles remained to contest the sprint nish.The North Midlands, centred on Shefeld, was one of 21 sectionsthroughout England and Wales under the aegis of the BLRC. In the

national race calendar, each third Sunday in August was highlighted

as the date for the Section Championship. The senior version was arace of about 60 miles. Wherever this was held, it was keenly disputed,the intense personal and club rivalries being pitted in the struggle todetermine who would be crowned amateur champion of the region.Our arena was inevitably the High Peak, for how else but by climbingcould a champion worthy of the name be selected? Heaven forbid a

contest on some mildly undulating course to the east, where a trackie

might win in a bunch dash for the line or, even worse, some ‘pathetic’time trialing end go it alone, winning on brute strength and ‘luck’,

ignorant of the subtle stratagem of slow, slow, quick, quick, slow that

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validated the true mountain road race – as some dyed-in-the-woolLeague men would have it.The two favourites for our 1953 championship were ShefeldPhoenix’s Nev Taylor and John Pound. For a number of years,alongside the Shefeld Racing Club’s Derek Hextall and Ken Slater,they had been at the head of local affairs and, despite young upstartslike Dick Bartrop, Peter McFarlane and myself appearing on thescene, had the maturity, strength and experience to suggest this yearwould be no different. The course was a single, large, out-and-returnloop that included three stiff climbs – Moscar, Mam Tor and FroggattEdge – with some lumpy intervals between that cyclists from Easterncounties might also call hills. It was a stern test and today’s racing men

who, according to letters in

Cycling Weekly,

phone a race organiser to be sure the course is at before signing up, would have had heartattacks at the prospect. The headquarters for issue of numbers and bikecheck was at Hillsborough swimming baths, with the rare advantageof showering facilities. Its fuggy, heavily chlorinated atmosphereupon entry stung the eyes and induced tears, good practice for theleg-cracking trials to come. From there we proceeded in neutralisedformation, two abreast, to the juncture with the A57 at Rivelin Valleypost ofce, where the race was de-neutralised and we were let looseon the rst climb of the day to Moscar Top.Moscar is by Peak standards an easy two-miles ascent with anaverage gradient of about 5%. When legs are fresh it provides little

challenge to the conditioned racing man, unless a strong crosswind

is blowing across the moors behind Redmires Reservoir. This wasa major route from Shefeld to Glossop and Manchester, but withnext to no trafc on this overcast Sunday morning, riders could, withcare, shelter themselves by straying over the white line. From MoscarTop, the rapid, twisting descent to the vast Ladybower Dam had to be respected, especially in wet weather, when skidding off into theravine and playing heady or footy with a granite boulder was alwaysa poor second best to staying on road. A sharp left across the dam wallled to Bamford, preceded by a short, steep climb, rst throw of thedice for weak riders. But for the most part, all this was just testing thewater and the bunch would re-group, holding itself in reserve for theforthcoming ascent of Mam Tor (literally ‘Heights of the Mother’).

You knew what you were in for the minute you turned right

towards Castleton in the Hope Valley. This road was the nearestthing in the Peak to being slow-slow at, but there ahead on the close