Two Wheels To Wales
The Tour of Britain took place a week ago. You mean you didn't notice?....Seriously, with the spectacular summer of cycling success, Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France, Mark Cavendish beating all comers (except when falling off spectacularly); the unprecedented medal success of the Olympic and Paralympic Team GB cycling teams; you can't have failed to notice the rise in cycling's status in the UK.
Well, the Tour of Britain has become the must see event for (the ever growing numbers of) cycling fans throughout the UK. Your chance to stand at the side of the road and scream 'GO CAV!' and 'GO WIGGO!'....and er, GO.....YOU! For most people the only cyclists they know are Wiggins and Cavendish; which is a great improvement, considering a year ago, the only cyclists the majority of British people might recognize would be dressed in red, carrying a sack marked 'Royal Mail' and stuffed full of junk mail and bills for your letterbox.
Today, the roads of Britain have swelled with men of a particular vintage with swollen stomachs, stuffed unceremoniously into crotch enhancing and buttock squeezing Lycra short; their 15 stone frames, balancing unsteadily on gleaming £2,500 road bikes weighing the same as one of their fingers. Looking at these MAMILS (Middle Aged Men In Lycra), you wouldn't know it, but cycling is now cool.
I knew that, years ago. I remember going to Leeds in 1993 to watch the end of a stage of the Milk Race / Kellogs Tour (can't remember which one it was, memory is fading a bit) and seeing the professionals arrive after a tortuous and nasty climb over Snake Pass....and it was bitterly cold with an energy sapping wind.
In 1995 while spending 4 weeks in Australia, I (like a saddo), rather than indulging in a bit of Sydney nightlife, ripping it large with the Aussies and having a huge blow out on the grog, chose to watch the Sydney Night time Criterium race around the harbour. Cycling was cool back then. It's just that people didn't know it.
Fast forward almost 20 years from my first experience of watching professional cycling live and everyone ssems to want to hop on a bike and go and watch the professionals struggling up 20% gradients, while being chased by overweight, unpleasant looking men in Borat wigs and mankinis....is nice, high five! That was how it felt when my good friend and fellow cycling nut, Jim Yeoman and I crossed the Welsh border and headed for Caerffili...or as we call it Caerphilly.
Caerphilly Does It
We arrived in Caerphilly and found the train station car park. An odd place, given that 25 bays are designated 'Pay and Display' (being right next to the station and easy access to the platforms. About 150 spaces were available next to the pay and display and a little walk from the station (a meandering 2 minutes at most) for FREE. How does that work? I imagine the Caerphilly Town Council Planning Meeting was thus;
Bronwyn Jones; 'We really should charge money for the car park at the station'
Trefor Evans; 'I know, let's kill two birds with one stone eh? We have a lot of tubbies down here, too many pies and chips for lunch, no exercise....'
Dai Davies; 'You been on the Brains Ale again Trefor, what you on about?'
Trefor Evans; 'See, it's like this, make the pay and display next to the station for the lazy buggers right, they have to pay for not walking.....reward the Caeffili-Caerdydd commuters who walk the two minutes from the rest of the car park. There, obesity crisis reversed, regular exercise and it's free. Genius eh?'
Bronwyn Jones; 'Did you have a drugs test before you joined the council Trefor?'
Anyway, I am rambling off up random avenues again....Jim and I had a great lunch in The Malcolm Uphill (curious name for a pub, but then again, it is a Wetherspoons). The food and the service was great, though we were surrounded by people in black suits and ties, whispering and reminiscing about someone who I believe may have been laid to rest that morning. Not often you enjoy a chilli con carne and a cappuccino at a wake you weren't invited to.
We then set off up Caerphilly Mountain; the scene of the afternoon's denouement for the 5th Stage of the Tour of Britain, from Welshpool to Caerphilly.
Mountain of Pain, Mountain of Shame
Let me take you back a couple of years to when, on a whim, I decided to cycle to Cardiff from Worcester for the weekend to stay with my best friend Simon. I won't go over the details, but suffice to say, the 92 miles I miscalculated (I thought it was 'only' 75) were painful, not least due to a saddle sore that accompanied me. The final challenge before Cardiff on this day was Caerphilly Mountain, where Jim and I had now reached.
