It felt like the hours were ticking over. Studying my Garmin I could see I’d covered over 100 kilometres and there were eleven sections of pavé to go. With most sportives back in the UK, especially in the south-east of England, having ridden past that milestone would almost certainly mean I was on a downward trajectory, fitness-wise. I would be down to my final gel, probably running low on liquids, and definitely tiring. But here, right now, I felt pretty good, surprisingly, and my legs still felt strong. The terrain here certainly helped. Yes, the pavé was hard, but I’d handled it OK so far and, with very little climbing to contend with (the steepest gradient had been a half-mile drag out of a large village ten miles back, and only five per cent), the mental strain was the toughest part.
I took the opportunity to pull over before the next section for a few minutes to study the pocket map the organizers had provided. I needed to get into my head what lay up the road; what I needed to prepare for. I had been told the Arenberg was tough, but that even tougher sections lay ahead. Now basking in benign weather, I studied the A4-sized map, adorned with a very large and garish Paris–Roubaix Challenge logo in the corner. Suddenly a whoosh as four riders flew past me, so close I could feel their slipstream. Low and behold there were the tell-tale Flandrian socks belonging to the rider on the end of the line. I could have sworn he turned his head towards me and smiled!
The next section, Auchy-lez-Orchies to Bersée, seemed straightforward enough – still quite long at 2.6 kilometres, but flat and cutting through barren farmland. That didn’t worry me. More riders passed by shouting encouragement as I mulled over the section coming after it, the one I had been warned by William at Pavé Cycling was tougher than the notes suggested. Mons-en-Pévèle was a 3-kilometre undulating lung-buster, complete with a tight right-hand turn roughly one-third of the way along, and some serious, very rough setts. It was the stage where the favourites in the pro race normally chose to make their final winning moves. In the wet it was supposed to be a quagmire, so I was at least thankful for the clement weather. Get past that in one piece and it would be 50 more kilometres to the finish. To the end. Thinking that gave me optimism. This was doable, but I still had no pump, and only one spare inner tube, so I needed patience, good judgement and lots of luck.
We crossed over the main D549, and for once there was a stream of traffic – by now the locals were out, busy with their weekend affairs, plenty of them honking their horns in encouragement, and a few were even pulling slowly over to the verge in order for us to stream through without braking.
‘Would never happen in Laaaandaaaan,’ came a familiar voice over my shoulder. I had met Stuart after my crash on the first section. Once I’d got going again we rode together for a few sections of pavé. He was a twenty-something, strongly built redhead, with a real love of cycling – he’d even ridden over for the race from his flat in Battersea. It had taken him a week but he’d seen it as a colossal ‘once in a lifetime’ adventure, as well as training for today. Indeed, he was far stronger than I was and had taken off before the first post-crash feed station. He was all smiles seeing me again and we swapped stories of the Arenberg, punctures and the weather.
‘Serious stuff coming up now, Iain. I’m glad I have these beauties,’ he said, pointing to his tractor-like 28-mm tyres. They made a very loud whirring noise, even on tarmac; on cobbles it was like being followed by a car. But they did the job, and I didn’t have any issues with anyone customizing their ride to ensure they finished with their brains and backside still intact. I had seen quite a few guys riding custom-built mountain bikes, some even with suspensions, and their tyres were fat. You’d hear them coming up from a distance, and the looks of calm on their faces as they passed by betrayed how easier they were having it on the pavé.
‘Do you mind if I crack on, I want to beat six hours if I can.’ He looked like a gun dog eager to chase a shot duck.
‘No problem, mate, don’t wait for me. Good luck and watch yourself.’
‘You, too, see you in Roubaix for a beer.’ And with that he flicked the gear leaver, lowered his grip to the drops and bent into the headwind. Within seconds he was 50 metres ahead of me and by the time I turned off the D549 on to a local road he was some distance away, his dark form heading towards the familiar red and white banner strung across the entrance to the coming pavé, section 11. Although I had a few guys behind me, as I now led the string along, I felt incredibly alone.
