Wash Cycle

It is funny how a mutual sporting interest forms amongst some of the strongest bonds to be forged in friendships outside of the closest family groups.

I found, and some three decades on continue to experience, this in cycling.

I come from a cycling background. The family house, when growing up, would always be filled with bikes from my late Father's faithful Hobbs Tourer to a motley collection of mostly second hand acquisitions to keep us 5 children active. These included heavy framed clonkers, small wheeled shoppers, paper-round faithfuls, space saving folding for holidays, step through ladies, leg stretching crossbars and even a wartime black-out prepared sit up and beg that had been inherited from grandparents.

The purchase of my first racing bike (more of a liberty in description in the Raleigh Carlton marketing literature than in the actual pedigree of the machine itself)  at the fairly advanced age of 18 years gave me a route into another aspect of cycling- that of actually participating in competitive events.

That entry level bike was pretty well hammered as I pounded the streets and countryside by-ways to use up the excess energy and angst of a typical teenager.

The Carlton Pro-Am was just an ordinary catalogue bought model. It had alloy wheels, 12 speed gears, butted 531 tubing frame and a race bred geometry but I knew that it would not meet the grade as however fast I felt I was going on the open road in what I called "training" I would always be overtaken by riders of similar age on sleek and mean looking machines with iconic continental names such as Colnago, Bianchi , Battaglin and Moser or customised ,bespoke frames built up with component groupsets with Campagnolo being the most highly revered.

Any aspirations of ever owning any of the foregoing would have to be firmly parked as I was still at school with no income other than delivering newspapers on a Sunday and planning my further education.

I left behind the cycle filled hallway (always a bit of an annoyance to my Mother) of the family home to go away to college in Nottingham in 1981.

The identity of that English Midlands City was firmly bound to cycling. It was the home of the Raleigh Factory and many of its time served frame builders and mechanics had subsequently set up their own bike shops in the suburbs to continue the tradition of making high quality and performance cycles.

I would regularly pass a display window on my way to lectures of one such shop, Langdale Lightweights.

It took me some time to summon up enough courage to actually go in because this was a serious roadies place, frequented by club riders and operating in a specific language that I was only just beginning to learn.

I had a reasonable bike for just getting about the city, mudguards and all and on a hesitant visit to the shop to buy some spares I mentioned that I was interested in joining a Cycling Club as an essential step to start in competition.

The shop owner, his wife and son seemed to take pity on me as a student away from home and gave me details of the nearest club to my accommodation.

This was how I found myself, a bit nervous, pushing open the doors of the Mapperley Scout Hut one dark and cold winter evening at the weekly meeting of the Trent Valley Cycle Racing Club.  I need not have been worried. The place and the people became, for the next four years of my student years, like a second family to me.

An inheritance from my maternal grandfather went towards a hand built top of the range racing bike which that local shop, Langdale Lightweights built for me in 1982.

My dream of being a serious racer had become a reality.

I trained, socialised, ate and had my laundry done with my new found team mates. After problems in finding a house for my last academic year I spent a number of weeks as a lodger with one family and I will never forget their kindness and acceptance of me.

I managed to win the best rider prize in the Club in 1985 which remains as one of my main achievements on a bike.

Even after leaving Nottingham I kept in touch with my cycling mates although we were all making our own ways in the world and riding a bike would inevitably be relegated from a sport to a pastime.

I have just been in contact with Smiffy, an accomplished rider and now a Lawyer who is planning a Trent Valley Reunion towards the end of the year. It will be my 30th anniversary of joining .

The team no longer exists in its Nottingham guise although a club from Gainsborough in Lincolnshire has taken up the name and is honouring it well.