Words: Graeme Fife Photos: Gerard Brown

He greets us by the open door into the lower floor of his condominium (he also has the upstairs apartment) and shows us into a spacious, light-filled room, the end wall panelled in glossy maple wood, a flat-screen television, family photographs. A balcony overlooks the garden; at the other end of the room are shelves lined with trophies, a dining table. Photographer clicks his inbuilt light meter into action and sets off back to get the gear; Hasselblad will get the nod. I sit on an armchair, Sercu on the settee. He remembers me from Bremen, when we spoke in French, and from a brief encounter at Ghent when he was so busy he had no time to say much more than hello in any language. Now we speak in English.

Where to start?

Where Patrick Sercu started, here in Izegem, a few kilometres from where we sit, on the track built by Odile Defraye in 1912, the year he became the first Belgian to win the Tour de France. He’d bought a restaurant with his winnings and built the 166 metre cement track in the garden. By 1959, when Sercu was 15 and ready to start riding, the surface was cracked and pitted. Albert repaired it and, in the photograph which shows his son riding it for the first time, the patches and ribbons of new cement grouting show white on the grey surface. His father organised a programme of competitions on the track for local teenagers.

“Did he teach you?” I ask.

“He was my first trainer, my first promoter. I got on well with him. He’d finished racing, mostly on the road, but he did the Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels Sixes – I think he rode around sixteen altogether.”

Between 1964 and 1983, Sercu Junior rode 233 Sixes and won 88. But he also raced through the road season. His palmarès are quite simply dazzling. I ask how he managed a full winter programme as well as the long calendar of classics and stage races over what was an exceptionally long career.

He smiles. “I couldn’t stay at home. I felt a bicycle rider should always be in competition, on the track and the road. Maybe it was just how I was and I was lucky I could do it.” Moreover, by his own admission, he never took any more than two weeks off and even then only twice a year. The driving imperative for him at the time, as for everyone else, was money. The Six-Days might have paid well in the ‘blue train’ – that elite cadre of some sixteen riders who star on the bill – but otherwise track racing delivered only slim pickings. When riders were paid very little on contract, earnings had to come from prize and appearance money. Reputation fuelled pay rises. There was not the specialisation then as there is now. All riders faced a much longer season than today’s well paid pros.

As an amateur, Sercu routinely raced on the track on Sunday and then on the road on Wednesday; kermesses through the summer, the hard, tight-cornered, cobbled local circuits where the intensity of the crowd’s enthusiasm both reflects and spikes the fury of the competition. It must have been the experience of those short-lap town and village circuits which toughened him, early on, for the dizzy circling on the indoor wooden tracks.

Extract from Rouleur issue 28, coming soon

I think independent framebuilding has picked up, but I think independent businesses across the board have picked up. Portland is popular for bike makers, but it is also popular for single-operator bag makers, or dressmakers, or bakers. Places that have that local, craft-y, young-ish population – where that is popular, frame building is popular.

Eric Estlund, Winter Bicycles

We were warned it would be wet in Oregon – mostly by the people living in the drier climes of Kentucky and North Carolina we just left – but they had a point: all day rain and plenty more to come, apparently. This place makes Manchester look like Abu Dhabi.

What we had no warning of was the quality produce we have found on every step of this road trip. After a lifetime of somehow sidestepping the USA, I had built up a warped perspective of what constitutes America: McDonalds, KFC, Budweiser, Britney Spears – you get the picture. We Brits get the very worst of what this huge, diverse country has to offer, and assume that is it. How very wrong. It transpires they have been keeping all the good stuff for themselves. Turn off the gaudy neon highways and dig around a little and every stop throws up a fine eatery with a selection of local beers to rival anything Belgium has to offer. It is foodie (and drinkie) heaven that, for an American virgin like me, has been a wonderful surprise and an attitude changer. Y’all come back soon, y’hear? You bet!

