Not a proper Tour de France

 

The new eight-day women’s Tour de France  Femmes

announced for July 2022 is a significant and welcome development.

But as tough as they claim it will be it seems to have escaped everyone’s attention that it will be less than half the distance of the original women’s Tour which spanned 17 stages over 18 days when it ran in the Eighties.

Back in 1984 and 1985 the women’s race ran ahead of the men, both sharing the grand finale on the Champs Elysees allowing the victors – men and women –  to enjoy the plaudits of the crowds  on the podium together.

1985 Tour finale (photo by Phil O'Connor) with the women and the men sharing the podium on the Champs Elysees, Maria Canins and Bernard Hinault the overall winners, Hinault for the fifth time.

However, running the two Tours together proved a logistical challenge, and was one reason why this format was discontinued.

Clearly, the 2022 course will be tough, but it still falls far short of providing the women with proper Grand Tour. 

The original version took in the Pyrenees and the Alps, whereas next year’s event is limited to take in the Vosges Mountains where it will finish on La Super Planche Des Belles Filles, which the men climb a few weeks before.

The penultimate stage is also a cracker, finishing at the ski resort of Le Markstein. It features three tough climbs, Petit Ballon, Col de Platzerwasel and Grand Ballon.

So it is good news that the vibrant and popular women’s road racing scene has at last being rewarded with a “Tour de France”, almost four decades after the first. One day perhaps the women will merit, a full Tour de France

The women’s 2022 Tour will start on the Champs Elysees on the same day the men’s race, finishes there.

To summarise, it will comprise four flat stages, two over hilly terrain and two mountain stages.

"It's a balanced route that will suit several types of riders," said women's race director Marion Rousse.

Men's Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said he hopes the women's race will have longevity on the calendar, but making it a financial success could prove tough.

"If it had been [sustainable], the women's Tour would have been held for 40 years," said Prudhomme.

"The biggest challenge is to broadcast the race. We've done a good job, with the race starting the same day as the men's race ends in Paris."

However tough the eight stages will be the race surely cannot compare with the severity of those two first editions, in 1984 and 1985.

They were controversial in challenging the view - held by men but not by women – that females couldn’t race a three-week race.

We know of course that women can and did so back then, with fantastic racing.

“Fears of too high, too long, proved groundless,” wrote American journalist Owen Mullholland who like me, covered both events.

 

So let’s take a trip back in time, to a

A proper Women’s Tour de France.

The story has featured in a previous blog here, but it bears running again, to put next year’s offer into its perspective.

The 1985 British team for the Tour de France Feminin: 
Catherine Swinnerton, Mandy Jones, Pauline Strong, Judith Painter, Maria Blower and Linda Gornall. (Photo by Phil O'Connor)

I984 saw the creation of a three-week long women’s Tour. Although it was repeated in 1985, that’s as good it got for women’s stage racing.

Looking back across the four decades since, women’s professional road racing has developed and grown impressively but there is still a way to go before women share parity with the men, unlike in Triathlon, for instance.

Not since 1985 have the women had a decently long stage race!

In that first women’s Tour of 1984, Britain’s Judith Painter was a revelation. She was third on stage 12 at Grenoble in the Alps and second on stage 14 at La Plagne.  The overall winner was American Marianne Martin.

The 1985 Tour de France Feminin  was won by Italy’s Maria Canins, the former cross-country skier.

These two three week Tours each totalled 748-miles and they were a triumph for women’s road racing. They ought to have become the benchmark by which women’s cycle sport could develop.  But the chauvinists in the UCI world governing body thought women weren’t capable of riding such distances!

The UCI  ruled that the 1984 Tour was too long for women, and introduced a new rule that restricted women to racing 12 stages.

But the UCI were out smarted by the 1985 Tour organisers. They complied with the UCI by running a 12-stage race, and then simply added a five-stage race at the end of it, with a rest day in-between!

The first event was called the A-event, or Tour National while the second event, the B-event, they called the Champs Elysees.

Voila! They had 17 days of racing!

The women’s tour ran two hours ahead of the men, over the same course, but starting further along it and finishing at the same place.

There were two classifications, one for each of the women’s tours.  The first race was decided on overall time, the second on points. And the organisers cleverly combined the two results to decide the overall winner of both!