Caerphilly Mountain is around 1.5km long and has gradients up to 17%. It is a steep, brutal climb that doesn't let up until the summit (where you can revive yourself with a cuppa from the Caerphilly Mountain Snack Bar). It isn't even 'deceptively steep'.The road kicks up at the last of the residential dwellings and you immediately feel starved of oxygen, bereft of gears, and lacking in momentum.,Then you hear the pummelling of your heart in your chest, the gulps and rasps as you suck in air and then the resigned 'oh bollocks', as your legs tell you to stop, get off and walk. At least mine did. I made it about two thirds of the way up before the engine blew a gasket and I forlornly wheeled the bike to the top. The ignominy, the shame. Getting off and pushing, walking. Oh well, just not made for this going up business.
So, back to the Tour of Britain. How would the professional deal with this beast? We'll see. I expected hordes of professional cyclists climbing off their carbon bikes and pushing like wusses. Bring it on.....
I should have known better.
We climbed all the way to the summit and found a nice spot on the final bend, with a clear view back down the mountain road. We were guaranteed a spectacular view. The crowds built steadily over the next couple of hours. Our vantage point commanded a great place to watch the cyclists pass only a metre away from us...well, that was until every man, woman and idiot thought I was wearing a 'PLEASE STAND DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME...YES HERE IS FINE....BIT TO THE RIGHT...THERE I CAN'T SEE A BLOODY THING' t-shirt. The politeness and courtesy of the true cycling fan was spectacularly shattered by kagool wearing, 'ooh, I'll pop along to see the cycle race, might even recognize Cav and Wiggins' non cyclists who plonked their (as Monty Python would say) puffy, raw, swollen, purulent flesh directly in front of me.
Don't worry, I've only been here 2 hours. I was eventually able to carve out a niche and ensure I could watch the cyclists unhindered by a curious mix of slight nudges, pushes and prods, snide comments (of which Jim proved a master) and heady farts. Actually that last bit isn't true, but I should have emitted some malodorous gas.
Many of the crowd were dressed, de rigeur, for the day. Given that it was a bright sunny day and quite warm for early September, there were many and various shades of Lycra clothing on display. The majority of the Lycra beasts had earned their chance to stand in figure hugging, skin tight clothes by doing what I had spectacularly failed to achieve. Cycling up Caerphilly Mountain. They also did it in full view of a baying crowd, well wishers and hecklers. I can't think of anything worse than struggling up a steep hill. Yes I can. Struggling up a steep hill, your body screaming at you to get off and stop this nonsense now, but your 'embarrassment gene' telling you you can't, not when hundreds of people are laughing at your gurning, shouting at you to do it, pedal harder, make it to the top......
I'd say 95% of the amateurs made it up, some with ease, some with more laboured pedalling and others at a near stand still. Those in most discomfort were applauded and roared home by a generous melee of spectators. The 5% who had got off and were walking up fell into two categories...."I can' make it and I don;t give a s**t what you think". They sauntered up, smiling at the hecklers and nay-sayers, as if to say, 'You mean, you actually thought I was going to make it to the top....with these legs?'. The others were 'I can't believe I've had to get off and push.....I'm so ashamed'. These poor few were by now very red in the face from their exertions and acute embarrassment. They walked as fast as they could, trying not to catch the eye of the roadside mob, before collapsing in a heap at the top. They promptly fell asleep and didn't see the race.
BOGOF
And so, after a starter of amateur hill climbing, we had the main course of the Tour of Britain roaring up Caerphilly Mountain; not once, but twice. It was so good, we even got seconds. The crowds were huge. I've been to a few live cycling events and I've never experienced an atmosphere as exciting and electric as on the mountain side that afternoon.
The first riders came into view, eventual overall winner of the Tour of Britain, Jonathan Tiernan-Locke and Graham Briggs climbing well. The crowd closed in on the road until there was barely 2 metres of space to ride in. The wall of noise that had moved up the mountain with the riders hit us as Tiernan-Locke and Briggs moved smoothly past. Then, in twos and threes, in dribs and drabs, the rest of the field crested the summit. The lower slopes of the mountain had caused the peleton to explode. There were riders stretched all over the mountain...and they had to do it a second time. Carnage.
Now the crowd strained their necks and ears for the sight and sound they'd waited for for hours (or for those who decided to arrive late and then stand in front of us, minutes). Cavendish and the Sky Train. Unfortunately, Bradley Wiggins had come down with a dicky tummy that morning and pulled out of the race; so it was all for Mark Cavendish. For a lad that has earned a reputation as the fastest sprinter in the business and someone who 'can't climb', he was doing a good job of getting up Caerphilly Mountain, tapping out a steady rhythm with his faithful German 'domestique', Bernie Eisel by his side. Cavendish is used to fervent, fanatical supporters in the Tour de France. However,by the look on his face, he was somewhat taken aback at the thousands of people screaming 'GO CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVVVVVVVV!!!!!!!!!' into his ears from 20cm away. He looked quite startled. Bernie Eisel looked a touch non-plussed; 'Why do they all shout for Cav, how about me, I am the donkey pulling the cart up the hill, Ich mag es nicht!'