But we are not here to sample the local produce, as fine as it is. We have come to Oregon to talk to producers of bicycles, of which there are many, starting with Eric Estlund, who makes beautiful steel frames under the name of Winter Bicycles in a big old draughty building in Eugene, a couple of hours’ drive south of Portland. Eric is vice president of the Oregon Bicycle Constructors Association and an eloquent spokesperson for the art of framebuilding – if it is an art. His past life as an artist working in metal, followed by a spell learning his chops with local folding bike manufacturer Bike Friday, suggests it is. And seeing his handiwork at close quarters confirms it. This is quality craftsmanship.

What Eric says at the top of this page regarding the growth of independent and single-operator businesses in Oregon, and many other pockets of the USA, hits the nail on the head. As framebuilding in the UK clings on by its fingernails and the remaining dozen or so guys, with the knowhow to take a pile of tubes and construct a beautiful and individually tailored machine, appear in danger of being the final generation, Portland is awash with people making spectacularly wonderful bicycles.

What Eric says, I think, is there is a sea change here in the States that we could learn from in the UK. The shop local, source local – pay just a bit more for quality produce instead of constantly seeking the bottom line – movement is strong here. If framebuilding is to survive at home, it needs those other small businesses to grow alongside it. And for that to happen, it needs you, the consumer, to look anew at your choices.

Worth thinking about the next time you step inside yet another Starbucks…

In the meantime, Andy and I are sampling the Wassail winter ale from Oregon’s Full Sail, an independent, employee-owned brewery, and mighty fine it is, too. You have a choice, people. Do the right thing.

You may recall a young man from Kent featured in Rouleur 22 who was based in Belgium trying to make a living from that most unlikely of sources for a Briton, cyclo-cross.

Ian Field, at the third or fourth time of asking – every year seemingly the tipster’s favourite – finally claimed a senior national championship jersey. It was a genuinely emotional moment to see how much those blue and white bands meant to a man who has immersed himself wholeheartedly in the cultural homeland of ‘cross. ‘Field de Brit’, as the Belgies call him, will do the jersey proud.

No disrespect to runner-up Liam Killeen, but the thought of a national champion who doesn’t actually ride ‘cross, save for a couple of warm-ups leading up to the nationals, sticks in the craw somewhat. Having a visible champion on the Continental circuit can only help raise the profile of the sport. Field is the man for the job.

As visible champions go, Helen Wyman is right up there, taking the woman’s crown for an astonishing seventh year in a row. I use the word astonishing because, not only has Wyman been decidedly unwell, but her nearest rivals Nikki Harris, Gabby Day and Annie Last threatened to make it a close, four-way battle for the medal positions – all three have been riding brilliantly in recent weeks. Wyman simply powered away from them, as per usual, making it look easy before coughing and spluttering once past the finish line for the last time. Harris, in particular, must have thought this was her big chance, and her face on the podium clearly showed the bitter disappointment. Wyman’s trademark big grin, meanwhile, stayed locked in position, and rightly so.

As it was a bumper day of cyclo-cross spectating, once home from Ipswich I tuned in to live coverage of the US championships, intrigued to see if the scene is as big in the States as it appears from the UK. The jury is still out on that one.

The park in Wisconsin was visually unexciting, the course a dull, straight-line thrash. Outside the top four or five riders, the drop-off in quality is steep. The three commentators were unintentionally hilarious and less intelligible than the standard chap I tune into on Sporza for Belgian races, and he talks Flemish… If you have seen the film American Graffiti, you will remember well the growling, gravelly tones of DJ Wolfman Jack. One of the three stooges rumbled away in similarly dramatic fashion, the trio reaching a crescendo of excitement well before the race’s finish. They tossed the commentary around with such alarming frequency you’d have thought it was a live hand grenade with a pulled pin. I’m not sure about the riders, but I was utterly spent with a lap still to go. I can only hope the Three Amigos were forced to lie down in a darkened room afterwards, preferably wearing headphone commentary of the tremendous Sporza bloke (whose name escapes me), issuing his favourite admonition: “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

The crowd did not appear particularly big, but as you would expect, make up in enthusiasm any shortfall in numbers. I write this in a plane over the Atlantic Ocean bound for Louisville, Kentucky, as the city hosts not only the World Masters Championships this week, but the actual UCI cyclo-cross World Championships next year. The whole Belgium-based ‘cross community travelling lock, stock and barrel to the States is an interesting prospect.