I pretty much floated over the next section, though my bunny-hopping skills came to the fore a few times as, riding in the gutter for a lengthy kilometre or so, my luck ran out when I hit some rather ugly, muddy potholes where someone had basically taken out a few cobbles. If this had happened right at the very beginning I’d have crashed, for sure, but by now I still had strength and more confidence in navigating my way through this minefield. Hilariously, one rider a few yards in front of me, was a little over-zealous in the manoeuvre and took himself off into the adjacent ploughed field, where he vainly tried to maintain his balance for a few seconds before collapsing into a heap. That kind of thing would recur throughout the remainder of the race.
And so to Mons-en-Pévèle. Now, when you think of cycling, you might think of an archetypal summer’s day, perfect for a picnic, for sipping gorgeous red wine and eating fresh cheese and baguettes picked up from a nearby picturesque market town. Sadly, this was April, the headwind had picked up, and I was about to experience the hardest ride I think I’ll ever do.
The terrain was now billiard-table flat and I could see for miles. In the distance was Pévèle, with its enormous church spire dominating the skyline. The section was looking straight for a good distance and I knew we’d have two tight, right-hand bends to navigate through, so I was intent on keeping an eye on my speed. Despite this, as we entered the section I could see a decent-sized crowd sitting there on a distant hillock watching the spectacle as the next train of riders motored through.
My group, now eight in number, was coming up fast behind them. Ahead in the string that had just gone past the spectators, I noticed the familiar Cavendish jersey and yellow Flandrian socks. There he was, my nemesis, thundering down the corridor of humanity and noise! I don’t know how this happened, but instantly the blood was up. Changing quickly to the big ring, and selecting an extra gear, I immediately stamped on the pedals and took off, leaving my guys behind me agog. The crowd of about thirty or more locals saw me coming and began whooping and hollering, which only increased the tempo and excitement; I was in the moment, I was on a mission. The shouts of the crowd and the incessant percussion of my wheels on the crown of the pavé were overwhelming me as I darted up a slight rise and turned into a slow right bend leading into a very long straight. For the first time, I actually got out of the saddle and started springing over this stuff. It felt insane, but addictive.
The pay-off arrived. Hurtling now along the centre of the track, with the group ahead – containing my prey – just metres away from me, and an urge building to simply fly past them, I felt an eruption at the back of the frame. The noise of the tyre on the pavé multiplied tenfold, as did the vibrations through the handlebars to my upper arms and neck, and with a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach I knew I had suffered at least one flat, maybe two. God, I hoped not two.
Pulling over to the right-hand side of what was now a very long and dead-straight stretch of pavé, as my fellow riders powered along, not looking back, I knew I was stuffed. No pump, one spare inner tube and potentially two flat tyres to contend with. Bugger. Looking around at the flat landscape of ploughed fields and grassy verges, seeing how much further it was to even get to the end of this terrible section, my spirits started sinking slowly. I decided the best option was simply to walk. Get off this section, take stock and deal with it. ‘Don’t give up just yet,’ I told myself.
It was now turning into a brighter afternoon and, as I trekked along the grass to the side of the pavé, I could see a large gallery of spectators in the distance. Perhaps one of them, anyone, might have a bike pump to help me out? But this wasn’t the sort of crowd I thought it was. Far from politely, or enthusiastically cheering on the gallant riders, this seemed more like a mob of drunks at closing time. Approximately thirty or more, all in their twenties by the looks of them, they were definitely here to party, and it was only one thirty in the afternoon.
‘Wheeeeeeeyheeeeeeeeeeeey!’ they screamed in unison as a group of riders shot past them. This wasn’t the sober exultation of glee one might hear from parents at a school race – rather a leering, lustily delivered roar, rising up from the pit of somewhere dark and musty; the type of noise you hear when a streaker hits the hallowed turf at Twickenham, or echoing down Blackpool promenade at midnight on a summer’s weekend. Beer was seemingly the drink of choice, and they were all dressed to party – bikinis and cut-off denims for the girls, Hawaiian shirts, rugby jerseys and hoodies for the boys. How did I take in so much detail? Because I was trying to tiptoe past them without being noticed.
