Broken dreams and Olympic bones

Oh dear, how things can change so quickly, for the better or worse. Last Wednesday for me it was for worse. During a fateful game of ultimate Frisbee at the campsite where my parents were staying, a wayward throw from my brother ended in disaster. Running to stop it from going into someone else’s pitch I couldn’t stop, hit a post in the ground, smacked my head against the caravan and somewhere during this most graceful of falls, broke my collar bone. I didn’t even stop the damn Frisbee. Yes, yes, I know, I’m an idiot... yes, yes, I’m sure the team are happy, but unfortunately these kinds of things occasionally happen. An interesting trip to the hospital confirmed what I suspected, although I wasn’t entirely sure of exactly everything they were saying. An even more interesting phone call to the hospital the next day organised an appointment for the next week. I say organised, It was more a question of repeating myself until they gave me a date for something. There was much hilarity at both ends of the phone as they passed it between themselves trying to say something I understood well enough, funnily enough they all ended up saying the same thing.

Obviously this means no riding for a few weeks (trois bonne semaine), but hopefully I’ll be on a turbo soon enough (I never thought I’d say that!). I enjoyed the rest of my time my family was over doing various things and going out for a meal, but as soon as they left the boredom set in. In fact they only left two days ago, but it feels like a week. Even a one hour ride broke up the day a little bit, luckily the Olympics have started and so I have something to watch on TV. The Olympics also brings me onto the subject of my blog this week (decided after a conversation with another Brit in France at the moment, Josh Andjelkovic and because I have no cycling to talk about), which is how and why I started cycling in the first place.

Imagine, 4 years ago, give or take a week, the Carr family are on one of their famous caravanning holidays, this time down near Lands end. The weather is typical of that of a British summer, bleak. Instead of an outing to a nearby landmark we are instead huddled around the small television we have brought down watching the Olympics. An event that has always fascinated me as it appeals to my sense of scale, the best of the best of the best and yet still human. During that holiday I formulated the idea that I wanted to compete in the Olympics one day, doing what I didn’t know, but I wanted to be part of it. We watched several events, none of which I thought would suit my physique, I was never going to be a boxer and my archery skills had never been tested. But later on the track cycling events came on. We watched Bradley Wiggins storm to victory in the individual pursuit, the gold of his full set of Olympic medals that year. Something about this appealed to me, the roar of the crowds as they chased each other round the track, the incredible speeds they were going and surely it couldn’t be that hard? Cycling was what I was going to do at the Olympics one day, I decided there and then. I was 15 at the time and had always been ambitious (not that I’ve lost any of that), but this was a snap decision, influenced by nothing other than what I’d seen on the TV. I was determined to see it through and so the next day when I woke up and hadn’t forgotten about it I got on my dad’s mountain bike and rode the mile or so to the shop down the road to fetch some stuff. It felt like a marathon! I was in a state when I got back but I knew it wasn’t going easy, a future Olympian must work and train hard if they are to win.

The rest of the holiday was eagerly spent waiting to get home and get on a proper road bike; I needed to start straight away if I was to stand any chance of getting anywhere. My parents wouldn’t buy me a bike as they thought it was just another fad that would soon pass. Instead I managed to borrow one from a friend that had done triathlons; it was far too small for me, but that didn’t matter, I was king of the road. I got some Lycra shorts and a cycling top for my birthday (a step into the unknown for a 16 year old boy) and now I looked the part. All I needed to do now was get good. I joined the local cycling club, Wolverhampton Wheelers, and started to go on some club runs. The first one I went on I forgot the shoes I was borrowing (my mum drove me to the meeting point) and so had to do the first 25 miles in my trainers...on SPD pedals....good times. The chairman at the club at the time, Robin Kyte, decided I might have an ounce of talent and helped me out with all sorts of things, from training to mechanics, but mainly mechanics (to this day I am useless at fixing my bike). He helped me start racing that next season, 2005; I was a first year junior and a long way behind these people who had ridden for years. This was shown up when I competed in my first junior national series event (my first proper road race). The Sid Standard memorial was 16 laps of a circuit making up 120km, a distance that, at the time, meant nothing as I was dropped after 3 laps and nearly lapped twice before eventually pulling out.

I soldiered on though and got better, throwing myself in at the deep-end whenever possible. This is how I learnt and how I am still learning, by trying what I don’t consider myself capable of doing. The rest, as they say, is history, although not a particularly long one. I still haven’t stopped dreaming of competing in the Olympics, although now, the way British Cycling run the show, Its extremely unlikely I’ll ever get my chance. Not that I knock it entirely, BC run the best track squad in the world by far and it’s something to be very proud of, but if you aren’t in, you’re out and it’s hard to keep up with riders that are given all the support when you are given none. But representing my country is still the ultimate for me, it sounds strange, turning pro would be great but I’d love to be given a Great Britain kit to ride in. Hell, I’d buy the kit and pay my expenses if it meant doing what I wanted (If you are from British Cycling and reading this, I am serious). Maybe it’s not so good once you are doing it, but if anyone on the GB squad thinks this, I’d gladly take their place.

Thinking about it, it’s strange that I started cycling just because I watched the Olympics and actually got so far. At that age a lot of things were fads for me that I’d start and stop within the month, if not the week. Most cyclists are from cycling families, but my parents were canoeists, my mum loved the slalom and my dad did some flat water racing (I believe). But my granddad (John Bird, but known to us as gramps) was a cyclist, this I only learned after I started. He was one of the founder members of the BLRC having worked for Percy Stallard and used to ride his bike everywhere. He once told me he was invited to do a time trial down near London, but could only afford the train fair home. He had to ride down with his race wheels strapped to his forks, compete and then get the train back. These were times when this was pretty normal, but I still think they make the cyclists of today look like wimps. I always enjoy listening to his stories, of which there are many and think about all the times he must have ridden the same roads as me at one point, because he has ridden pretty much all the roads that exist and no longer exist in and around the West Midlands. He still manages to get out on his bike very occasionally, although not quite as fast as he used to at the grand age of 82.

Hopefully, I’ll still be cycling at that age, but right now I have a bone that needs fixing before I can get in the saddle and break the monotony of a day doing nothing.

Until next time,


Sjáumst síðar


Nice one Nicole!