Will the fans travel? Is this one step too far in this globalisation obsession of the UCI’s? Can a compact crowd of colourful, cowbell-wielding whoopers create as much atmosphere as tens of thousands of grey-clad, beered-up, smoking Belgians? We intend to find out.

Andy Waterman of Privateer magazine – being younger, fitter, faster and more enthusiastic all round – has kindly agreed to race so that I can chew a pencil and ponder the future of cyclo-cross, whilst supporting from the sidelines with terribly British-style encouragement. There’ll be absolutely no whooping from this sourpuss, just the occasional: “Jolly well done”.

Huge thanks to Chris and Andrew from Trek for the loan of a Cronus CX. And Brian Roddy at Rolf Prima for the wheels. And Bill from Challenge for tubs and things. We’d have been stuck without you, guys.

Words: Ian Cleverly

Track racing was not a big feature of growing up in Wiltshire. We were pretty well served by outdoor concrete bowls within an hour’s drive – Cardiff in one direction, Reading in the other – but rarely made the trip, preferring riding our bikes to travelling in cars. I maintain that stance still, opting for the nearby race whenever possible. Spending hours cooped up in a car seems to defeat the object.

The other track within an hour or so’s drive was Calshot, the 160-metre wooden oval with dramatically steep banking initially built for the annual Skol 6 events, then retired to it’s permanent base in a vast former aircraft hanger on a spit of land jutting into the mouth of the Solent. The pine planks had, over the years, sunk between the uprights to an alarming degree, so that each lap became ‘bu-dum-bu-dum-bu-dum’, followed by smooth, ‘bu-dum-bu-dum-bu-dum’, smooth, ad infinitum. It was exhilarating and jarring in equal measure.

A training weekend a couple of years back organised by Dave Le Grys seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out the 142-metre replacement, another Ron Webb designed and built beauty (Manchester and the new Olympic velodrome in London, amongst others, are also the Australian’s work.)

Something had happened in the three intervening decades since my previous Calshot excursion. It was still thrilling, but also nausea-inducing. I fought to hold my line at the bottom of the banking, making the beginner’s error of backing off the power, sending the bike careering up the track. Even with one-to-one tuition, I couldn’t get my head round it. The carefree 14-year-old had turned into a lily-livered old git, green around the gills and trembling. I made my excuses and left. There’s no going back. The shallow concrete of Herne Hill is more suited to a man of my delicate disposition.

Thankfully, I still get the same buzz out of watching track racing as the first Skol 6 I saw at the Empire Pool, Wembley, in ’77. The domestic professionals were familiar enough – Mick Bennett, Steve Heffernan, Tony Gowland – but it was the great Patrick Sercu that I had come to see, and he duly delivered. Graeme Fife interviews Sercu in the next issue of Rouleur, by the way.

The Empire Pool was a draughty old wreck of a building, on its last legs, and what passed for music in those days was one scratched and worn vinyl copy of Popcorn by Hot Butter, one of the most infuriating ditties ever composed. Every lull in the action was filled with the kind of synthesizer noises that made one wish Mr Moog had never been born. It was still a great night out, though, especially for a bumpkin up from the Wild West Country for the night.

Now that I’m a sophisticated townie from the Big Smoke [Are you quite sure about this? Ed] a night at the track is still a hoot, especially when there is a Rouleur-sponsored team involved. So thrilled were we to be leading the pack after the opening round of the Revolution series in October that the Editor, photographer Taz Darling and myself made sure we were in Manchester for round two.

This turned out to be the kiss of death. Everybody commented on how great our jerseys looked (nice work, Biff) but it’s not much use being sartorially ahead when said jerseys are scraping along the boards, poor Joe Kelly and Sam Harrison making a hash of a Madison sling and retiring hurt. Look on the bright side: crashes get plenty of TV time…

This left Iljo Keisse, European Madison champion and Six-Day star, to fly the Rouleur flag in the final event of the evening. And what a great job he did of pulling back the break and setting Mark Cavendish up for a very popular win. Now, why would he do that? “Fix!” we hear you cry. Maybe. Who cares?

