May 2005. Mishaps, Croft, Bishopwood Road Race, and the A1 Classic

You may not have realised (and if you haven’t, this ain’t going to help you), that there has been a change to our club’s web site address. I have been cursing web master Saint for not posting my last instalment of Through and Off when in fact I have been browsing an out dated version of our web site (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carlsa/) – am I the only club member making this mistake? Unfortunately, the link to the old URL gives the illusion of a static web site when in fact there has been vibrant activity (one update in the last 2 months) on the new site (http://www.yorkshirerc.org.uk/). Pass on the new URL so that others, and perhaps Cycling Weekly, can read the instalments - yes, I am still waiting for a Cycling Weekly contract to take over from the ever so rude Tony Bell when he finally gets sued for slander. And while I am ranting about our web site, you’ll not have realised that I have designed a snazzy new Road Racing page because it is sitting on a cd waiting to be uploaded. However, webmaster Saint keeps asking me to do all sorts of ‘techy’ things like zipping and compressing which completely bamboozles me. Next year perhaps, next year!

So back to cycling matters. With the onset of British summertime comes the Hammer’s and Hippo’s weekly pilgrimage to Croft Park (motor racing circuit). Fifteen weeks later they return to Yorkshire 10kg heavier having gorged themselves on post race cakes - which were particularly good this year (special thanks go to the Ferryhill Ladies who won the Hippo and the Hammers’ adulation for best cakes of the race series). Derek ‘Red Mist’ Grant is also a regular at Croft and this year he was taking his racing very seriously having followed an arduous ‘Ulrich-like’ winter training programme of pasties and rest. So while the rest of us were on early morning training rides in the winter ice, Red Mist slept in his bed sated on pies and dreaming of cakes at Croft. By the time he arrived at the first race he was oversized and chomping at the bit. As soon as the first flag of the season went down the red mist descended and off he went like a greyhound out of a trap. He managed to get to the end of the starting straight (100 yards) before succumbing to fatigue and a minute later he was off the back and gasping for life…. we’ve never worked out whether this is a carefully planned strategy to get to the cakes first or whether he really is knackered.

Andy ‘I’ve Not Raced Since the Sixties’ Bairstow also appeared for most of the Croft season riding his array of e-bay bikes. He quickly adopted the Yorkies road race style of being spat out of the pack with alarmingly regularity - an approach which was not as daft as it seems because this year there was more crashes at Croft than you’d see at the first week of the Tour de France. The Hippo touched the tarmac on week two (registering 5 on the Richter scale) when 10 riders tumbled at the chicane. Being a true pro the Hippo quickly raised his hand, before realising that there was no team support car -something that the YRC committee needs to address next year. So he jumped back on his bike in an attempt to catch the galloping pack but he fell off again because his rear wheel was V shaped. As he walked past the cheering crowds back to his car - could the YRC committee look into a team bus for next year? - it was difficult to tell whether the Hippo’s was crying because of the pain of his injury or the thought of having to spend £25.00 for another set of high performance Rigida Nova Racing Wheels.

In fact there have been a catalogue of catastrophies at Croft this season. During the next few races The Hippo was seen running to his car to swap wheels because of mid race punctures. This was eventually remedied when he was told to insert some rim tape before refitting the tube and tyre - well what do you expect if YRC doesn’t have a team mechanic (YRC committee?). ‘I’ve Not Raced Since the Sixties’ was seen in one race spinning at a cadence of 120 rpm while his bike remained stationary – apparently something to do with the ratchet system in the hub – that’s e-bay for you! Needless to say team loyalty didn’t extend to the Hammer, Hippo or Red Mist offering one of their wheels so that “Broken Hub” Bairstow could continue with his race – we did wave to him on each lap though. The YRC name was becoming a laughing stock with so many crashes, punctures and mechanicals so the hit squad (Mike Dixon, and Nigel Baldwin and Mike Kershaw) periodically made their way up to Croft to restore the club’s reputation. In one race we could even say that we had a team and the beginnings of a primordial race strategy… “hang in the pack as long as you can”.

The Hammer and Hippo were also flying the YRC flag in LVRC and BC races throughout May with relatively no success except for the Hippo who spoilt his near perfect back of the pack tag when he accidentally finished 4^th in a LVRC race at Bishopwood. He had some help from Mike Youngson who must have mistakenly entered the race thinking that it was a time trial. However, a couple of weeks later Mike “10 mile TT specialist” was helping the Hammer to eighth spot in the LVRC A1 classic at Boroughbridge. So in a meaningless attempt to show their appreciation at the help given from our club’s time trialist, the Hippo actually took part in a few time trials himself, although he kept throwing away a minute in each race waiting for the next rider to be set off so that he could draft him.

However, I end this instalment with the misfortune which happened to fall on Tony ‘he pedals too fast’ McCullough (Ferryhill Wheelers) before the start of race 2 at Croft Park. “One Cleat” McCullough as he is now known had snapped one of his cleats after he had signed on for the race and was hobbling around the car park like a demented duck trying to cadge a spare cleat from the other competitors. Now we all know that racing cyclists turn up to events with truck loads of equipment and in fact many could probably run a mobile cycling shop from the back of their cars. We also know that cyclists support each other and I have no doubt that “One Cleat” would have been given a spare cleat if his request came before the start of a training ride. However, competitive cyclists are nasty so even though there were spare cleats in the boot of nearly every car in the car park no-one (in their right mind) would admit this to “One Cleat” McCullough. Behind every shake of the head and shrug of the shoulders was a rider chuckling at the thought that they had dispatched one of their rivals from the race. When the flag went down the peloton set off waving to One Cleat who was standing at the side of the circuit weeping like a whipped pup. What a tough sport this is. (Dear ‘one cleat’, your citation fee is now due).