Canins won five stages in total, including two in the Alps and one in the Pyrenees and took the climbers award.

France’s Jeannie Longo was second in both events and therefore second overall.

It was a tough event, stages of 60 miles and more. From 72 starters there were 65 finishers.

Clearly, women were capable of competing in long stage races.

They were great events. I know!  We’d drive out at the head of the men’s Tour, and catch up the women, following them awhile and seeing the action, before overtaking to get the press room well ahead to set up the evening’s work.

But it was not to be. The organisers cited technical difficulties of running two events on one day over the same course.

After 1985, the Tour got smaller and smaller, down to 10 stages, then five.  Britain’s Nicole Cooke won the 2006/7 editions, and Emma Pooley the 2009 race which was over four stages. After which it was discontinued, remerging – but only after a huge outcry from the women -  in 2014 as a one-day circuit race on the Champs Elysees, called La Course.

It was the 2012 London Olympics women’s road race which proved a catalyst for recent changes after their race proved more exciting to watch than the men’s!

Especially after Britain’s Lizzie Armitstead (now Deignan) won a silver medal – behind Marianne Vos of Holland – whereas the British men failed to deliver.

Armitstead’s silver in that showcase event led the Tour of Britain men’s race organisers, Sweetspot, to introduce the first women’s British Tour in 2014, still running today.

 

 

25th anniversary of empty promises

 

This year sees the 25^th anniversary of the government’s ground breaking National Cycling Strategy launched in 1996. Ground breaking in that it had no funding!

Although robust campaigning has since forced government to throw a few £million at cycling,  it falls well short of the £5-7billions required which is still only a fraction of the transport budget.

The money needed to make the road safe for cycling is miniscule compared to the likes of current £27b earmarked for road building.

The fact that cycling has a major contribution to make in cutting carbon to slow climate change cuts no ice.

Poor funding has created a barrier to progressive cycle planning

Back in 1996  cycling accounted for 2 per cent of all journeys made. 25 years later there has been not much change.

The whole point of that so called strategy was to get people to switch from always driving to cycling some of those journeys. Over 70 per cent of all journeys made are of five miles and less.

And let's not overlook the many who do not drive and would cycle if the conditions were safer to do so. I'm thinking of Manchester in particular, where a great many people who don't drive have enthusiastically welcomed plans to build a city wide cycling and walking network.

It will cost £1billion! Which puts the government's meagre offering for the country as a whole into perspective.

As far as I know Manchester is still awaiting their £1bn, and doing what they can in the meantime.

It’s all very well to see more people taking up leisure cycling. But the major concern is to increase the numbers using the bike for work, to the shops and other utility trips. For this remains very low.

We know why.

Hostile traffic conditions and roads built to process fast traffic puts people off cycling on them. The few good cycling facilities that have been created are too few. No town has a half-decent cycling network worthy of the name.

Fast forward to 2021 and cycling still accounts for less than 2 per cent of all journeys made.

So what’s happened in those 25 years? Not much.

Just more hot air, more promises to make the roads safer and too little funding to make any difference.

According to the stand-up comic and fantasist Prime Minister Boris Johnson – he of the misleading statements some call lies – cycling in England has “risen by 46 per cent.”

Is that 46 per cent of sod all?

Compare the numbers cycling with other modes such as the car and cycling makes barely a blip on the radar.

The following figures on transport use in 2019 from Cycling UK provide the clear perspective we never get from Johnson.

It's not just him stone walling of course. It's every prime minister in the past 25 years and beyond who have never given cycling issues much thought. 

This from Cycling UK.

“Cycling made up only 1% of the mileage accumulated by all vehicular road traffic (cycles are vehicles). In comparison, cars and taxis accounted for just over 77%. Both figures are more or less the same as they were in 2018."

This summer the prime minister rabbited on and on about how his government was improving conditions for cyclists.

He says: “Hundreds of new schemes have created safe space for people to cycle and walk…. (Not counting the councils who have ripped out cycling lanes)

"Spending on active travel this year will significantly increase – from the £257 million announced at last November’s Spending Review to £338m, a rise of a third. (The reality is £billions are needed)

"We will use the money to invest in more low-traffic neighbourhoods and protected cycle lanes.”

