CHAPTER FOUR

Fluke Win

According to legend, August 1999 was all about me beating the WCPP girls in the British Road Race Championships. If that was the case, I went a pretty odd way about it! The reality was very different. I was 16, this was GCSE year and I had two more years in school to look forward to. I was making progress in cycling and I just wanted some markers. Ahead in 2000 were the World Junior Championships and I was looking forward to those. August was all about proving to the system that we were just fine. I didn’t even want what I deserved, which was to be treated like the boys. I just wanted a little bit of support and to be left alone. Bradley Wiggins had won the World Junior Pursuit title the year before with his little team and I wanted to replicate that operation.

But things were changing very fast. By 2000, the support structure building around the WCPP had sucked into Lottery-funded, full-time employment a whole collection of individuals with a wide spectrum of abilities. In the preceding years, significant Lottery funding had already been entering the sport and many a job had come and gone. The transient and unstructured nature of British Cycling and the recent history of these short-term appointments were such that in the past not many seriously minded individuals with a professional attitude to a career had joined.

Now some able people were taking up various posts. In the main, the most able would be directed to the most attractive roles, working with the senior men. At the bottom of the priority list, in this male-dominated sport, was the support for junior women. Some had talent but most had an ability set inappropriate for their roles, and these were the people who would be gathered around me. Mostly, these individuals had the wrong attitude and skills, and too often they were ex-cyclists who had failed. They were lucky to find themselves in these jobs. That they were universally male may not have been a problem, but these were ‘lads’ who hadn’t sacrificed a steady career for their calling and who, regardless of their age, enjoyed the pranks that lads get up to. A clash of cultures was inevitable.

Late August 1999 was the catalyst for events that would have a huge negative impact on the rest of my career. I just wanted to win races. So far, I had been racing for five years and it had been against youth and junior girls and boys. How good was I really? I was confident in my own abilities, but I was hugely frustrated by the condescending way I was treated most of the time.

Winning the 800m event at Mildenhall against Helen MacGregor in 1998 was a pointer, but she was not on the WCPP. For two years I had been at the National Track Championships and sat in the stands with Dad as the senior women rode their races. Watching a race with Dad was an education; he would give a running commentary on the tactics predicting moves that were about to happen or moves not made that caused the loss of the race. Not that we were the only ones drawing comparisons between the relative performances of the women on the WCPP and myself. After I won the scratch race the previous year, an informed observer told me that I had raced more aggressively than anyone he had seen the night before at the senior women’s event over the same distance and I had finished my race several minutes faster than them. Even if the WCPP management were about to get a shock, here was one observer who could predict the outcome. As yet, I was still too young to join the WCPP, which was restricted to those in the Senior and Junior categories.

It might sound incredibly arrogant, but, such is youth and my confidence, I genuinely wasn’t focused on the Women’s National Road Race as a target in itself. I wanted to be racing to win in the international races; how I rode against the WCPP girls would be an indicator on my progress towards that goal.

When I turned 16 in April, I could convert my BCF road licence to ‘Junior Woman’. It was a bit crazy, because there were no junior women’s road races in the UK that year, but there were many races categorised ‘3VJW’ – featuring the least able of the amateur men (Category 3, out of 1, 2 and 3), juniors, veteran men and all women above U16. These races can be some of the hardest to win and most frustrating due to a majority of riders who are desperate for points to move up to the next category, yet who don’t know the tactics of how to race. A good wheel to follow is an elite rider returning to the sport after a long break. He will be Category 3 and has to pick up points before he can get back to Category 1 status. And then there are a lot of worthy clubmen enjoying their sport and contributing effectively. These are also good wheels. Now, with my new licence, I could enjoy this quality of racing.