And with that, and a few stragglers bringing up the rear, the Tour of Britain shot down the descent, into and out of Caerphilly, to do it all again.
This time Jon Tiernan-Locke had Leopold Koenig on his tail. Koenig sucked Tiernan-Locke's wheel and accelerated past him to win the stage; but Tiernan-Locke had done enough to secure the overall title, the first British winner for 19 years.
Behind the serious end of the race, coming up on their second ascent of Caerphilly Mountain, the rest of the field were, how do I put this, 'enjoying themselves'.
How would you feel after 6 days of racing, in all weathers, nasty climbs and currently 185km into a 190km stage, climbing a brutal climb, gradients of 17%....for a second time?? I know how it felt when I had to stop and then admit I was beaten, time to walk. For the professionals who had done their jobs for the day, ridden hard on the front to protect their team leaders, helped their teams get up and over the first climb, it was time to sit back and coast in to the finish....and have a bit of fun. On a 17% climb, fun is not my word of the day.
So, much to the amusement of the crowd, you had the spectacle of smiling riders, gesticulating to the crowd to cheer louder, throwing their drinks bottles high into the air, laughing at the roars of support and the odd sights running alongside them.
There was one group who had dressed in various costumes. One young lad, kitted out in boxing shorts and gloves, was actually the brother of GB and Sky cyclist, Luke Rowe. His mate wore a super hero / wrestlers mask and a pair of tight fitting trunks and not much else. As Dan Craven, a cyclist with the IG Sigma team approached the summit, still churning away up a 12% gradient, he reached out and gave our 'super hero cum wrestler' a playful pinch to his bare stomach.
The last of the riders struggled up to the summit, not exactly enjoying it, but getting a huge cheer from the crowd and we then poured down the mountain, back to Caerphilly, a cursory look at the castle and an attempt to catch some of the riders after the finish. We didn't get to see any, sadly, but we did see one of the bizarre images of the Tour of Britain.
Caerphilly is a small town and by definition, its town centre streets are narrow. Not exactly built for the luxury coaches the Pro Teams use to transport their cyclists and staff around Europe. The traffic jam coming out of the town centre was lengthy, and entirely made up of Tour of Britain vehicles, Pro Team buses and an occasional, bemused, very annoyed local who didn't realise the cycling circus was in town.
Because the teams were stranded, and in particular the Italian Liquigas Cannondale team, Jim and I were able to have a close up look at the Cannondale SuperSix Evo bikes. I ride a Cannondale, but the difference is my bike is about £5,000 cheaper and 4kg heavier. Still, it was great to look at and dream about those bikes and to witness the steam coming out of the ears of the Liquigas drivers as they sat impatiently trying to leave little old Caerphilly.
A great day in Wales. Fantastic cycling and good weather. But it wouldn't have been half as enjoyable by myself. Jim had come up to Worcester all the way from Margate in Kent. A true cycling fan, a man whose bike has been surgically attached to his backside and someone who wins every cycling related competition he enters and crops up in every cycling photograph from the big events when Cycling Weekly is published on a Thursday (as we both did the following Thursday...spooky, how does he do it?....it's the bright red Oakley sunglasses, that's how).
Our conversations revolved around many themes, all cycling related....climbing mountains, the professional peleton., doping, bikes, equipment etc etc.....We make ideal conversationalists at dinner parties.
Jim and I became friends trekking to Everest with Scope. We quickly became known for our cycling dialogue, isolated by the trekking team, mocked and pitied, forever conjoined by an invisible yoke, ok a bicycle chain. Conversation would go something like;
Tony: 'Morning Jim'
Jim: 'Morning Tony'
Tony: 'Nice day for a ride'
Jim: 'Yeah, you'd need at least a 12:28 rear cassette for that climb though
Tony: Do you reckon we'll need arm warmers and a gilet today?
Since then, Jim has signed up to cycling John O';Groats to Lands End with me and a few other friends next May. The professionals make long days in the saddle look (relatively) painless. JOGLE will be painful and much training will have to be done before we set off.
For that reason, the very day after watching the professional cyclists in the Tour of Britain, Jim and I undertook a training ride. 85 miles over Worcestershire and Herefordshire's lumps and bumps, hills and inclines. It hurt, and when the steep stuff pointed up, I didn't smile, and I didn't pinch a roadside spectator in the stomach....
The tale of our training ride next time.....
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