‘Hey, here’s a fella!’ A blonde-haired partygoer, can of beer in hand and Aussie flag in the other, was staring straight at me, not ten metres away as I attempted to nonchalantly get past this debauched gallery without too much fuss. ‘Just blend into the background, Iain.’ No such luck. His mates, in that classic drunken process, took several seconds to cotton on to what he was saying, then refocused in my direction, and finally got what he was saying. A wave of smiles and what resembled leering, open-mouthed, astonished guffaws broke along their ranks. ‘Keep walking … keep walking.’
‘What’s wrong with yer, mate, yer arse had enough, eh!?’ Loud laughter erupted amidst more cheering for riders flying between us on the pavé, thus providing some respite from their attention. A sudden outbreak of silence was then followed by full-on cheering once again, deafening me as I was now directly opposite the whole gang. I mouthed ‘puncture’ at them, smiling and pointing to my back wheel.
‘Are you French, mate, no speak English!?’ shouted a very tall and long-haired surf dude, his arm strung around what I took to be his girlfriend. She didn’t seem to mind anyway. More stood in front of him as he towered over everyone.
‘Just nod, keep walking, don’t engage, keep the bike between them and you.’
‘Aw, I love these Frenchies, better than the bloody Poms. Let’s give the man a cheer, c’mon.’
In one movement (which I have to say I was impressed with considering the condition they were all in), to a man they crouched low and started murmuring. The noise was building up quickly as they held out their arms straight and began to wiggle their hands. The murmur now turned to a guttural roar that was clearly building to a crescendo and the Mexican wave started at the end I had just walked along. The ripple of movement, the cheering, the alcohol, allied to the surroundings of desolate farmland, made for a very surreal scene.
They were all now standing to attention, arms raised straight into the air, beer spilling all over their heads, clothes and on to the pavé itself. There was laughter everywhere, but I decided not to speak, there was no sense in spoiling the party, so I simply stopped, put my hands together in mock thanks, blew them a kiss and quickly walked on. The need to ask them for help hadn’t crossed my mind; I was thinking more about how the hell they were going to get home. Not my problem, of course. Onwards.
I kept ambling along the section, very aware that I was wasting time, and was in real trouble. I tried to wave some riders down a few times over the next five minutes, but no one seemed to want to lend a hand, which was dispiriting. Where was the unwritten bond of fellowship of the road? It seemed to have disappeared for Mons-en-Pévèle – this really was attritional, ‘march or die’ type stuff, and my confidence in thinking I’d get out of this calamity was fast disappearing.
Coming to the end of the straight, as it took a ninety-degree right-hand turn, pitching slightly downwards towards a further left-hander 400 metres on in the distance, I saw a middle-aged couple standing next to their classic Renault 4 white delivery van. They seemed to be locals on a day out, enthusiastically but soberly clapping each rider on as they passed on the tight turn. I stopped opposite their position, trapped on the far bank due to the flux of riders coming through. The guy cusped his hands to his mouth and shouted towards me, ‘Bonjour, Ca va? Etes-vous en difficulté?’
I vainly smiled and nodded to him as I rested my aching arms on the handlebars. This ten-minute break from cycling was one thing, but now my body was cooling down, the muscles were beginning to announce how sore they actually were. My neck, in particular, was throbbing right at the base of my skull. I shouted back about my flat tyre and the lack of a pump, and that I was walking to the finish. He raised his eyes to the heavens in mock indignation and then gestured for me to wait a moment while he rummaged in the back of his van. His wife smiled benignly at me as he emerged with a professional cyclist’s pump, the type one plunges down with both hands and I quickly made my way over to their side of the pavé and started to take the tyre off the front wheel (thankfully the back tyre was OK). This wasn’t a problem; what proved to be the handicap was my inability to focus on getting the sodding tyre back on once the new inner tube had been safely inserted. Like one of those trainee fighter pilots who have to complete simple hand–eye coordination tasks at high altitude without an oxygen supply, my brain said one thing, but my swollen, bruised hands did another. Try as I might, the blasted tyre would not fit around the rim, to the point where I believed I had the wrong size and, swearing loudly, threw it on the ground in disgust.
