Author: Carlton Reid

8th December 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 315: World Champion Transportation Cyclist Beryl Burton — Book Chat With Author Jeremy Wilson

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Jeremy Wilson

TOPICS: The amazing Beryl Burton, with author Jeremy Wilson

LINKS: Beryl (Jeremy’s book)

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 315 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was recorded on Thursday, eighth December 2022.

David Bernstein 0:23
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Carlton Reid 1:02
Liquorice All-sorts. Rhubarb. And a multi-award-winning biography of the hard-as-nails transportation cyclist Beryl Burton who also won a few things, like world championships but not, as author Jeremy Wilson here explains, Olympic medals. I’m Carlton Reid and this episode of the Spokesmen podcast runs long, very long, but listen in and you’ll be as transfixed as I was by Jeremy’s stellar research. His biography of Beryl Burton says it’s in search of Britain’s greatest athlete but, as we discuss, Beryl is probably the world’s greatest athlete, capable in her day of coasting past the best men of her era and, famously, giving them encouragement, brickbats or jersey-pocket-stashed sweets. We talked for two hours and it could have been much more. Are you sitting comfortably, Jeremy?

Jeremy Wilson 2:11
I am, yeah, I’m all good. Thanks.

Carlton Reid 2:13
OK. So let’s leap into it what I loved your book, obviously as as everybody else of course. So congratulations on William Hill sports book of the year. Financial Times best sports book of 2022 Waterstones — you’ve won everything is there anything you haven’t won this year, Jeremy?

Jeremy Wilson 2:32
I don’t know. It’s a bit of a it’s a bit of a surprise and pleasant surprise to to have people say nice things about it. Because obviously, you don’t really know and you’re you’re in a bit of a tunnel when you do these things, you don’t quite know what people are gonna think. And it was really important to me as well. But the family they didn’t they place no sort of requirements or they didn’t ask me to change anything or leave something out or not speak to a certain person. And the big thing for me really was that they thought thought it was a fair portrayal and that they, they learned new things as well, which was nice here because I don’t think barrel was a big talker. You know, it wasn’t that that mentality wasn’t to talk, you know, share your feelings and talk about things that she was always on to the next thing so I think Denise found it interesting to hear what other people thought about her mum and certain stories that she didn’t know as well. So yeah, it’s been lovely to get such a nice reaction to it.

Carlton Reid 3:29
And there’s also Yvonne Reynders also she you kind of like gave her stuff that she didn’t know like you know, the fact she was like you know feeling bad that back that day? Yeah,

Jeremy Wilson 3:41
yes. Yeah, she didn’t it was quite interesting because you could there was such a deep emotional connection between Yvonne Reynders and obviously barrel that you could still see really exists and you can imagine that that would be so because they obviously spent about a decade as main rivals and they would see each other mostly just at the World Championships but maybe at the odd invitation or event you know, even renders could come over to her and heal and barrel might go and do something in Belgium but generally they had this distance and even render speaks no English as I discovered and speaks quite a strong dialect. Flemish dialect which even the people I was with, were struggling with a little bit at time so and obviously Barrow was pure Yorkshire so they didn’t communicate but there was this it was quite touching really because when I got out Barrows autobiography personal best, which I took with me even renders had never seen it and she she thumbed straight away to the photograph section. And of course, she was in some of the pictures. There was a few podiums, and a few pictures of them racing as well. One of them on the Isle of Man and she was quite tearful when she saw them, and she didn’t really know that wider story of what happened to bear or after she finished competing at the world stage, and was quite emotional, really about that and hearing what had happened to bear or very clearly remember Charlie, Beryl’s husband and Denise, Beryl’sdaughter, from seeing them at these competitions. But it got me that I mean, there were so many tangents and that was fascinating about the story. But that one about the sort of the relationship between rivals in sport I found quite interesting to think about, because you can imagine there is a really there, at the time, there’s such ferocious competitors, they probably wish the other one wasn’t there, because they were, you know, they would have had double the World Championships almost without the other one. But I think, over time, they come to almost appreciate the fact that they were racing against someone so good, because it brought them to a higher level, you know, a bit like the tennis now with the Federer-Djokovic era, and you sort of see it in other other sports as well.

Carlton Reid 6:00
So Armstrong and Ullrich.

Jeremy Wilson 6:02
Yeah, that kind of stuff.

Carlton Reid 6:04
I’m sure we’ll get on to Yvonne again, but just kind of like mentioned there that like the shouldn’t know, Yvonne didn’t know her post racing career. And of course, Beryl died young. But what what relatively young, but what you say in the book is you because you’ve gone to interview all of these these people who are racing against Beryl, who are a goodly age and you say in the book, you say, you know, cycling has probably extended these people’s lives, whereas Of course, in Beryl’s case it didn’t. But do you think that you know that the standard thing where you know, cycling is meant to give you an extra 10 years of your life? Did you actually think Beryl’s life was actually cut short by the fact she was so Yorkshire grit and always pushing through? I know you’re not medical so you can’t say that but did you have a feeling there?