These events are great shows – no more, no less. Seeing the finest of British track riders alongside a smattering of European talent in a great velodrome with a World Champion turning on the style in front of a full house… what’s not to like? Here’s a clip of our man Keisse in the Devil.

The music has improved somewhat, too. Finally, 30 years of Popcorn nightmares have been laid to rest.

Tickets for the next Revolution on January 7 are available here.

Words and photos: Andy Waterman

It used to be the case that temperance, turbo training, skill and mechanical nouse were enough to ensure you were a contender in the underground brotherhood of domestic British cyclo-cross racing.

If more than 50 riders turned up for the senior men’s race at a National Trophy, the UK’s six race series of UCI sanctioned events, you were unlucky.

If more than 40 riders finished you were unlucky.

If you got lapped, you were unlucky.

If you didn’t finish in the top 30, you were unlucky.

How times change.

Things haven’t been going great for me this season. I could blame the half-dozen Belgian full-timers who religiously cross the channel once a fortnight to bag our UCI points; I could blame the Under 23’s, who remain too few to support a race of their own, but too numerous to allow much room for the talentless, hardworking privateer everyman; or I could blame the gridding system, which rewards the best riders while punishing the worst.

I could blame any number of factors, but the real culprit is Talent, or a lack of.

Cyclo-cross, for so long a true stalwart of glamour-free cyclesport alongside 24-hour time trials and audaxes, has become the belle du jour, enticing hugely talented riders from across the cycling spectrum.

Mountain bikers: check; crit specialists: present; roadies: here sir!

There’s still no money in it, in this country at least, but the competition has become fierce. To get a result nowadays you need to be an athlete, not just a grafter.

I can’t be bitter. Talent was always going to usurp the virtues of temperance, turbo training, skill and mechanical knowhow eventually. And hey, I had a good few years – I mean at first I couldn’t believe my luck: there were only about three of us taking it seriously, and the results came thick and fast. And while I was getting those decent results I was having about as much fun as you could possibly hope to have with a heart rate of 180bpm on a cold, wet and muddy Sunday afternoon.

No, it’s nice to see some new blood discovering the joy of CX, and the string of bad results won’t put me off.

The cyclo-cross weekend has become part of my routine now. Travelling up on a Saturday; stretching the legs on the turbo in the hotel room on Saturday night; eating a fried breakfast on Sunday morning before getting to the course at 9.30am to assist the veterans and women on the team. That’s one of the nice things about cross: shorter races mean you can help each other out, working in the pits for your team-mates, them returning the favour later on.

Then at midday it’s into race mode. Get dressed and onto the course; experiment with tyres and pressures; practice the technical sections to get them down pat; eat, drink, back on the turbo to warm up for the race.

The racing itself invariably flies by, almost unnoticed: getting it over and done with is as much a relief as a pleasure. Instead it’s the banter and the processes around the racing that become the story. The van loads of wheels, the container loads of kit, the piss-taking and the practicing – cross quickly becomes a lifestyle.

This weekend we’re going to Bradford to race at the fearful Peel Park – a natural bowl with a steep, slick and slippery off-camber descent that has proved to be a crowd favourite every year I’ve been racing. With the weather finally turning wintery, it’s likely to be complete hell.

I can’t wait.

The photos here were taken a fortnight ago at the National Trophy race in Derby. I finished 41st, six and a half minutes behind the winner, Floris de Tier of Belgium. If I can avoid getting lapped in Bradford, I’ll be a happy man.

Andy is Deputy Editor of Privateer magazine and a member of the ViCiOUS VELO team of wastrels and ne’er-do-wells.

Words: Jack Thurston  Photos: Wig Worland

By the third night, the roads are strewn with bodies. “It looks as though a serial killer has been on the loose, wantonly slaying cyclists and laying their bodies in a ritual manner at the side of the road,” says Kieron Yates, slurring into an audio recorder he carried while riding the 1,230km from Paris to the western tip of Brittany and back, in the company of the world’s toughest cyclists. “Occasionally they are covered with bin liners or a bit of matting, a silver survival blanket, as though a generous member of the public wanted to hide the bodies from the view of the other passing cyclists.”

