Just Like Beppe's

I've never been a big one for bike porn. Top end bikes long ago passed the point at which I will ever be able to afford one; and modern machines are so brutally functional they no longer lift my heart the way a handmade Reynolds or Columbus frame once could. Those articles towards the back of the glossies, where a recently retired pro rides the latest carbon extravagance someplace photogenic, have my eyes glazing over in seconds.

Even if I could afford one, I'd be terrified to ride it. Earlier this year, I took my son to the Manchester Velodrome to watch the Track World Cup. A hugely enjoyable weekend, enlivened by the occasional spectacular crash. As body after body piled into the pine-work, I watched horrified as carbon frames splintered into very small, very expensive pieces. At least with my bikes, there's a fighting chance of unbending or rebrazing them if I drop one.

But one star of this year's bike shows captured my imagination like nothing else - and just to make sure there's no escape, it features in an advert in this week's comic.

Ernesto Colnago's 2007 take on the classic Master is a thing of beauty. In the deep red, white and chrome that Beppe Saronni rode to such effect at Goodwood in '82; the whole thing is designed to make old men go weak at the knees. And it's steel; cared for properly it will last a lifetime.

For me, it would be a rekindling of an old love -- tinged with regret. In the mid-eighties, I was a regular at Ken Bird's shop in Crystal Palace. Every week, I would gaze longingly at the wine-red Colnago frame hanging in his window until the temptation proved too much -- I stuffed a bundle of notes into Ken's hand and went home, proud owner of a genuine Italian superbike.

I built it up over a couple of weeks, scrounging most parts off my previous bike -- a 531c Raleigh; buying some new bits from Whiskers in Willesden and making one early Sunday morning dash to Paolo Garbini's in Soho, to make sure I could sneak in and buy some cables when he opened the shop before the club run.

I remember the sense of pride on its first outing (to be honest, it rode no better than the Raleigh); the way the chrome winked in the sun; and the howls of derision from clubmates when the brakes squealed.

I kept that Colnago for years, until the combined pressures of a growing family and the Inland Revenue forced me to sell it.

Although the new Master is "reasonably" priced (less than £1k for the frameset), I don't think it will be finding a home chez Flandrian any time soon. But I'd have it any day over its flashier, carbon cousins.

Catford Hill Climb Continued

The tarmac on Yorks Hill hardly ever sees the sun, buried as it is between towering trees whose branches intertwine to form a permanent canopy. On wet days, the surface can be treacherous: running water from nearby fields; damp leaves; clumps of mud and gravel in the centre of the road.

But as we made our way through the Kent countryside on race morning, the sky was a deep clear blue, the roads were dry and the North Downs were at their most beautiful. The elements were giving me no excuses.

The car park at the top of the hill was like stepping back several decades to the heyday of British club cycling: row upon row of bikes, modern carbon leaning against well-loved classic steel; the bright sponsored jerseys of the elite teams mixing with the familiar colours and evocative names of local clubs: the Norwood Paragon; Sydenham Wheelers; Kingston Phoenix; De Laune CC; the Bec; the San Fairy Ann (their name derived from wartime servicemen’s bastardisation of the French “Ce ne fait rien”) and the 34th Nomads.

The signing-in tent was manned by an impossibly old gent in faded gold and claret – the Catford colours.

Grasping my arm with a shaky hand, he looked into my eyes and smiled in the way locals do in horror films, when directing strangers to the Count’s castle.

“Ooh,” he said, with undisguised glee “you’ll be sorry you came”.

I already was. Number pinned on my back; I half-heartedly warmed up on some borrowed rollers before gingerly freewheeling down the hill to the start line.

An exceptionally tall and skinny rider from the Rapha Condor team was lined up before me, a small and fiercely fit-looking young woman from the equally serious agiskoviner.com outfit behind. I was just starting to worry about the very real possibility of being caught and passed – true humiliation on such a short course, when my number was called and a sturdy bloke grabbed my handlebars and seatpost, holding the bike upright, allowing me to click into the pedals.

“Rider number 19….30 seconds….”

I took several long, deep breaths as the starter continued in his flat, emotionless voice.

“Three, two, one…off”

When I was training to run the London Marathon, I read an article about how the body adapts to sudden, unaccustomed physical effort. Since Neanderthal times, it said, the body has been wired to conserve energy for truly vital activities, and protect ourselves from our own stupidity. Extreme effort should be reserved for those fight or flight emergencies – wrestling with bears or fleeing sabre-toothed tigers; anything else was a frittering of resources. So when modern man slipped on his trainers for a gentle jog around the park, primeval survival instincts would come into play. The legs and lungs would send warning messages to the brain urging it to put a stop to this pointless effort; the brain itself would begin its own spoiling campaign – filling with images of the warm bed just left, or the cosy pub just passed. If, after twenty minutes or so, you still hadn’t done the sensible thing and stopped – then the body would reluctantly swing into help mode: releasing endorphins to dull the pain and raise the spirits; pumping extra blood and oxygen to where they were most needed. This, the article claimed, was why the first twenty minutes of any hard physical activity always felt awful, and explained the well-known phenomenon of “second wind”.

