Go-Riding for Gold

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same..."

Rudyard Kipling

Thomas Ivor was in Devon for the weekend when the email came in to let me know that we were racing last night at the cycling club, in the first 'Go-Ride' event of the season that we're hosting.

'Desert Storm', still fortunately shod with knobbly tyres, was duly retrieved from the back of the 'Daddy Bus', where it had remained following an off-road trip to the country park a week or so ago. My crack team of bike mechanics (Ruth and Rhoda) were immediately all over it so we could be ready for action as soon as we'd fetched Thomas Ivor from school.

A trip to the park to re-set saddle height (a recurring theme at the moment - the lad's growing again!) culminated in some practice starts on the grass, which were going rather well until a foot slipped off a pedal and a shin got skinned. Cue wailing, gnashing of teeth, TCP, a bit more wailing, protestations that he wasn't going to race because he was mortally wounded and everyone was going to beat him anyway, and a strong talking to. Just like Brian Clough and his players, we had a talk about it and decided I was right. Bidons filled, Croozer loaded for the girls to sit in, we duly set off for Kettering.

I have to say, it was a slightly surreal experience pinning a racing number to my seven-year-old's jersey. I never took part in any competitive sport at Thomas Ivor's age, outside of school. Certainly not at anything I was any good at. This was the road less travelled!

After a thorough equipment check, off the lad went, circulating amongst boys and girls of all age groups in the warm-up. Dear me, this was really happening wasn't it. The girls settled in to their seats in the Croozer to watch 'Oliver' on the iPhone (one of my favourite wrinkles, that!) and I found myself in the pitch darkness preparing to photograph a ten-minute event like nothing I had ever covered before.

In my former life as a motor racing photographer I looked down the barrel of the lens at all kinds of race starts - but this time I had a vested interest like nothing else imaginable, being as I was, team manager, chief mechanic, motivational coach, team nutritionist and doctor, as well as photographer. That and being the rider's Dad. Frankly, I was more nervous than he was, if looks were anything to go by. 

I caught Thomas Ivor's eye as he lined up. The first corner, after a short grassy straight, was a dimly-lit square left bend round the outside of a tennis court fence, with a bit of a ditch and some bushes on the outside. They were all going to funnel into that like a stampede of very small, rather excitable and slightly tipsy cattle. He had to make the first corner, first, to stay out of trouble and avoid getting baulked from the off. I was glad we'd practised starting. I caught Thomas Ivor's attention, pointed to my own eyes in the international gesture for 'look right where I'm showing you', and passed my message. First corner, first. Own it, Son. A single, solemn nod of the head indicated our strategy was understood.

The start of an 'Under 8' race is a lot like watching children playing in the school band. There is a lot of looking sideways at the kid next to you for ideas, and everything happens in slightly delayed action. I fired off three frames before his right foot even landed on the pedal, but nevertheless, Thomas Ivor motored towards the first corner (can you say that any more, after the mechanical doping scandal?!) and got round cleanly before you could say 'ten minutes of effort now - pace yourself!'. He and the other six children disappeared down the back of the tennis courts like their lives depended on it.

If there's one thing that's become a dirty word in the world of primary education now, it's competition. Of course we want to encourage children who aren't the best, at a given activity. Of course we don't want people projecting their own baggage onto the children, but life in so many ways involves having to strive for things in competitive environments, and learning to deal with defeats and victories alike. "Like the Rudyard Kipling poem, ‘If’. You know that- ‘If’ you do X, Y and Z, Bob’s your uncle"

I am sure I'm not the only kid who grew up hearing inarticulate parents savaging their children, or worse still other people's children, at juvenile sporting events. It's unedifying to say the least. But by the same token, I couldn't just stand there and watch my little boy in the first race of his life, in silence. Mercifully, the boy in second place was ably supported by his Dad, who thought similarly. As the banter and repartee flowed, we each urged on our respective sons. Trying also to get some photographs for us and the other parents, I found myself running from one side of the course to the other so I could get two bites of the cherry per lap. It was mayhem.

It was about seven minutes in that he lost the back wheel and fell, on the exit of the first corner. My heart was in my mouth. Come on, Son. It's only pain. You can do this. With gritted teeth he threw himself back on the bike and went after his opponent. I've never seen resolve quite like it from him.

The bell was being readied when, in the twisty section coned out through the tennis court and Thomas Ivor dived for a tight right hand apex inside his rival, seizing the position and what I hoped, amidst the lapped children and Under 10s, was still the lead. "Keep going, Thomas! Up a gear, Son! Empty the tank!"

So it was, then, that by a slender margin, Thomas Ivor crossed the line to take the first victory of his career, in his first ever race. I didn't dare congratulate him in case I was wrong and someone had beaten him. He, meantime, hadn't realised that was the end of the race, and proceeded to put in another hot lap before we could stop him!

Sure enough, it turned out he had won after all.

Off he went to shake hands with 'Number 22' (and me with '22's Dad'!) - before turning to me and saying "I think I fell off six times. I don't think that was my best ride".

Following a period of transition and challenge for Thomas Ivor at home, it couldn't have come at a better time for him; a real confidence boost which was very much needed. As his soigneur drove him home, a tired little boy was heard to say, reflectively, "I never thought I could do anything like that". 

A certificate signed by both a certain Mr Kenny and a certain Miss Trott, and a gold medal, were the result of his night's work. I'm not sure who ultimately was most shocked or worn out, the rider or the rest of the team! Of course, the mechanic now has a bike to clean once more. The nutritionist has bidons to wash, there is kit to launder, the photographer has images to wire to proud grandparents, and the coach has to work out how to prepare their star rider for his next outing, including making sure he does his English homework...