(Not counting all those ripped out by, among other places, Liverpool and Shoreham among others)

 

Johnson you will recall promised 40 new hospitals when there was no funding to build them. He promised to get “Brexit done”, so ending free movement  and so scaring off thousands of foreign workers…. no one to pick fruit, no one to pick up animals for market, too few HGV drivers to deliver fuel to petrol stations, food and goods to shops and businesses….

Cycling?

It’s the least of our problems. The biggest problem at the moment is Johnson.

What’s to be done?

 

1000 NIGHTS AGO...

 

1000 nights ago…

 

She went upstairs to her bedroom.

And closed the door.

1000 nights ago.

Not left the room since.

Well, perhaps three times.

Once a week she moves to the other bedroom for a couple of hours, while her room is cleaned and bed sheets changed.

Otherwise, only summer heatwaves have driven her from her bedroom haven, to seek cooler climes – in the cellar for a few days and nights.

To a spare bed set up especially, plus medical supplies, drinks, toilet.

That migration, down the stairs, can take up to  two hours.

With a rest period or even a night stopover in the living room, before the final descent.

One day, we hope, she will return, to join us downstairs.

But in the meantime, her life is on hold. 

Halted because of complicated medical issues these past two decades. It was thought to be ME. Took her out of school for her teenage years.

Then came a blessed recovery of sorts, a hopeful interlude 15 years ago, allowing a measured return to education, mindful to take regular rest periods.  Her health improved, even to the extent she travelled to the States, but convalescing was an element during her stay.

The high point came in moving away from home to digs for college.  Culminated in a degree in (TV and film production). She did a mid-term spell with CNN, London.

A driven character, full of energy, an organiser. Her managerial skills made her a natural leader of production teams making films as part of her degree course.  Well liked, she had many friends. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly, even now!  Used to be able to talk anyone under the table on current news issues.

Then came relapse, and a return home, with her furniture – now stored in the garage.

At last, she had the first diagnosis: POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia) – when too little blood returns to the heart).  Triggered by movement.

This from a private heart specialist, who subsequently arranged further tests at Kings College Hospital, Denmark Hill.

The second diagnosis – from the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore –Ehlers Danlos type 3 joint hypermobility syndrome. This leads to chronic muscular pain, can cause dislocations.

1000 nights.

EDs weakens the entire body, makes moving around painful.

A gradual degrading process.

When POTs kicks in the heart will suddenly increase to beat very fast and is combined with drop in blood pressure: result, dizziness, risk of feinting.  

When this occurred while out, she became scared. No idea what it was. She learned to sit down on a bench until it subsided.

In the beginning a few days rest would provide respite, until the next time, perhaps in a day or two.

Days regularly became punctuated with stops to allow rest and recovery.

She became fearful of travelling, of even going outside, so she stopped,

1000 nights ago.

Ehlers Danlos is a genetic condition, which weakens the connective tissue.  That’s the glue which holds bones, muscle, and all our internal organs together. Imagine a bendy chassis of a vehicle. It wouldn’t roll so well, if at all.

There is no cure.

Sensory disorders followed – hearing: too loud; sight: sudden movement too fast; colours – too bright.

This led to curtailing social contact with friends. There would be no more visitors to the house.

It became a quiet house.

She no longer viewed or sent emails, would not take phone calls. No television, no radio, very little reading. No newspapers.  No playing CDs, until recently – slow, quiet meditative sounds.

She maintains a simple, short exercise routine, as recommended for her condition.

Time has stood still. 

1000 nights and counting.

Birthdays go unacknowledged, as does Christmas, Easter, neither is celebrated. Too much for the brain to take in.

But she does whisper greetings, with a smile, to her parents, her carers.

And every day there are hugs.

She will permit herself a laugh occasionally, at the juggling antics of her parents taking things into and out of her room. Rare light moments. Usually she is lying still, to control POTS.  Eyes closed. Sound deadening headphones on for much of the time.

Very occasionally, she has expressed a wish to be free again.

One day is much the same as another.  Day is followed by night, which is often sleepless.

1000 nights.

Punctuated throughout each day by her carers to maintain her many needs.

After a while it was realised she also has PDA – Pathological Demand Avoidance. Which means avoiding doing anything. It is  common on the Aspergers / autism spectrum. This is undiagnosed, but no matter, she ticks all the boxes.