The couple, who had gone back to watching the race while I performed my simple task, turned around to catch my comic suffering. After one further failed attempt, the gentleman gestured that could he try for me and, accepting the offending apparatus, he put the tyre on in approximately fifteen seconds. ‘Voila!’ he said, handing it back with no hint of arrogance, or trace of a smirk.
Holding the punctured inner tube, I told him in broken French how the replacement was my final one, and gestured a gun to my temple in mock execution. Making a comedic sign of the cross, he allowed me to mount the bike, and then getting behind my saddle, pushed me back out on to the pavé. This had all taken minutes, but the disconnect of the situation, due to fatigue, gave it a surreal time delay. It felt like an hour had passed by the time I reached the end of the sector. Before that, I suddenly came to a stop again, unclipped and, with riders flying past me like wildebeest, I looked towards the couple who were still watching me from a distance. ‘Merci!’ I shouted, and we fondly waved to one another as I turned to crack on. Manners cost nothing, after all.
The next two sections – Mérignies to Avelin and Pont-Thibaut to Ennevelin – were short and I progressed through them in a blur of tired, bandy legs and sweat-soaked brow. The ‘bonk’ was kicking in as the sun finally burst out of the cool grey clouds. Toiling across another flat section as it wound its way across a ploughed field the size of an airport runway, the site of a mini-village of stalls, port-a-loos and parked cars told that I’d reached the final feed station, by the famous windmill at Templeuve. It was situated flush against a tight bend in the road, and thus was causing a slight jam as some riders stood waiting to enter the feed zone, while others queued waiting to get past and carry on. Refuelling my tired, zoned-out body and mind could not have come a moment sooner. Fatigue had crept up on me and was now taking control. Reasoning I was in calorific deficit after 125 kilometres of full-on effort, I haphazardly discarded the bike against a grassy knoll and without further ado made for the nearest stall of food. Half a banana, a huge handful of dates and four cheese Tuc biscuits later – all dispatched in seconds, washed down with a whole bidon of water – I let out a very large belch, much to the laughter of the guys nearest me, and the consternation of the lady serving.
Grabbing yet more waffles and refilling both my bidons, I lurched past the food area and made to sit down for a few minutes towards the back of the zone. Tiptoeing my way past the dozens of riders crashed out around the stalls and toilet area, I managed to stand right at the back, next to a wire fence. From this unique vantage point, in one direction lay a war zone of lycra-clad casualties scattered about the place, while if I turned 180 degrees all I could see for miles was farmland, nothing else, bar some hedgerows and clumps of trees. If this were wintertime it would be totally barren. Taking a breather and lost in thoughts, I felt like Pip from Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, roaming around mist-shrouded swamps when he bumps into Magwitch. I bet his body wasn’t aching as much as mine, though.
My legs were still very wobbly and I needed to sit down. Noticing a free spot in a row of seats, I darted between two guys lying on their backs, almost asleep, and grabbed it. The relief washed over me as I poured water over my head, steam erupting through the air vents of my helmet. I could see one guy sitting cross-legged opposite me on the grass, in tears, holding his arm as if it was sprained or broken. He looked in a lot of pain, perhaps contemplating whether he could carry on. I didn’t want to intrude.