In my first outing in this category in ’99, I tried to form a break with various men but none of the attacks stayed away, and it came down to a 40-rider bunch sprint. I had selected the right rider who, as I expected, took the lead into the last bend and then chose my moment to come off his wheel and sprint for the line to win the race. I’m not too sure how many senior women win such races; certainly I had never seen a result in Cycling Weekly where a woman had the win. A junior man winning his first-ever 3VJW race happens sometimes. A junior woman – in fact not a junior woman but a youth woman racing up as a junior – winning her first race against a full field of senior men, I think, remains unique. I rode back from the race with Dad having put down another marker, and it was back to school the next day.

The previous year when racing the Achterveld Tour in Holland, where foreign riders stay with host families, I had stayed with the Boterman family and became good friends with their daughter, Andrea, who was racing in the junior category in the Tour. After finishing my GCSEs, I took up their offer to return to stay with them again, this time for three weeks. I trained at Andrea’s club on their closed circuit, which even had a cobbled straight, and I took part in a number of local races and the Achterveld Tour. Each race was an important experience learning to cope in the large bunches that did not exist in the UK. After that we returned to the Alps in August, camping, and the grand cols around Barcelonette. Before we got there we took in the total eclipse of the sun in Alsace – a wonderful day which I will never forget.

Although the British Championship would be a key indicator of my progress, I wasn’t going to be obsessed by it and rest up. I wanted to enjoy my riding that summer. Craig and I fought every centimetre up every mountain – Vars 2,109m, St Jean 1,333m, Larche 1,948m, Allos 2,247m, Cayolle 2,326m and Bonette 2,802m – wheel to wheel past every kilometre post to the summit and then started the stopwatch to see how far behind Dad was.

Having once missed seeing the women’s Tour, this year, with the help of the new-fangled internet we planned where we could watch it. There was to be a mountain-top finish at Vaujany, where I would have the opportunity to see at first hand those I might be joining in three years’ time. On the day we saw the women’s Tour, we first rode the Alpe d’Huez and then went to Vaujany. There was all the usual excitement of a pre-race publicity caravan with sponsors tossing out freebies. At the top, the crowds were huge, encroaching onto the road to a point where the competitors would have to force a route through them. The expectation was building as the first motorbikes appeared and then, finally, the riders, already strung out in groups, led by a breakaway of three. It was the first time I had seen such a mass of elite women riders and the noise, colour and sense of excitement were overwhelming. I couldn’t wait until I got in there, racing with them.

We finished the holiday a bit tired but very happy to have crammed in so much activity. Within a week of our return, I received my GCSE results, lots of ‘A*’s and ‘A’s, and even a ‘B’ in Music; I had confirmed my A-level choices with my teachers and was looking forward to starting those. Then it was Mildenhall time again. We caught up with our friends, sat around the track in the sun, I met Helen and Greg Saunders, and with Sean and Kathryn McClelland we prepared for the quiz night on the Sunday, when our combined parents were to be in one team and we were in another. Everyone knew I was riding the National Road Race the next day. Many of the younger riders who had come to Holland with us – as our BSCA contingent changed from also-rans to contenders – were there and wished me luck. On the Saturday, the signs weren’t good. There was not much zip in my legs at all, and I was being beaten by boys I normally beat. Craig, who was following the wheel of a boy who beat me in the lunge to the line, had the good sense to think better of it and slowed down to come third. The next morning, Mum was up early, cooked a pasta meal and kissed me good luck. I was off to meet the Plan.

There was no British Junior Women’s Road Race Championships, although such an event existed for the men. I had to use a BCF rule which said that if there was no British Championships event in a given discipline for a junior woman, she could compete in the senior event. Months before, we had got in touch with the organiser, Jon Miles, to check if he was in agreement. He was great. I didn’t need to recce the course as he had given me an incredibly detailed description of it. The black wooden barn was exactly where I expected to find it on the left. The sharp junction was at the foot of the descent as he described.