The bodies are laid out on verges and pavements, in front gardens and parking lots, utterly exhausted cyclists who have finally given in to the overpowering urge to rest, to close their eyes and slip into unconsciousness. Yates, himself wired and fatigued, has drawn the obvious parallel: sleep and death are brothers, two takes on oblivion, each a simulacrum of the other. Sleep, the essential, quotidian negation of consciousness. Death, the final, inescapable and infinite sleep, the negation of life.

“When you start to feel that you’re actually falling asleep while riding; that’s when your tiredness is becoming dangerous,” says Pete Kelsey of the Willesden Cycling Club, tackling his first Paris-Brest-Paris. “That’s when you need to get off the bike, find some shelter – a park bench, any flat surface – and set your alarm for fifteen minutes. I wouldn’t normally find myself sprawled out at three o’clock in the morning on a garage forecourt, but you’ve entered a parallel universe and it seems normal… but it’s not normal.”

It is very far from normal. Wig Worland’s photographic account lays bare the nihilistic qualities of PBP, an almost unimaginably arduous journey through a featureless landscape of dull, rolling farmland (with over 9,000 metres of climbing, it is by no means flat) that ends where it begins. You have to ask the question: what kind of person subjects themselves to a race like this? What is going on in their exhausted, sleep-deprived minds? Motivations are hard to fathom and every rider is different, but there is something that unites them all: it is about going to the limit, and then some, but coming out alive. Which is greater, the mental challenge or the physical? After all the body can be trained to perform, but can the mind be trained to suffer?

On December 28, 1963, a 17-year-old Californian high school student by the name of Randy Gardner was the subject of a sleep deprivation experiment. He was also going for a new World Record for staying awake, setting a target of 264 hours, or eleven days. It remains unbroken as the longest documented case of staying awake. By the second day Randy was experiencing difficulty focusing his eyes. By the fourth, he had become irritable, suffered memory lapses, slurred speech and found it impossible to concentrate. He began to see things that weren’t there. Five days into his marathon of sleeplessness, he became convinced he was an NFL player and would get agitated with anyone who disputed this. By the ninth day Gardner was unable to finish his sentences, lost all facial expression and developed hand tremors and involuntary jerks in his upper arms. Keep laboratory rats awake for a fortnight and they will die. That could be why the Guinness World Records no longer accepts sleep deprivation attempts due to the health risks involved.

Sleep deprivation impairs the functioning of the frontal lobe, the part of the brain where much of our humanity resides. The frontal lobe gives us our powers of reason, memory, self-awareness, empathy, language, innovation, and critically when riding a bicycle at speed, the ability to do multiple things at the same time and to assess risks and react appropriately.

Extract from Rouleur Annual 5, on sale now

Words: Rohan Dubash

Rohan and Rouleur Editor Guy Andrews host our first Road Bike Maintenance Evening  in London on Monday, December 5. It will be a closed event and space is limited. We have goody bags for budding mechanics courtesy of Park Tools, Finish Line lubricants, DT Swiss and Continental tyres. See you there.

A few years ago I was working in a high-end road bike shop and approached by a customer who was complaining about noise coming from the rear hub of his Colnago EPS. It was a very nice bike with all the trimmings and a full Campagnolo Record 10-speed groupset, the top of their range at the time. I asked him to pop his wheel out so I could feel the bearings. When I saw him struggling it became clear that he was not well versed in something as rudimentary as wheel removal. For starters, he tried to remove the wheel while the chain was half way up his cassette and on the large chain ring and, to make matters worse, thanks to the fact that he was running his brakes very close to the rim, his tyre got stuck between the pads. I told him to open the quick release to make his life easier and he said “What’s that?” – a comment that surprised me as he had owned the bike for several months. I showed him the small brake release buttons on his Ergopower levers and he said “Oh wow, I never knew they were there and nobody has ever told me to position the chain before taking out the wheel. Thanks… that’s much easier.”