The rider sitting to my right – a blond, middle-aged man, in the retro jersey and shorts of the Molteni team made famous by Eddy Merckx in the 1970s – slapped his thigh. ‘They’re fucked,’ he said, gesturing to his legs. ‘I can’t believe I’m feeling like this and we still have the worst section to go.’ He had a thick accent that sounded Dutch, possibly Belgian. In any event, although he smiled when he said this to me, his eyes betrayed how ‘fucked’ he indeed was. His sodden jersey, opened to the navel, revealed red-raw skin, covered with sweat and grime. More significantly, I noticed an ugly cut on his left knee, and the blood had trickled down his shin, his sock now crimson-stained.
For the next few minutes we sat in the sun, swapped stories, weakly laughed at the stupid accidents and near misses, and generally looked for any excuse not to get back on our bikes. I told him about my hapless luck, lost equipment, and lack of precious inner tubes.
‘I’d give you one of mine,’ he said, ‘but I have only one remaining spare left.’ I was moved by how genuinely sorry he was not to help me out. ‘Just take it easy going through Carrefour de l’Arbre,’ he continued. ‘Those cobbles are lethal. You’re almost home after that section, it’s easy riding. Take care, man.’
He groaned as he rose from his seat, offering it to the next rider who staggered over for a rest. I forced myself up too and with lead-like calves, stumbled my way back to the bike, now nestled underneath four other bikes. Extricating it took a few more minutes, which was no bad thing, and, remounting, I checked my map for succour. ‘Yep, thought as much,’ I grimaced at the remaining obstacles between me and the velodrome: two more relatively easy sections of pavé, and then the final sting in the tail of this race, two lethal sections of unadulterated rocks, debris, razor-sharp ruts, and potholes. Separated by a short burst of super-smooth asphalt. Take a fall on either section here and that’s my race kaput. I really wished I’d had someone riding shotgun with me today, it was more stressful knowing I was out here on my own.
‘Come on, you need to ride it as before; anything else and you will crash.’ The little voice for once gave sound advice. I couldn’t go slow on the dreaded stuff, it would make the bone-rattling intolerable, and my arms, shoulders and neck were in agony anyway. There was only one hope: go hell for leather and, if disaster strikes, hope to high heaven someone takes pity on me and I get assistance. Let’s roll.
By the time I hit sector 5, Camphin-en-Pévèle, my confidence had returned and my speed and cadence was again pretty good and constant – for approximately 20 metres, before the pavé fought back. On a par with the terrain of Arenberg, the first part was tough: as my whole body was put through the wringer, I could barely register what was the best line to take, the condition of the road was ridiculously prehistoric. As the pro rider Chris Horner has joked, I think they actually did dump a load of rocks on this and mix it up with their rotor blades.
There was no constant pattern to give any relief. I was literally hanging on for survival, while pumping the legs as hard as I still could without going into the red. I couldn’t see what my Garmin bleeped, but I could guess I was now beyond my threshold. It was lung-bursting, as the jolt of each hard, unforgiving rock inflicted more excruciating pain through my bruised joints. No wonder this is seen as the decisive section for the pro race, it’s an assault course. Hitting this at 60 k.p.h. doesn’t bear thinking about: you can keep the cobble trophy, I’ll walk, thank you.
Others were passing me as I make a determined effort to defeat the beast, sticking to riding in a line as much as possible. Hitting a rock, though, I was momentarily unseated and wrenched my right cleat out, managing to stay upright as I slowed right down and frantically attempted to clip back in again. Like a sedated horse, the bike rolled slowly to the verge as I quickly upped the cadence and made good my escape from this hell. We hit the asphalt road and it felt like heaven on a seat. My backside was killing me, I felt I’d been at the bottom of a ruck of South Africans. Pain all over doesn’t even come close to describing it. A blanket of agony tightly wrapped around you, maybe? Spinning slowly and weaving moderately from side to side bought me some time to recover as I tried to regulate my breathing – looking at the Garmin, my b.p.m. had hit 190, and was now trickling down beat by beat in single digits. I could feel my heart thumping away in my chest, up my neck and resounding in my overheated skull.
Ding, ding, the final round was to come. ‘Beat this and you’re home and dry, Iain. C’mon, let’s have it.’ The voice sounded confident, but my body was starting to shut down from the increased effort of once again picking up enough speed to get across the pavé.