Also ticks the box for Obsessive Compulsion Disorder, when everything has to be done in a certain way.

Anxiety is of a higher order than you can ever imagine, is perhaps the most wearing and tiresome for the patient – and for the carers.

A scheduled home visit by anyone, gas boiler engineer, electrician, doctor on a rare occasions – there is no regular medical review.  These visits cause days of anxiety beforehand, and days of exhaustion afterwards.

Research into anxiety and its cause among those with EDS Joint Hypermobility has revealed that the area of the brain controlling anxiety is much larger than normal: making it Impossible to “feel the fear and do it anyway”.

Researchers have decreed that there is “the genetic predisposition to anxiety.  It seems there is a significantly higher prevalence of autonomic nervous system symptom (dysautonomia) in joint hypomobility patients.”

… “Processes compromising function in neuro-developmental conditions may occur in individuals with hypermobility – enhance vulnerability to stress and anxiety.”

1000 nights.

Then there are meltdowns; frenzied fury at something or other, flying fists, kicking - screaming, crying, swearing… fucking this and fuck that, Shiting this shitting that……

When it’s over it’s as though nothing happened.

She takes care to avoid Hypoglycaemia, which can lead to sugar crash.  She knows the symptoms – often has crackers or protein drink to hand, or will call for immediate food.

Her slow digestive tract means rather than say three set meals a day, she requires several small meals during the day.

The kitchen can be a busy place from morning, noon, through until late.

1000 nights.

 

Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome type 3 (hEDS) is generally considered the least severe type of EDS, although significant complications, primarily musculoskeletal, can and do occur. The skin is often soft and may be mildly hyperextensible. Subluxations and dislocations are common; they may occur spontaneously or with minimal trauma and can be acutely painful. Degenerative joint disease is common. Chronic pain, distinct from that associated with acute dislocations, is a serious complication of the condition and can be both physically and psychologically disabling.

 

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a condition characterized by too little blood returning to the heart when moving from a lying down to a standing up position (orthostatic intolerance). Orthostatic Intolerance causes light-headedness or fainting that can be eased by lying back down.

 

HOW COMMON IS PoTS? The incidence in the UK is unknown. However, it is probably under-diagnosed due to lack of awareness and non-specific symptomatology. It is five times more common in women and tends to affect people age 15 to 50.1 Apr 2016

Dysautonomia International estimates that POTS affects between one and three million people in the U.S. The majority of them are women.

Celebrating the Tour of Britain 1945 - 2021

As the Tour of Britain continues north to the Aberdeen finish in Scotland this Sunday, time to look back at the early turbulent years which spawned Britain’s premier cycle race. 

We have a bunch of rebels to thank for creating Britain’s tour, the British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) in the post-war years. The BLRC were a breakaway group defying the National body, the National Cyclists Union, by promoting road races on public roads. 

Racing was confined to time trials and track, although closed circuit road racing was permitted.

The NCU remained venomously opposed to this form of racing on public roads, which was so popular on the European continent. It would lead to conflict with the authorities, they feared, ignoring the fact that the BLRC had sought and gained police permission.

Nevertheless, the reactionary NCU tried all the tricks in the book to stop road racing until brought to heel by the international cycling union, the UCI who backed the rebels. In the beginning, the first Tour was the Brighton to Glasgow in 1945 - named the “Victory Marathon”, to celebrate the end of the War.

In the following years the Tour was sponsored by the Sporting Record, then most famously by the Daily Express. In 1954 it was the Quaker Oats tour. In 1958, it became the Milk Race, the longest running sponsorship in UK cycling history, lasting until 1993. 

All of this can directly be attributed to the BLRC, who handed the Milk Race on a plate to the British Cycling Federation formed in 1959, when the warring factions of the BLRC and NCU were forced to amalgamate to bring stability to the sport. 

During the final years of the Milk Race it overlapped with the new week long Kellogg’s pro tour (1987-94); this became the Prutour 1998-99. 

After a five-year break the Tour bounced back again in 2004, organised by Sweetspot, the current organisers. It began as a five-day and is now run in an eight-day format. 

Here are some of the famous home names who carried off victory. Scotsman Ian Steele won in 1951. 