Peter Keen, director of the WCPP, was the personal coach to Chris Boardman for a great deal of his career and personally coached two of the female cyclists on the Plan, Caroline Alexander and Yvonne McGregor. A popular shot of Peter and Yvonne together after Sydney is readily available on the internet. Undoubtedly, beyond any friendship, Peter had a great professional pride in Yvonne’s achievements. He was, after all, responsible for specifying every training ride and every gym session she undertook. She was the standard bearer for the women’s programme.

Yvonne was head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the WCPP road riders in terms of endurance. There were other riders in the WCPP group who could sprint, but they were way below Yvonne’s level in terms of sustained speed. The circuit included two climbs each lap, and the finish itself would be a long uphill sprint, the sort on which I feared no one. Dad and I had discussed tactics in the week before the race. Since taking the world hour record in 1995, Yvonne’s form had varied a little but she had been in good shape when we watched her at the National Track Championships a few weeks earlier. Yvonne was not a strong sprinter and would want to break away. The course would provide a suitable anvil for her. My strategy was simple – ‘never let Yvonne go up the road without me’. If she had a 20m lead, I would be racing for second place. Anything else I would have to deal with on the road. We arrived at the course and drove around it. Everything was as we expected; the race was going to split up.

My bike, courtesy of my sponsorship from Mick Ives, was a nice little Peugeot machine. In Cycling Weekly, one of the traders was offering it new for £200 including delivery. The wheels were replaced, not with fancy, expensive aero or deep sectioned wheels, but just slightly up from ‘entry level’ so as not to be embarrassed by the £200 price tag. The WCPP spend of the public’s money would run at around £3,000 per top bike per rider. However, the biggest drag factor is the human on the machine.

For several years, I had taken to Helmond two elasticated straps which Mum made for me. The jerseys, polka dot or more lately yellow, were a one-size-fits-all affair. I could probably get two of me in each one, maybe more. Instead of riding with a sail attached to me, I would slide the straps over the top of the swathes of yellow and fold the material neatly, so that I presented the most flush little me into the wind. Of course, quite a bit of the top had to be tucked down my shorts as well, which was not quite so svelte, bulging in the lycra in all sorts of weird ways. Mick Ives was an enthusiast and he needed no persuasion from Dad to get a skin suit with pockets made for me for this race. I was small and all the jerseys were big. With a well-fitted skin suit, I now had an advantage that more than offset any advantage of my competitors’ exclusive bicycles.

Mick had one made perfectly – even if its reduced size meant that quite a few of the sponsors’ names were missing or only had the first two letters! I rode to the start. I might have gone very slowly at Mildenhall the day before, but I was quite happy. After France, I had done the Windmill circuit back home and recorded my fastest-ever time for the whole thing, by some margin. So bring it on; 110km with these girls was not going to be as hard as some of the rides we had just done in the Alps. Things to remember? Don’t let Yvonne get 20m of daylight between her back wheel and my front wheel.

During the first two laps, there were several attacks but each time they were negated as other riders chased them down. On the third lap, one attack resulted in a group of 12 of us getting away. With 50km still remaining, Yvonne put in an attack, just at the moment I was boxed in by other riders and not able to respond immediately. In a flash, the gap was bigger than that magic 20m figure. How did that happen? This was now a tricky situation. Yvonne had caught everyone by surprise, but now the bunch would be alert and waiting to see who would respond. If I just simply accelerated, the other riders would be able to sit on my wheel, benefiting from the slipstream. I needed to manoeuvre myself into a position where I could put in an attack where there would not be an immediate response. This meant finding a place as far away as possible from the strongest remaining riders and making sure that when I attacked, it I would be so fast that I would deter anyone from following. However, the longer I waited to create the right situation, the further away Yvonne went, which would make the job of catching her more difficult.