One minute into the hill climb and I was firmly stuck in caveman territory. I knew I was going to stop and abandon; the only questions were where and when. Despite the absurdly low gear, my legs were burning and refusing to obey orders from my brain which was in any case fighting its own campaign to convince me of my stupidity.

On the first steep stretch of the hill there were just a handful of spectators – including a small girl and her mother – presumably dragged out to watch Dad make a fool of himself – shouting encouragement as I weaved past. No matter how tempting it was, I told myself, I couldn’t give up there: the little girl would probably think it was something to do with her shouting; she’d be upset – possibly for life. I would wind myself round the next bend, out of their sight, before climbing off.

Round the next bend stood another woman who yelled me on, then yelped as I lurched involuntarily towards her.

“Go on mate, keep it together – don’t lose it now” came an unseen voice from the shadows at the side of the course.

Another couple of yards and that would be it, I could just give up and slink over the line on foot; perhaps I could feign some mechanical problem: a foot pulled out of a pedal, a slipping seat post – anything that would end this horrible, grinding pain.

I looked ahead and saw the road, steepening yet again, packed with people – seemingly impassable – blue sky behind them. Somewhere in my consciousness I registered that this must be near the end.

I have seen countless mountain stages of the Tour De France on TV – the way the spectators form a screaming wall across the road, only parting at the last minute as the police motorbikes sweep through, clearing a narrow route for the riders and closing in behind them as they pass. I’d always thought how distracting it must be for the riders, how infuriating it must be to be pursued by some gurning clown in a costume, to wonder whether those idiots will really get out of the way.

Based on my Yorks Hill experience – it doesn’t make the slightest difference. I put my head down and aimed straight at the crowd; I was faintly aware of shouting, cheering, clapping and chants of “Up…up…up”, but had no concept of who was making the noise or what was going on around me. Before the race, I had fondly imagined that I might crest the hill and see my family at the side of the course – cheering me on. In reality, the baby Jesus and Three Wise Men could have set up a stall right in front of me and I would have been oblivious.

The hill finally flattened off, a white line passed underneath my front wheel and I coasted to an unsteady stop by the entrance to the car park.

I’d finished. A spectacularly slow time, but at least I hadn't given up. Unsure whether I should smile or cry, and uncertain whether I had the strength for either, I leaned forward across the handlebars and closed my eyes.

I became aware of two, interconnected, things – a sharp, burning pain in my chest every time I breathed in; and the fact that I was emitting extraordinary, hoarse grunts, like a Dutch porn star warming up for the money shot.

Never again, I told myself, would I do anything so stupid. Never again would I put myself through such unnecessary pain and distress. I would be happy doing what normal people do -- riding to work and occasional weekend outings; the fitness spins round Richmond Park, the odd long ride through the countryside – but nothing that would expose me to the humiliation and suffering of a competitive cycling event.

By that evening, the pain in my lungs was so bad I could barely speak a sentence without coughing, and I’d sent off my application form for Paris-Roubaix.

Welcome to the 21st Century

Curses! Looks like I might have to ride from Paris to Roubaix after all. I was hoping that -- after an Xmas stuffing myself with turkey, pudding and Newcastle Brown -- I might have a couple of tentative stabs at long rides then give up quietly, sneaking my bike back to the cellar and putting my feet up.

But Brian -- at the consistently entertaining Washing Machine Post -- has come up with some 21st Century multi-platform, social media shiznit that won't let me off the hook that easily.

First, he's told everyone on his blog about my plans. Then, he's recommended that I buy a book that will help build my base fitness level via heart-rate monitors, exertion levels, interval training etc.

I've got a heart-rate monitor somewhere, a relic of my marathon running days, but I've never been exactly scientific when it comes to training. I've always trained by "feel", loosely translated as riding a bit until I'm puffed and stopping for a cake -- which is probably why I'm so ludicrously slow.

If you've ever seen the film Overcoming -- you'll remember two things. First, the implacable physio Ole Kaare Føli, and his valiant efforts to stop Bjarne Riis's big bald head from imploding under terrifying stress levels. Second, poor old Carlos Sastre -- CSC's loveable Spanish nearly-man -- as he struggles in an unequal relationship with his power meter.

"I think maybe computer is more f*****ng clever than me" is his considered verdict, and I sympathise.

But it's time I moved into the modern world, so as soon as the book arrives I'll be mapping out a proper plan and doing intervals till my face turns blue.

Brian's training for London to Paris, I'm training for Paris-Roubaix -- we'll be comparing notes across the blogosphere.

I have a horrible suspicion that there's no going back now.