He was followed by Ken Russell (1952), Gordon Thomas (1953) and Tony Hewson (1955). Party pooper who interrupted the party was France’s Eugene Tamburlini who won in 1954. As the Milk Race Bill Bradley won it twice, 1959 and 1960; Bill Holmes won it in 1961; Peter Chisman in 1963; Arthur Metcalfe in 1964; Les West in 1965 and ’67; Bill Nickson in 1976; Joey McLoughlin in 1986; Malcolm Elliott in 1987; Chris Walker in 1991; and Chris Lillywhite the final Milk Race in 1993.

 (Thanks to John Oxnard for the above details, provided for the Milk Race Reunion he organised in 2005). 

The Dutch won the Milk Race five times between 1969 and 1974, their Fedor Den Hertog winning twice. He made life a misery for the rest by setting such a high tempo whenever he hogged the front the acceleration killed off any conversation.

The Soviet Union became equally as dominant, and Poland and Czechoslovakia also took the laurels. The Milk Race was the big showcase race for the home riders. As well as the GB team fielding the best, there would be Wales, Scotland, while the Regions fielded the second best, giving youngsters a taste of the big time. In the mid-1960s very few police were involved and those who were had limited powers – there was no formal road closure order available back then. 

It took a death to prompt a police safety review of cycle road racing. The poor soul who died was Czech Zdenek Kramolis who was killed when he hit a lorry head on in the 1969 Milk Race. 

In the early days of the Milk Race there was no national escort group, and each police region the race past through provided only a few police to shepherd the race. Usually two of them. They had very little understanding of how fast a road race moves. Just as they were getting the hang of it, they’d reach the border of their region and hand over to new guys – who very often were new to this game, too. 

Riders could never sure if oncoming traffic would slow down, still less, stop for the race, and riders were instructed to keep to the left side of the carriageway, as per the Highway Code. There were static police at junctions to make the sure the race sped on its way. In theory! 

But one such officer, noting the race organiser’s car approaching from the slip road, put up his hand to hold the race while he cleared on-coming traffic from the main route! Phil Liggett, the race organiser driving the lead car, had a breakaway group up his bumper doing 35mph. He wasn’t about to stop. “Don’t stop me, Officer. Stop the traffic,” Ligs voice commanded over the PA. “I’m coming through.”

 And to the astonishment of the officer, Lig drove straight past him, followed seconds later by a breakaway group going full gas! At the stage finish a little later, Milk Race Controller Bill Squance tore a strip of the police inspector in charge of that section. It wouldn’t happen again, he was assured. 

Some of the police were more helpful than others. But then there was the Wrexham Kid in, er Wrexham!  His idea of control was to place his motorbike hard up alongside the peloton, making sure their wheels stayed on the left-side of the white line in the centre of the road! 

Policing improved dramatically in the 1980s, when Traffic Inspector Andy Relf of West Sussex was appointed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to improve police planning for the national cycle racing scene. Relf cut his teeth on cycle race policing at the 1982 World Road Race championships at Goodwood, in Sussex. 

And in 1994, he ran the police security for the Tour de France’s two day visit to Southern England. But even with vastly improved police control of the modern Tour, there are still risks. 

In 1998 there was the tragic death of PC Dave Hopkins when escorting the Prutour of Britain. How terrible that a man looking after the safety of others should lose his life doing so. Hopkins was a member of the 35-strong Police National Escort Group which brings oncoming traffic to a halt to allow the race through using both sides of the road. He received fatal injuries when in collision with a car 35 miles into stage five from Birmingham to Cardiff. An experienced motorcycle escort rider, he worked on cycling events and royal visits. The stage was cancelled. 

 As we can see, today’s Tour of Britain merits a huge police motorcycle and national (civilian) escort group operating a rolling road closure. 

 The one niggling doubt I had about safety when I was reporting the Tour of Britain a decade ago concerned the absence of static marshals at many of the side roads. Major and some minor junctions were usually covered but small roads often left exposed. 

I felt static marshals were essential, especially as the race uses the full width of the carriageway, often on the “wrong” side. The race back then relied almost totally on the police and national escort group rolling road closure to halt traffic. Is this the case today? 

I’ve been following the Television coverage and where the cameras have picked up side roads or car parks I have yet to spot a marshal. Am I being alarmist? Some roads were coned off. 