I attacked hard, created a gap and then settled down to catching Yvonne. When I’d done that, I looked around and could see that the bunch was still together, so no one else had got away. My heart-rate trace would record this period as my biggest effort in the race, well beyond what I needed to make in the final sprint. It was a sustained period of 198-200 beats per minute. I caught Yvonne and we worked together – the seasoned champion and the 16-year-old upstart – taking turns on the front. With two laps to go, we were told that there was one rider, Ceris Gilfillan, chasing on her own but rather than allowing a third rider to join us, I continued working with Yvonne.

We would pass Dad twice a lap as he rode round on his bike, complete with a saddlebag of supplies. He would be waiting at the side of the road on the climb, ready to run alongside me offering me bottles, or a selection of energy bars. Yvonne had a support car with Ken Matheson, the WCPP women’s road manager and another member of the WCPP coaching staff in it. They followed us. After seeing Dad’s offerings, it obviously caused them to think they should be doing the same, so they drove alongside and asked Yvonne if she needed them to get her anything. Were they going to pop off and get her a takeaway if she asked them? ‘One cod and chips please, and go easy on the salt!’ She retained her composure far better than I could have done in her place, and politely told them she did not need them to go and get her anything.

Ken told Yvonne the time gaps. We had gained two minutes on the bunch, so I knew it was going to be just the two of us at the finish. We had been riding strongly for quite some distance. Towards the end, Yvonne was still going well, and I was starting to weaken. Yvonne sensed this and tried to get away from me a few times. I then sat behind her. The men in the car seemed agitated by this action, certainly more agitated than Yvonne ever was. She was in the classic impossible position. She was stronger than me and over ten, or even five minutes she would be able to go faster. If she could create enough of a gap between us, she would be able to ride away from me. However, she didn’t have enough acceleration to create that initial gap. I was always going to be faster in a short burst, even if I was more tired than her.

For the modest distance that remained to the finish, I sat behind Yvonne. I was tired, still a bit overcooked from France and I could have done without all the races I did the day before at Mildenhall. I chose the moment to start my sprint – and won comfortably. Yvonne was a great rider who had broken the hour record and would win a bronze in the pursuit at Sydney the following year as well as the world title. However, this was a road race. We could re-run this 50 times with the same contestants, and given their relative conditions, there would always be the same result. Yvonne had come to cycling late in life, and eventual third-placed rider Ceris Gilfillan was a convert from triathlons. Both were tactical ingénues. Even if Ceris had caught us and we got to a finish together, I would win the sprint. They would need the help of a number of other riders to wear me down before they could ever hope to get away from me.

Later in 1999, Philip Ingham, the BCF communications manager, would describe my win as a fluke to the nation’s press. This was not an idea of his own construction but the accepted wisdom of staff at Manchester. That is why he said it. Only a complete fool could have observed the race and come to that conclusion. Dad and I cycled back to headquarters, with Dad appearing to have eaten most of the energy bars himself. Jon Miles had arranged a nice prize, a white watch with ‘British Champion 1999’ in tiny gold writing inside it. Putting on the Senior British Road Race champion jersey, white with a single band each of red and blue, was a privilege. Phil Jones, the Welsh coach was there as well. He said he was confident of my victory 40km from home.

As we drove back to Mildenhall, we saw BSCA chairman Jo Tym and her husband John going the other way and they waved crazily at me. Obviously, the news had got there first. I waved back. This was a victory for the BSCA and their way of doing things, we all understood that. Everyone I knew ran up to me and congratulated me, and I was asked to do a lap of honour. In the late afternoon, we watched Craig finish his omnium. Freed from the need not to beat his big sister, he was riding much better than the previous day. Mum cooked us a special meal in our tent and we enjoyed relaxing with our friends camped around us. The next day, when I was a marshal for the cyclo-cross race, Craig ripped round to win.

While I went back to school, in Manchester the WCPP undertook a forensic and highly detailed analysis of the race. How on earth did a 16-year-old girl from outside the programme win with such ease? They came to a very different conclusion from the one that Phil, Dad and I did; one that would reverberate through every day of my career that followed.