The last five-star section, Carrefour de l’Arbre, proved to be as unforgiving as William and Alex had warned. A long straight opened up ahead of me, flanked by wide fields, steadily rising to a left-hand turn. Fighting my way through to this point, my heart sank as I looked up and saw the road disappear up a leg-sapping incline to the horizon. I envied, to the point of venom-induced hatred, those who I could see completing this task, stick figures in the bright glow, the crowd applauding their efforts as they crossed the final time-check marker. Meanwhile, I was crazily slaloming my way through the terrible pavé, great chunks of it rising up in front of me as I frantically swerved towards the gutters to avoid a potential knee-capping from one of the several potholes lying in wait.
‘This is crazy, crazy, crazeeeeeeee!’ I roared to myself, as I vainly kept pounding on the pedals, hearing laughter from others as they suffered the same fate. Metre by agonizing metre I made my way up this trench, the iconic Restaurant l’Arbre Gruson standing out on the horizon – until – freedom! The thwack of the tyres hit the time-check, followed by a tearful reunion with tarmac – and it was over. I crested the top of the rise, cycling past dozens of spectators, and turning a sharp right made my way past the parked cars on the side of the road. Looking back to the right I could see the long trail of riders still on ‘Hell’s Highway’, grimly making their way to the finish, as I gulped great gasps of air trying to cycle and recover at the same time, my bike on autopilot heading downhill towards Gruson, the lactic acid burning in my calves and thighs.
‘I really have had enough of this bloody stuff!’ I cried as the pavé of Gruson came and went fairly quickly. The closer we were getting to Roubaix, the less I cared about a puncture. By now, the doctrine of keeping to the crown of the cobbles to have a smoother ride had been ditched for the simple urge to get over this thing any way, anyhow, riding on the grass verge or through the ploughed field if need be. My neck was numb with the vibrations and even my ears were throbbing. Again I grabbed a bidon and poured its contents through the helmet vents, the water running down my face and shorts. I felt a mess, like day three at Glastonbury. I was zoned out and willing the end to happen.
I noticed two older men, perhaps in their mid-fifties, spinning along ahead of me, both riding mountain bikes and dressed in Italian national bibs and jerseys. The noise their tyres made, even on the tarmac, was like an angry swarm of bees and, for whatever reason, it annoyed me. The little voice again chirped in: ‘Flash bastards on their tractors, they haven’t felt the pain I have. They’re not getting further up the road than me.’ To which I, Terminator-like, clicked up a gear, focused the cross-hairs on their backs and wasted my final battery life on hunting them down. Why? Simply to have a reason to get through the final section, I suppose.
So, head down, as my neck could now barely sustain the weight of my head, I focused on their legs and cycling shoes, whirring away in a high gear, not 20 metres ahead. They were merrily chatting away to one another, with not a care in the world. They didn’t seem fatigued, nor beaten down by the day’s events, which only bugged me more. Try as I might, I just couldn’t summon up the reserves of strength required to actually pass them, even though the road ahead was quiet and empty. We threaded our way through wooded countryside and small rural hamlets, the terrain flat and unthreatening. Suddenly they turned right into a wood and I stuck with them, glued to their wheels. It was then that alarm bells rang out. They had no race numbers, they were on hired bikes, and we were all cycling into a campsite. They pulled over by a tent and for the first time noticed me behind them as I, too, pulled over to the other side and pretended to look at my Garmin, tapping the screen as if trying to locate some vital piece of information. Without further ado, and overcome with tired embarrassment, I turned around and pedalled away. Another time, mes amis.