Find out more about British Cycling's 'Go-Ride' programmes and races near you at https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/go-ride

Joining the club

Changes to Thomas Ivor's living arrangements mean that he has been able to do something he has wanted to try for a long time - joining a cycling club.

This is a new set of circumstances for me, too, having never been to a sports activity as a parent. As a matter of personal pride, 'Ben' has therefore been up on the workstand this afternoon, for a thorough 'wash and brush-up' ahead of his first outing tonight!

Who will buy...?

I'm not a morning person. I never have been. I'm just not the sort of person who wakes, or is woken, and automatically dives headlong into a new day, full of bounce and vitality, like  a character in a breakfast cereal advert. At the other end of the day, I can keep plugging away into the night, but don't call me in the morning.

Alastair Humphreys wrote "Mornings come peacefully on the road". Now that I am settled back into being 'on the road', even a broken spoke isn't disturbing that peace.

In a complete reversal of the normal order, I woke first this morning, at dawn. Instead of fighting the daylight, or being aware of other people having beaten me to it, I heard the sweet silence of the morning, punctuated only by birdsong, the occasional call from Morgane and Marin's rooster, and the tolling of a distant church bell, quite unlike those we hear at home. All the moment wanted for was some Grieg playing in the background.

Tempting as it might have been on another day to vegetate and luxuriate in the calm, and despite the mileage we've done, which at the moment amounts to more strenuous exercise than I am ever used to at home, I got up, got dressed, and, taking the camera, slipped out into the crisp morning air. With the lifting of the burden of a day already being accounted for before it even begins, and with the children still asleep, I was wound back a decade or more, to the days when I would have gone out to take photographs, just for the pleasure of it, and because I could. Nothing earth shattering, but a wholesale and liberating paradigm shift all the same. Shades of the first scene after the intermission, in 'Oliver'; "Who will buy this wonderful morning...".

I can only attribute to the invigorating power of the road, the slowly settling change in me.

That's not to say we didn't have things to do today, because that spoke wasn't going to fix itself, and our bikes were literally caked in sand and grit after many miles on the voies vertes. The resulting mess was like having oiled your bike with cutting compound.

I returned to the house, where everyone else was starting their day. We breakfasted with our hosts, the girls taking the opportunity to show their new friend Brewen 'In the Night Garden' on the iPad, in between playing with his toys. Oh, add rhubarb jam to the menu when we get back home!

Morgane, Marin and Brewen were off to a baptism, so we let them get on their way and got ourselves ready for a trip into St Méen le Grande, the nearest town, to try and get my spoke fixed, and source some kit to clean the bikes with. Riding the bikes unladen was something of a novelty!

A beautiful new mural adorns the water tower as you enter Saint Méen Le Grand.

Saint Méen Le Grand is a cycling town, justifiably proud of her most famous son, three-time Tour de France winner Louison Bobet. We have seen, again, levels of civic pride we just don't recognise from home, heightened of course because of the passage of a stage of the Tour this year. Every shop in town has a picture of their 'local boy done good' in the window. To think all we managed for our Olympians was a thin coat of gold paint on a post box.

In the midst of this cycling fervour, rolling into town we were stopped by a Police  roadblock - for a bunch of roadies! We never quite got to the bottom of what the event was, but there were loads of them knocking about town. The first guys we stopped to talk to told us the bike shop wasn't open all day, so we got on with that bit of the job first.

In a town like this, we were unsurprised to find a nicely-appointed bike shop, with something of a racing bent; lots of lovely rims hanging up, but nothing of the kind that might have tempted me to buy a replacement wheel. The mechanic took the view that rebuilding the whole wheel would be uneconomic, so we had him crack on and change the broken spoke, whilst we had a whizz round the shop buying cleaning materials and a couple of new chains. I'd had some slipping a couple of times yesterday, and having previously broken one (embarrassingly, in the middle of a road-rage incident, whilst on a roundabout, towing the trailer) in Exeter last year after our trip to Scotland, I figured that whilst they've not done massive miles, at almost a year old, and now covered in rubbish, they could go.

I also managed to source a cycling-themed souvenir from our trip, which will appear in due course...

It was back into town for lunch next, via a cracking patisserie, with their obligatory picture of Bobet in the window. We're learning not to miss lunchtime now! 

We struggled to find somewhere to park the trailer, and our bikes, in the blistering midday heat. In the end, the bikes were locked up at one end of the town square and the trailer came with us to the other. We got some funny looks for parking Ruth and Rhoda a few metres from our table outside the restaurant, but the shade was critical, not only for the comfort of the sleeping girls (and 'Froomey') but for the cakes nestled in the back!

Unsurprisingly, it was galettes for lunch, with some new fillings. Smoked salmon and crème fraîche couldn't be passed by, but when we translated 'Noix de St Jacques', I had to order one of them as well...

Thomas Ivor put away another plateful of steak haché without blinking. It makes such a change for him to just demolish meals without fuss - the lad's clearly been working hard.

Lunch concluded (crêpes all round!), we went back out down 'Rue Louison Bobet' (that man again!) to the industrial estate, to visit the supermarket for some provisions, and for a naughty trip to the jet wash. A bottle of degreasant later, we had the worst of the muck rinsed off the bikes, ready to ride back to base to change the chains and give the drivetrains a thorough clean. This went well enough except for the heart-stopping moment when Thomas Ivor, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on Rhoda as I linked up my new chain, took my filthy old one and made for the house and our hosts' living room. Mercifully, we got to her just in time!

We've had a lovely day in Saint Méen Le Grand, although we must move on once more tomorrow. Another time perhaps we will be able to make time to visit the Bobet museum. We have dropped the shortest day of our schedule to stay here, so we do have mileage to make up tomorrow once more, but we and the bikes are refreshed, the distance won't break any records, the weather is nice, and perhaps I can even look forward to another relaxing early start in the morning.