The Rouleur

In my dreams, I am a Rouleur, the unglamorous, unsung workhorse of cycle racing.

The big man who sits on the front; braving the wind and rain and the flat Northern landscapes, dragging the pack down die-straight Roman-built roads until the weak fall from the back.

When I go riding with my neighbour Steve, we make an unlikely pair. He is short and slight, built like a jockey, or the flyweight boxer he once was. Faced with a hill, he stays seated and simply spins his legs a little faster, his lightweight aluminium bike gliding up the gradient as though glued to an asphalt elevator.

I don’t glide.

I’ve never asked Steve about his two-wheeled fantasies, like most cyclists our conversations tend towards the dour and pragmatic, but I imagine he sometimes fancies himself as a summer hero of the Alpine cols. Perhaps Federico Bahamontes, the Eagle of Toledo, whose climbing ability once put him so far ahead of his rivals that he waited at the top of an Alp in the Tour De France, eating an ice-cream, so he didn’t have to make the descent on his own. Or Robert Millar, the eccentric, fragile Scot, still the highest placed Briton in the Tour, who won the red-and-white spotted jersey of the King of the Mountains three times. Even Marco Pantani, “the Pirate”, big-eared and tiny-framed, an Italian mountain specialist who came back from terrible injuries to take on and beat the mighty Lance Armstrong, only to squander his life and talent on cocaine and paranoia – dead in a Rimini motel room at the age of 34. The cocktail of triumph, tragedy, bravery and romance that draws thousands to professional bike racing is easily encapsulated in the frail figure of the climber.

Nearly six feet tall and fourteen stone, I was never going to be a climber, and I have never had the wild-eyed recklessness and brutal aggression of the finish-line sprinter. But in my dreams I could be a rouleur, a flahute, a Flanders hard-man.

At the Tour De France, the big men spend much of their time in the so-called Autobus. By the time the Tour reaches the mountains, this group of heavier, slower riders hang behind the leading racers; one wheel ahead of the Voiture Balai, the minibus with a symbolic broom strapped to its roof, which sweeps up those who’ve decided enough is enough. Someone in their number will calculate mile-by-mile, how slowly they can ride yet still finish within the time limit for disqualification.

By this time, they will already have had their hour in the sun – some will have dropping back to the support car to pick up drinks or extra clothes for him, then fought their way to the front and held their course in the fifty-mile-an-hour dashes to the line, elbows out, nostrils flaring, heads down, which characterise the early stages of the Tour. Some will have babysat their team leader, sheltering him from the wind, straining and sprinting to catch back up.

Others will have spent their time watching rival teams as the peloton picked its nervous way through the early stages, ready to wind up the pace and smash opponents’ resolve; chase down those unwise enough to break away and go for glory; or set off themselves on madcap solo efforts, in a small break of riders doomed to be caught by the finish line but still happy if their sponsors’ jerseys get some prime time TV coverage, and their own names come to the attention of the team managers, the all-powerful Directeurs Sportifs

But for a few, their lives flourish not around the Grand Tours of Summer, but the Classics – the one day races of Spring and Autumn, on flatter roads, in unpredictable weather, when the great cols and alps are impassable and covered in snow. When the wind howls uninterrupted from the North Sea and the roads are wheel-rim deep in the mixture of rainwater, mud, agricultural chemicals and cowshit that American riders christened Flemish Toothpaste.

The Ronde Van Vlanderen - the Tour of Flanders; Ghent-Wevelgem; Liege-Bastogne-Liege; the Het Volk and Amstel Gold – harsh, brutal races in harsh, brutal landscapes. But the Queen of them all remains Paris-Roubaix.

The story so far

It was a pair of eyes that started it. That began my obsession. They were streaked with red, blank with pain and despair, not the eyes of a sportsman. The face they stared from was coated with dirt, blood and spittle; the brows were caked and ghostly.

I’d seen such eyes in photographs before: in the faces of frontline soldiers after days of battle and nights without sleep; rescue workers after hours scrabbling through rubble; miners back on the surface after ten hours struggling at the peculiar hell of a coal face. Never on a man who rode a pushbike for a living.

The eyes were focused far away. Somewhere back down the road – kilometres of bone-snapping, teeth-rattling dirt and cobbles; the farm roads of Northern France, which grind down, then batter and break, men and their fragile machines.

The owner of the face, and those eyes, was no ordinary bike rider, in no ordinary race. He was Sean Kelly, the hard man’s hard man, an Irish farm boy who converted his unique talent into Continental superstardom. His unique talent was suffering – longer and harder than anyone else. And he was riding Paris-Roubaix, otherwise known as L’Enfer Du Nord, the Hell of the North, Queen of the Classics – the world’s toughest bike race. What one leading race organiser accurately called “the last trace of madness in modern cycling.”

I saw that photograph more than 20 years ago, and I’ve been hooked ever since.