It was at this point that I realised that sometimes the things we take for granted are not always obvious, which is why we want to share with you some simple tips about correct bike set up and adjustments that will make your life easier and your cycling more enjoyable…

Wrapped, Rouleur issue 7

To me, fresh bar tape indicates a state of mind – as, for that matter, does a spotlessly clean bike. The former world pursuit champion and Six-Day star Tony Doyle would agonise over the wrap of his bars and have them re-done, even minutes before a pursuit heat, if they weren’t perfect. Nothing left to chance, pride in your workplace, as it were. Whenever I see freshly fitted white bar tape, I am reminded of a passage from The Rider by Tim Krabbé: “Kleber is standing in front of me. We greet each other. I point to his bars. ‘New tape?’ He smiles apologetically. ‘For morale.’” Exactly.

Delta, Rouleur issue 5

Computer modelling and new materials now produce better brakes made out of less material, which meant the Delta route was washed aside by the super-efficient dual pivot caliper and the more user-friendly combined brake and shift levers. Even though the Delta has gone, it certainly left its mark as component design moved on, perhaps for the better. But let’s face it: love it or loathe it, and function aside, has there been anything since as aesthetically pleasing as a Delta?

Colnago, Rouleur issue 4

But maybe the final decades of the 20th century were the golden years for frame design and manufacturing. After all, it took ten years to make a better carbon frame than the C40, and customers now demand new developments every year. It is sad to say, but Colnago has to change, and change it will. But whatever happens in the coming years, Colnago is still the name that instantly conjures up images of countless victories, quality products, innovative engineering and a love of the bicycle – a love of cycling.

SSC, Rouleur issue 3

Time moves on and the days of the hand built wheel have all but gone. A new, almost brutal, technology has been fuelled by CAD programs, the demands of less weight coupled with greater strength and the eagerness of designers to push the boundaries using their imagination and new materials. Yet still the hand built wheel will not die. When adversity calls, many turn to a traditional wheel. One has to understand that the bike is a sum of parts. Each component must work in harmony. If a part fails to do this, unreasonable demands may be made on others. Did Hincapie’s choice of wheel in the 2006 Paris Roubaix make unreasonable demands on other parts of his bike? A wheel  may well be stiff and strong but is that enough?

Campagnolo, Rouleur Issue 8, 23 and 24

That afternoon changed everything for me. I found myself collecting catalogues and posters scrounged from local bike shops. The more I read, the more obsessed I got. Holdsworth’s Bike Riders’ Aids and its pages of European cycling exotica was my bible. It had beautiful photos and sketches of Campagnolo components with weights, prices and brief résumés for each product. I used to pore over those pages for hours, committing almost every word to memory, and writing out imaginary build lists with Campagnolo, Cinelli and Clement.

Today when you receive any modern bicycle part it is accompanied (or should be) with a heap of warranty information, disclaimers and a comprehensive instruction manual written in several languages, labelled with repeated warnings about excessive torque, use with non-associated parts and danger of injury – or even death – if you choose to ignore the manufacturer’s recommendations. In 1982, all you got was a simple picture of a rear derailleur sitting underneath a set of sprockets with sparse text explaining how the travel adjustment screws should be set – nothing more, nothing less. It was not the mech itself but this greaseproof paper instruction sheet that set me thinking. There was no question about the emotional gratification of finally getting my hands on my very first bit of Super Record gear, but that shiny instruction sheet that lay flattened out in front of me had been carefully folded by someone and placed in the box, prompting me to think about how that iconic component part ended up sitting on the dining room table. Up until then, a product was simply a product – lovely as it may be – but the moment I opened that box I began to consider that there might be more to owning it than simply ownership itself.

Guest blogger Ian Franklin waxes lyrical from Thailand and recommends you join him for a ride in the warmth of Chiang Mai.

I wake up in the morning, decide to do the hills, go out with the flatlanders or down to the velodrome. Everyday I have that choice and most days the sun shines. I have no snow, ice, cold winds or inclement weather to stop me. Just occasionally, during the rainy season, a deluge keeps me at home on the turbo trainer.

My riding colleagues here in Thailand share this idyllic life though some still have to work. They arrive here from a variety of countries. In the past couple of years I’ve ridden with people from all over the world, as well as a Frenchman who masquerades as Francis Moreau, although we all know that he is in fact Tony.

Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand attracts all kinds of rider and most of us have some kind of eccentricity that led us away from our grown-up children in farangland to live in a country where the riding opportunities are limitless but the racing limited.

Here I can’t time trial or ride LVRC events but I have learnt to road race on a mountain bike. There are occasional events for the 55-plus riders (sometimes 60-plus). Last month I rode such a race over 17km that headed straight up a mountain. Twenty-five riders aged dwindled to a mere half dozen after 5 kms and then down to two – just a Thai rider and me. The last kilometre went around a few hairpins and soared into the sky whereupon the Thai just took off. I was left nursing  second place. I could never do mountains.

The Thais know how to organise and the podium presentation saw two attractive girls handing out the trophies in the manner of the Grand Tours. Free food, free water, music and dancing rounded off the event which, with the various categories (elite, over 85kgs, juniors and so on), attracted some 250 riders.

One local bike shop owner – a former SEA Games champion – organises events on a fairly grand scale. Last week he promoted the three-day Masters Tour of Chiang Mai consisting of an 88km hilly road race, a 40km circuit race and a mass start of all 150 riders who pelted up and down a dual carriageway at close on 50km per hour, then finished up the same treacherous mountain that ruined my chances a couple of weeks before. I didn’t ride. ‘Masters’ included elites and juniors…

Vets were categorised up to the age of 50-plus and at 63 I was not prepared to test my legs against super-fit 50-year-olds. The second day hosted some MTB circuit races that I competed in, finishing second again in a field of over-55s. Organisation was impeccable, with police outriders, more dancing girls, a mass of trophies and lunch at the famed Chiang Mai Night Safari.

There are no formal clubs and Thailand Cycling Association does not seem to understand cycle sport. Here, at the local 333m velodrome, we recently watched the national junior track championships and suffered the painful sight of 14-year-olds riding a 70-lap points race in 34-degree heat. Everything has to be outsized, huge and challenging.

Life as a cyclist out here in Thailand is always full on. Mondays we ride 120km in the hills; Tuesday evenings it’s a bash with the Thai chaingang of 40 riders who tear up and down the Canal Road; Wednesdays it’s the velodrome for three hours;  Thursday morning and I’m out with the flatlanders quietly spinning  for a couple of hours, readying for an assault on the local 11km mountain in the early evening. Fridays it’s back for an easy ride with the local expat groups in preparation for Saturday’s hard 150km. Sundays? I stay in bed.

There may be floods, riots and general mayhem in Thailand but at least I don’t have to suffer the British winter and have long since discarded my wardrobe of Roubaix thermals and overshoes.  Any retired cyclist could no better than winter out here in Chiang Mai. The weather is pleasant, there are many riders to join up with and, most importantly, the cost of living  (food, rent, massage) is cheap. You could probably live here for three months for the cost of your heating bills in the UK.

Worth thinking about on your chilly ride tomorrow…

Words: Claire Beaumont Photos: Andy Waterman

Guest Blogger Claire Beaumont from Condor Cycles warms to the cold and makes light of the dark…

I don’t hate winter, I embrace it. It is this mid-point in the transition to winter that I don’t care for. While everyone else is still trying to hang on to temperatures in double figures, I yearn for it to drop and stay low.
Yesterday it was biting and cold, today a little mild. If I wear legwarmers I’m too hot. Should I start in a gilet? Arm warmers aren’t quite suitable anymore. Should I go with the 3/4 fleece-lined tights or stick with bibshorts and knee warmers? My glove choice is always off and I end up with sweaty palms after 40 minutes.

What I want is the cold. I really enjoy ambling along a lane, pulling my buff up around my face and snuggling in.
I have this pair of Endura bib longs that I’ve had for years. They fit really well – by chance, I think, because I bought them in a rush for £10 in the sale. The Roubaix fleece comes right up my tummy like a security blanket. There are these foot loops too and they keep the cuffs in place and wrapped around my ankles.

And, you know what else? I love those moments when you stop at a traffic light, look across to your companion and see steam rising off their body.

