My own first race was in the schoolboy events at the popular Morecambe Weekend, up and down the promenade, in 1966. I finished a lap down, but was enthralled by the experience and vowed to train harder, and take my cycling more seriously. I loved bike racing, then as now, and wanted to see how good I could become. So I abandoned my initial career plan of becoming a famous rock guitarist, and decided to aim to become World Road Champion. Such are the dreams and ambitions of youth!
However reality proved to be a little different.
Although I was never a prolific winner of races, I did manage to cross the line first a few times in my younger years. I wasn’t a great sprinter, I could climb reasonably well, but I wasn’t really a mountain goat either. But I began to get in the placings and finally secured my first win - the Dolphinholme Junior Road Race, in 1969. Oddly enough, I also actually organised this race, doing all the work beforehand then passing the lead role to the club chairman on the day.
I practised hard but the Beatles never came calling.
So I got rid of the fringe and committed my future to cycling.
I followed that up with a win when I was 19 years old in the Lakeland Division Senior Championship in 1971, taking part in a 75 mile break, originally of 10 riders, that gained over 6 minutes on the bunch, and winning the sprint from a reduced group of five. That was about as good as it got, really. I raced continuously each year through until 1985, bouncing up and down between 2nd category and 3rd category, according to commitments of studying, work and family.
Competing in a local race in Velo Club Preston colours c1978.
By that time it was clear that I was better as an organiser, official and commissaire than as a rider…
…so I concentrated on those roles, whilst still riding as often as I could and even doing the occasional race, on or off road.
Towards the end of my own “serious” racing, other interesting threads also emerged. I began writing race reports for Cycling Weekly magazine, often of races that I had actually ridden, phoning them in to a copytaker on a Sunday afternoon, for the princely sum of £6 for 300 words!. I also did some interviews with top riders of the time, some of which were published in a long-since disappeared magazine called ProNews.
Meanwhile, I had continued organising races each year since 1969, and had also become the Division Road Race Secretary for Lancashire, liaising between the police and race organisers. At the same time I became Division Team Manager, taking teams to events like the Tour of Ireland and the Circuit des Mines in France. It became clear to me that our riders were short of stage race experience, so in 1984 I secured the support of local councils and the Lancashire Constabulary, and founded the Tour of Lancashire, which eventually became the second biggest road race in the country, behind the Tour of Britain.
Alongside that, I qualified as a national-level commissaire, cycling’s name for the referee/umpire/judge role. And at the end of 1984, I was elected to the Racing Committee of the British Cycling Federation, serving three terms up until 1993, when I decided to take a break.
Launching the 1996 Tour of Lancashire, sponsored by Thwaites Brewery, with CC Lancashire riders Ed Nicoll and Henry Iddon. Between them is my friend Gordon Harling who contributed a massive amount to the race over many years and took over from me as Race Director.
During that time, I also qualified as a UCI International Commissaire.
I worked on many events around the world, including the Milk Race, the Kellogg’s Tour of Britain, the Herald Sun Tour, Eddy Merckx GP, Rapport Tour, Euskal Bicicletta, Olympia’s Tour, Ster Der Beloften, Junior Tour de Berlin, Ronde van Drenthe, Tour du Vendée, Volta a Lleida, Giro del Capo, plus several World Championships on road, track and cyclo-cross, and the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. This last is possibly the only time I have cried at a bike race – witnessing Chris Boardman win the first GB Olympic gold medal for cycling in 76 years was an incredible moment.
I’ll tell a fuller story about all of this in the book that I am currently writing. And, did I mention at the moment I’m looking for a publisher?
UCI Chief Commissaire at the Herald Sun Tour in Australia, 1991. Those jackets were incredibly uncomfortable.
Success in the Commissaires’ upgrading examination, World Championships 1989. Alas not in the racing. I have my brown blazer in a wardrobe somewhere - I’m sure they’ll be fashionable again soon.
Relaxing between sessions at the Barcelona Olympic Velodrome 1992. Apologies for the shorts. Must have lost my shoes too.