During my years covering the Tour de France I cannot recall seeing one side road without a marshal to hold traffic. And Le Tour is run on totally closed roads, not a rolling road closure. The possible consequences of leaving junctions unguarded doesn’t bare thinking about, with riders going flat out around blind bends! 

High profile winners of the Tour this past decade include Briton’s Bradley Wiggin (2013) and Steve Cummings (2016). Recent Continental stars to win include Mathieu van der Poel (2019) and the current world road race champion Julian Alaphilippe (2018), bidding for to win again this year.

The Irish comics in the Milk Race

After watching the live TV coverage of the opening stage of the Tour of Britain today, won by Belgium star Wout van Aert, I was delighted to see Irishman Rory Townsend take fifth.

For this provided me with the perfect cue for another Irish story in this second retro sketch of the former Tour of Britain Milk Race, the precursor of today's modern Tour. This time it’s a look at the less serious side of competition, interviewing a bunch of comics riding for Ireland, led by Sean Lally. Lally was one of the funniest Irish racing cyclists you could ever meet. Interviewing him and the Irish team during the 1978 Tour of Britain Milk Race was just one long belly laugh. Few riders could match Lally for laughs. Lally was the main culprit among the Irish; his face was seemed permanently creased with laughter lines. He had this reporter scribbling frantically to get down all he said. Also in the team were Billy Kerr, Tony Lally, John Shortt, Jim Maloney and Oliver McQuaid. Impossible to recall the facts of it, but it made a page in the mag… “Laughing all the way”. Fools? No. For they were also among the fastest finishers in the business. In the 50mph downhill Stoke on Trent finish that day, Shortt was fourth, McQuaid sixth, Sean Lally 10th. Tony Lally was the current Irish road champion, past winner of the Tour of Ireland and the Woolmark GP in England. Kerr won the Tour of the North at Easter and the Irish “25”. They coined the phrase, “Seriously funny”. For the lovely thing about the Irish is they will poke good natured fun at anyone and mostly at themselves. They won’t spare anyone, even the Americans when they first sent a team to the Milk Race. It was a big deal for the Americans. Nice guys, and very serious about everything, calling out to each other during the stage – “We’re on the climb now Michael. Are you OK?” The Irish boys were cracking up. And soon started imitating them…. Are youse still thar Patrick, you hang on a bit longer Patrick; we’re nearly over the railway bridge…. But don’t mock the USA. They were on a steep learning curve and got better every year, until their Matt Eaton won the 1983 Milk Race. Lally said his team has a great plan for the next stage. Did we want to hear it? Go on. “WE go like f… and hang on.” Cue for more raucous laughter. I daresay there must be a few comedians riding the 2021 Tour of Britain today. For example, race organiser Mick Bennett has some good lines. And did you know, he’s got racing form? He’s ridden a few Milk Races during an illustrious career which included two Olympic bronze medals in the team pursuit (1972 and 1976 Games), plus a Commonwealth Games gold. A look through the archives reveals a Milk Race best overall placing of 17th in 1978 – the year of my Irish team interview - with best daily placings of fourth in the prologue and 8th and 10th on stages. I recall a Bennett funny during the Scottish Milk Race. (The Scottish Milk Marketing Board was a separate entity to the other one which is why Scots had their own stage race). Anyway, Bennett was riding like fury in a bid to regain the leaders after a mechanical. It was quite a ride along winding lanes and he was going full gas. As soon as he regained the group, he turned his head to the following press car, raised his arm and gave us the thumbs up. He had some good quips. Just before a stage start riders and officials were all milling by the food wagon. Bennett was helping himself to a banana and whatever else would fit into his jersey pockets for the stage when he noticed that I’d spotted a big box of tea bags. “I never take those,” he said. Playing the straight man, I said. Why ever not? “Because they never hand up hot water,” came his deadpan reply.

My excitement at seeing my first big bike race - the 1963 Milk Race

The 2021 Tour of Britain is due to start next week.(recent edition pictured below). It’s not coming my way this year, so I’ll get my fix by recalling my excitement at seeing my first Tour of Britain – the amatuer Milk Race - way back in 1963.