How about that feeling when your face is really chilly and your eyes feel a bit strange and you have to blink a bit? Then they go a little watery. That’s the cold and that’s winter.
I like seeing the fog and mist below me, stuck down a valley or a hill. I like to see a rolling view not blocked by the tree leaves. I like getting up in the morning and riding from darkness to dawn to daylight, watching everyone wake up.

When you finally get to your cafe stop or back home and walk indoors, that whoosh of warm air sweeps over you, cheeks turn pink, nose shines red like a beacon and toes tingle. Most people just take a moment to sit there in their baselayer and tights. I sit there smiling smugly.
”Yeh, I’ve just been out, in the cold. Now for something hot and well deserved. Maybe a mince pie or bit of crumble.”

I find myself perusing winter clothing with great enthusiasm. In the summer I never normally pay attention but the winter presents itself with a real need to be dressed correctly, and as you’d imagine I have a fair collection of winter apparel. But, I want more. I get engrossed in technical features. Maybe I like the winter wear because you get all tucked in, covered up and look rather svelte. Christmas excesses disguised under a thermal wrap.

My winter rides are, as they should be at, base tempo for a couple of hours. However, as a cyclo-cross racer, this is my time of year. I like to ride at a fair old lick around Regent’s Park to keep my fitness up. I meet with my fellow female accomplice on Tuesday evenings for some covert cyclo-cross in a dark park. We do a fair bit of standing around, working out mini courses. Then we smash about like idiots and stop and decide what drill to do next. Thus my outfit must be breathable, must not flap, but also be comfy and warm.

For those who dread the season all I can say (and it’s such a cliche) is :

There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad preparation.

Ever considered running a cycling race? Got what it takes? Read this, think carefully, and then do it. Just be ready to put heart and soul into it…

The Premise

Start by moaning to anyone prepared to listen about how poorly presented bike racing is in your chosen domain – in this case cyclo-cross in the UK – without any actual intention of getting involved per se, hoping to throw some ideas in the mix, then neatly step back for others to take on the baton. Fellow lovers of the sport will back everything you say, before disappearing in the shadows. For the moment, you and your brilliant ideas are all alone.

The Hard Sell

No sponsor, no cash, equals no flash. Times are hard and persuading a company to part with a big bundle of notes for what is essentially uncharted waters is never going to be easy. I got lucky and found someone who believed in the idea soon enough. You may have to work harder for it.

Distribution Network

Putting together three big races when previous organisational experience is limited to a nine-year-old’s birthday party, ending in your son and his best mate exchanging blows, does not preclude you from the task ahead. Find an existing event that needs bells and whistles, offer your services to the organiser (they’ll be glad of the interest) and, with a lot of graft and a splash of cash, you have a race that people actually want to attend.

Keep on Delegating

Around this point, you will realise you are hopelessly out of your depth and require assistance. Call on favours, use bribes, promise the earth, but get help before it swamps you. If not for Laura and Konrad from Rapha, I would have abandoned ship long ago.

Work / Life Balance

Hah! Forget it. Your day job will suffer, sinks will remain unblocked, firewood unchopped and the family neglected, and riding your bike will become a distant memory. It will soon pass…

Anti-authoritarianism

Sport governing bodies are one of life’s necessities, but it is amazing how much can be done without their involvement. Keep asking questions and you will probably be told no. Keep your head down and crack on and it’s fait accompli.

The Social Network

Like it or not, Facebook and Twitter are your friends. Pump out the information. The web is an insatiable beastie, just keep pouring snippets down its gullet. Cycling websites likewise.

Sit Back and Relax…

Everything is in place for the big day, so rest easy and watch the action – except there are stalls to be set up, beer to be shifted, banners to be erected, press reports to be written, results to be pored over, toilets to be cleaned: all this and more. Anyone actually trying to hold a conversation with you will notice a distracted, faraway look in the eyes that will make them wish they hadn’t bothered. Sincere apologies to all those well and truly blanked by yours truly.

And that’s about it. If you can cope with that lot and still come out the other side with a smile on your face, then get stuck in and do something for the sport instead of moaning about it. If I can do it, anyone can.

The smiles and thanks from all and sundry make the whole shebang worthwhile, trust me.