Several riders sped by on the road as I rejoined the race, and with the quick pit stop having given me fresh impetus, I managed to get in their slipstream until the final sector loomed at the village of Hem. In truth, I can’t remember much else than getting through it, the ancient pavé seeming incongruous next to modern-day housing. The village of Hem itself was quiet, even for a Saturday afternoon, and, checking my Garmin, I could see I was well past six hours for the race. But annoyance at not hitting my pre-race goal was tempered with a smile that was beginning to decorate my weather-beaten face. I was almost there – no more cobbles, I had managed to get over, intact, 58 kilometres of it. The world seemed beautiful, my fellow riders were now comrades-in-arms as we headed victorious towards the velodrome. But, never has a further 15-kilometre ride taken so long. My body and bike were battle fatigued.
Suddenly, the familiar industrial architecture and mixture of new town housing and nineteenth-century boulevards came into view: the outskirts of Roubaix. The intensity of local traffic increased, and it seemed surreal to be navigating my bike through a scrum of cars, lorries and motorbikes – didn’t they realize a race was on? The main boulevard down towards the velodrome opened up before me and there were a dozen or so riders now in my slipstream. Flags and banners were draped along the whole route ready for the next day’s race proper, but I enjoyed the sense of achievement as a final super-smooth stretch of pavé arrived, laid down the centre of the Avenue Alfred Motte in 1996. Much as it was comfortable to race across, to me, it was immense, known to aficionados as the Chemin des Géants (‘the Road of Giants’), with every race winner immortalized on a plaque bearing his name embedded into the cobbles. I tried to read some of them, glistening in the afternoon sun as I sped past. I wanted to savour this moment for a great deal longer.
Alas, sooner than I actually wanted, the velodrome’s entrance appeared on the right and, coming through the winding entrance, I was amazed to see so many hundreds of spectators crammed by the public barriers, cheering us all in. Whether they were waiting for loved ones, or simply locals there to watch the spectacle, the noise and atmosphere that rolled over me was a great ‘natural’ stimulant. And there they were: the ancient, beautiful wooden boards of the velodrome itself. Various riders were now roaring past me, bits between their teeth, as if knowing this was what it was all about. You have to finish in style. Plenty of them were enjoying their moment in the sun, duelling one another high up on the bank, before swooping down for the final 100 metres, eyes popping out, sprinting to the line.
As for me, I did speed up to get to the topmost section of the embankment, and noticed a few younger spectators banging on the advertising hoardings, thinking I was about to launch myself at suicidal speed to the finish. But, at that moment, I sat up. I thought of my long-dead father, and my mother who had passed away three months earlier, now at peace, hopefully together somewhere, and of Jo and my kids. Would they be proud of me, would they understand why I had driven myself so hard to train and ride this crazy race? Was it worth all those hours of sweat, toil and tears on the turbo trainer, or battling wind and rain on the wintry hills of Surrey and Kent? I smiled at what Barry Hoban had said to me – ‘It’s brutal’ – and of Sean Yates’s assertion he would never ride it again. Now I knew what they meant, but I had come through it.
I took the final bend and, slowing, started heading down the bank and into the centre of the straight. Crossing the line, I was too tired to even break into a smile or raise my arms aloft in triumph. Though hats off to the guy who did indeed attempt the sprinter’s pose as he crossed the line at speed after me – and went over his handlebars and ate the boards to spectacular effect, and much mirth. He was OK, he still smiled when he received his rather bling medal.
In a glow of weariness and happiness, I pedalled to the tented finish and, as is the custom, asked if I might have two medals, one for each of the kids. As ever, I was moved by the kind reply, and two medals were duly placed in my swollen and sweaty palms.
Finding a place in the centre of the field of the velodrome, surrounded by hundreds of heroes, I sat down with an ungainly thud on the grass, followed by a grunt of satisfaction. It did indeed feel a unique occasion. I had ridden through history. Painfully peeling off my mitts revealed ugly blisters the size of golf balls on each palm, and my backside was numb, but I was ecstatic. Lying back, propped up on one arm, I dangled the medals in front of me, their garishness hidden by the sun’s reflection. ‘Job done, kids,’ I said triumphantly. I lay sprawled out on the grass, taking the warmth of the sun’s rays, feeling the pain all over my body ebb away, and promptly dozed off.