1992 had been a graduation year, the highlight probably chasing the mother of a professional rider for the first half of a 50 at Ringwood, catching her just before halfway and leaving her behind equally gradually in the second half. 2.24.09 wasn't brilliant but it was a big improvement on the other two 50's I'd done at less than 20 mph. The point was that all the training I could do was only enough to make me fit to take part, not good enough to be competitive. I had read a book called Training to Win by Les Woodland which said if you followed his advice you'd be fine as long as you hadn't spent the last ten years drinking Guinness and watching horse racing. Oh, I see.
In August, I had the rare time-trialling experience of being caught twice by a tandem that had started in front of me. If bicycle time trials were well enough understood by the general public, it would be a story worthy of a call to The Danny Baker Show but sadly it loses too much in the time taken to explain why that can't happen. But, if you really want to know, the tandems set off first. One of them took an early wrong turning but found their way back onto the course. I was one of the first solo riders to start and went the right way where they had gone wrong so was then ahead of them by the time they were back on the right road and caught me. But then they packed, went back to the start and, entirely against the rules, were allowed another go, and subsequently caught me again. Yes, it's an esoteric joke and about as funny to most people as a joke in Latin (like Caesar adsum iam forte, Brutus aderat)
But 1994 was a sort of 'coming of age', as much as there was going to be one. Just to take part in a 12 Hour was an ambition that seemed too ambitious but, once one is gripped by obsession and feel the need to do it, such things are worth a go. The Tour de France came to Portsmouth that year, starting and finishing on the seafront after a circuit that took in Winchester, Andover, Basingstoke and back down via the short, sharp climbs at South Harting and West Marden. Miguel Indurain was the big star of the day, Chris Boardman was showing up well; Greg Lemond was an elder statesman and the likes of Djamoldine Abdouzhaprov, Claudio Chaipucci and Gianni Bugno were contenders. A ride round the course on the day before the race came at an ideal time to do my longest ride yet. I think it was 107 miles, and I was encouraged that all those I rode with gradually dropped off my back wheel and I got back in the 7 hours I had made a target. Sorry if that seems a bit anti-social but training is training. As was to be seen later, it's all very well these speed merchants who could do 25's and 50's several minutes faster than me but I was interested in riding all day and it began to look as if I was better at it than some of them.
But the season had begun with a ride to Swindon for the hilly Aldbourne time trial of uncertain distance but officially 42k. It was two laps of undulating Wiltshire roads with my Mum and Dad as timekeepers sitting in their car at halfway, and I was catching a rider as we came to them. Never one to turn down the opportunity of some cheap showboating, I stayed in behind the rider and gestured to the officials to say 'look at me, I've caught him' and it took me a long time to realize what a bad idea that was. It can be seen from the grainy picture what an athlete I was then, with a Volvo struggling to get by me on that very same hill. But why not go past him so they can see you do it, not prat about like a loony. It must have cost me ten seconds or more and a proper rider like my dad would have realized as much.Never mind, a 1.10.01 for 25 miles from Emsworth to Bognor and back was memorable for being the closest I got to beating 1.10.00, not much of a benchmark in itself, but my dad's best time at the distance at a similar age had been 1.09.59. But one should never be without an excuse. Blimey, you should have seen the turn, a tight mini roundabout on the way into Bognor and the gravel on the road there. I virtually had to stop to turn round and that must have cost more than three seconds.
But the miles were stacking up and the August Bank Holiday Sunday was the date with destiny where I would try to at least complete a 12 Hour. It was one thing to find yourself on the same start sheet as such heroes as Andy Cook, Keith Wright and Gwen Shillaker but anybody could pay the entry fee to achieve that. The idea was first of all to finish, then do 200 miles and anything beyond that was a bonus.
One arrives at Sutton Benger before the sun rises but miraculously, it does rise and it is light just before the first rider sets off at one minute past six. I went off at seven minutes past, I had an energy drink, a bottle of water, three bananas, flapjack and some hideous, sweet chewy bars that got spat back out over the road the first time I bit into one. I was like a two-wheeled snack bar mooching through the quiet of the early morning, unable to think I'd be doing it all day, whether in Wiltshire or Gloucestershire, and you do have to do it in stages. I had no idea how fast to go, took it steadily and was 6th slowest of the 31 finishers over the first 25 miles to Tetbury.
All you have to do as a rider is the riding. I was very grateful for help from the late, great Dave Stephens, my brother-in-law, my mother and sisters, who had the more difficult job of working out where I was and finding a lay-by to hand up more fuel. I was the engine and, as it turned out, a well-tuned one but an engine doesn't work without fuel. I think it worked out at 8 bananas, some flapjacks, a pre-vegetarian ham sandwich at lunchtime with a quick cup of tea at Burford, very approximately 100 miles done in 5 hours, where I could climb over a gate onto the corner of a golf course to symbolically pass comment on the sport of golf (and it's only now I remember that I've written about this before) before turning back south into a headwind. And that was the stretch that decided whether you were going to make it or not.
Some riders don't know what it's going to be like and realize they have overdone it early doors. In three 12 Hours that I rode, the great Andy Cook didn't finish but that wasn't because he couldn't do it or that he was afraid of being seen off by me, it was because he wasn't on schedule for 270 miles, or whatever, so he got off after 8 or 9 hours and rode another event the following week. But, then again, head to head at that event, Me 3, Cookie nil. You wouldn't have thought that.
So, the afternoon passes with records like Kingston Town by UB40 playing along in your head steadily, you might not see another rider for half an hour but just hope you're not lost somewhere in Norfolk. Then there's somebody who had gone by you in the morning stopped in a lay-by. And, thank heavens, there's a new bottle of water, some people you don't know shouting encouragement, you can do all sorts of maths in your head to work out how far you might have gone, what time it is and, since you don't feel too bad, it looks as if it's going very well. But the event finishes on a circuit (this one of about 15 miles), so that it can be calculated how far you've ridden.
Arriving on the finishing circuit, where in those days there would be a bit of a crowd of local cycling cognoscenti, was something like the Entry into Jerusalem. You might still have an hour or two to go but surely you've made it now. It was like an extended lap of honour. I stopped by the car where Dave was, poured water all over me, squirted some sponges down my neck and asked for some more energy drink.
We've run out. You've had it all.
What else have we got.
These cans of Lucozade.
Okay, then.
And that lemon and lime fizzy drink was one of the best I've ever had. Those trips round and round the lanes were glorious, one particularly memorable stretch with the wind behind me, I zoomed past a few riders like they were standing still and, my dad having his detailed split times, it proved that I was sixth fastest on the finishing circuit. Somehow better than all those junior and teenage goals scored multiplied by the runs and wickets. It was even sport, really, it was something else entirely The final score of 214.895 was beyond all expectation and I had a t-shirt made with it printed on. Most people probably thought, if they thought about it at all, that it was the wavelength of an obscure radio station. But there we were, 12 Hours. I have hardly shut up about it since, as you can see. 15th out of 31 finishers, which doesn't include the six that didn't finish or the two that didn't start.
Not before or since would any such mission be accomplished (by me). But I'm afraid there's more of it yet and so My Life in Sport, Cycling is going to have to go into part 3.
Riding back to Portsmouth in 4 and a half hours a couple of days after a 12 never seemed like much of a ride then.