“From Me To You” by the Beatles topped the charts that year. Just one of the many chart toppers to set our feet tapping and pedals turning. We played this Beatles hit on the juke box at the Poplar Café while awaiting for the amateur Tour of Britain Milk Race to come by on the Warrington to Macclesfield road. It was the first stage of the 1963 Tour, from Blackpool to Nottingham. The first Tour of Britain was sponsored by the Daily Express in 1951, and was a huge draw, pulling tens of thousands of spectators. It was proof of the power of press sponsorship. The Milk Marketing Board took up sponsorship in 1958, after professional Dave Orford first put the idea to them. It was to become the longest running cycle racing sponsorship in the history of the British cycling. It came to an end in 1993 when the government killed off the MMB monopoly. Today, over 60 years later, the new-look Tour of Britain is the reincarnation of the Milk Race. It is promoted by marketing company Sweetspot and fields some of the best elite pros in the game, reflecting Britain’s new international standing at the top of world cycling. But in this story I go back six decades to when this novice club rider and his friends first saw the Tour – then called the Milk Race. This was in 1963. The sight of this international road race gave us hope for the sport. In those days, the general public didn’t know much about racing. The Poplar café was an essential watering hole for truck drivers and cyclists, the latter heading for the Derbyshire Peak District. Pint mug of tea, full breakfast and two slice, juke box offering a wide selection of the current hits, including Tamla Motown, the Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers. No lingering there on Milk Race day, mind. We finished up and went outside, took up position with a good view across the huge gyratory under construction there, with slip roads down to the new M6 motorway taking shape, carving a wide brown scar across farmland. The race was quite a spectacle for my young friends and me. All the race vehicles – Fords - were milk white, decked out with roof racks and boards carrying the legend, Milk Race. Team buses came through first. They were a far cry from today’s huge team buses. In fact, they were small vans full of team baggage. Some 20 minutes later the announcer’s car came through, telling us that Great Britain’s Peter Chisman was alone in the lead. Pulses quickened. There was a magic about place-to-place racing, anticipation of the approaching hustle and bussle of athletic action which would, for a moment, make the highway its own. A police car headed the cavalcade, followed by official race vehicles all in white, then the lead car, headlights blazing, red lights on the roof flashing and a big head board announcing “Cycle Race”. Then, there he was. Pete Chisman, a big guy, must have been over six feet tall. Neatly cropped fair hair, muscled legs. Powering into view, sweeping around the roundabout, past in a flash, commissaire’s car at his back wheel, then a service car, a few press cars. Gone, leaving papers dancing in the slipstream. There goes Chisman, with his escort clearing the way. To be waved through traffic lights, waved across roundabouts. Nothing must be allowed to impede his progress. Mind you, oncoming traffic could be a problem in those days. Several long minutes passed before the main field sped through accompanied by the hum of tubular tyres on tarmac, the blaze of colour, a sea of exotic foreign faces and sun tanned limbs – the Poles, the Czechs, the Dutch, the Irish – not so suntanned - the home men in GB colours or riding for the Regions. They had been held up for several minutes at the swing bridge on the Manchester Ship Canal which explained Chisman’s big lead. But that win was no fluke. He had finished 4th overall previously. In the 1963 edition he won a total of five stages, wearing the yellow jersey of race leader throughout. After they race had whizzed by we returned to the Poplar’s, for more tea, and to discuss what we had seen. What was it that had so raised our spirits? Was it because cyclists were considered second class citizens to other road users? That was it. Afterall, cycling was in decline in the Sixties, as more and more people aspired to owning cars. If you were on a bike it was because you couldn’t afford a car, was the general consensus. Cycling enthusiasts barely registered on ordinary people’s radar back then. Oh, big races like this would always impress. The casual bystander, the crowds at the finish showed that if put on a big race they soon cottoned on. But otherwise cycle racing hardly made the news. Except when the annual Milk Race made the road its own. Well, almost its own, they still had to contend with oncoming traffic which didn’t always stop. But generally, other road users gave way, for once. That’s what we young cyclists liked. For a few brief moments, respect for two wheels.

Time for shunting

I've always been fascinated by railways and canals. Both are featured in the top photo which shows a small dock served by a siding. In the middle picture, running tender first, is a Britannia class loco. In the third picture a small shunter propels coal wagons around the steam shed. Dwarfing the shunter is a big blue loco, named City Hereford, waiting for the right of way to enter the shed.