Jeremy Wilson 6:58
Yes, I think so. And I think it’s that’s pretty clear because she was she had this illness as a child where she had this attack of the nervous system, and had rheumatic fever, some illness called St. Vitus dance and was in hospital and then convalescing for two years, at the age of 11, to 13. And she was told when she went back home, not to extend herself physically, and she did a medical when she first began work at the age of 15, as well in the tailors called Montague Burton, where she met Charlie Burton. And they again, they found this irregular rhythm in her heart. So she was pushing through that throughout her career, and she did have particularly in her last 10, 15 years, repeatedly looking at the the newspaper and magazine cuttings. She was reporting that doctors were telling her that she must stop she shouldn’t keep pushing herself. Denise, her daughter told me that she and her her dad, Charlie, Beryl’s husband were telling her to stop. I don’t think they wanted her to stop cycling, but they wanted her to stop wanting to go as fast as she possibly could. Because obviously, like, as you said, something that was really nice to see about the book was that so many of her contemporaries, she barely would be 85. Now, if she lived, was still really thriving, you know, her great recollections of what they did a lot of them were still riding their bikes, you know, to their 80s, even 90s in some cases. And so it was a good advert for cycling overall. But clearly Beryl had this competitiveness in her this sort of need to strive to do her very best. And she, she came into the sport with these heart issues that were caused by her childhood illness, and she just ignored it. She just wouldn’t have it. You know, she just wouldn’t stop and that was obviously the spirit that drove her to train so hard and and produce these just extraordinary feats, but it was entwined with her early death, almost certainly, as you say, obviously, medically, I’m not qualified to say for sure that there was a direct correlation. But certainly that’s I think that’s fair to say. That’s how her family feel that’s very likely and she was being told not to push herself and she was still going for it. There was the national 10-mile championships following weekend she was entered. And she wasn’t people assume that because she was in her late 50s. And still riding that she was still sort of turning up in it in a slightly more sociable way. But she was still out there to win in her mind. That was all her friends and people who were cycling at the time said not not not in a sort of nasty way in any way. She was still chat chatty after the races but she couldn’t approach it any other way. She wanted to be the absolute best and fastest she could. And she was still doing huge numbers of miles. There was an interview with her with a BBC that I came across that was from about 94, 95. I think she said, ‘I need 30,000 miles before I’m ready to race,’ you know, because for each season, I think that was the right number. That might be completely ridiculous. I need to do my math. I’m pretty sure that it’s in the book, but I’m pretty sure that was what she said. And that was, you know, when she was in her late 50s. So yeah, and so I found that fascinating that drive that she had, which I think you find in quite a few great sports people. And but it obviously was almost certainly linked to her tragically cut short life really? Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to separate the two because it honestly part of what made her or very much what made her so extraordinary.

Carlton Reid 11:00
So I would like to delve into that that psychology because you certainly delve into it. I also in this episode, I want to absolutely talk about how you took her bike and you put it on in the wind tunnel. That’s that’s also fascinating about you know what she’d do today? If if you can, you can, you could compare those two things. I’d very much like to start where you both started and ended your book with this story. And it is it is the story that I guess everybody in cycling knows in it, there’s a there’s a podcast BBC podcast called You’re Dead To Me. And that has a segment called ‘So what do you know?’ and that is the segment where the presenter says, you know, this is the bit that people will probably know about this particular historical figure, and then they massively expand on it. So that the thing that I think most people certainly in cycling, will know is the Licorice All-sorts. So even even I, you know, know that story. And I’m not I’m not the greatest of a cycle racing fan. I’m like more of a like a Tour de France kind of person instead of following every single race throughout the year. But even I know that, that story. So just for anybody who maybe doesn’t know that story. And I’m I’m kind of like maybe being very abusive to listeners here by saying you know, you do or you don’t know the story. But just tell us about the story, because it’s a very famous story. And that the protagonist, who obviously is involved in this story as well, Mac? Yes?

Jeremy Wilson 12:31
Yeah, a guy called Mike McNamara and he was the top men’s time trialist of the time in Great Britain. So time trialling was the main way that people raced in that period in the really, up until quite recently, where now I think the sort of sportives road racing and track racing is become bigger in this country because of the facilities and because of the just the slight change in culture with with how British cycle cycle racing has evolved. But in that time, it was time trialling was very much the way people people raced. And that’s when you’re set off at one minute intervals. And then you essentially ride alone and have a time at the end over a distance or a particular amount of time. So Beryl was going for this 12 hour ride, which is where you do as many miles as you can in 12 hours, but a big competition at the time in in Great Britain. She started behind the men. So then there was 99 men in this race going off at one minute intervals. They then had a two minute gap to the women, I think there was three or four women Beryl was among them. And she was the first of the women to go off. So she was basically set off two minutes behind the field of 99 men who had all started in the in the two hours before Beryl in the morning, and they would all then go ride around Yorkshire finishing on a finishing circuit for 12 hours and accumulate as many miles as they could. It really suited Beryl, this type of race because she had a great phenomenal endurance, but also really good concentration as well. She could she could ride alone for a long time, high level. And she basically just rode through this entire field of men so she had passed 98 of the men. One person that was left was Mike McNamara at the top men’s time trialist of the time he had started last of the men so he had started two minutes in front of Beryl on the road. And he was on course to break the men’s record for the distance that they cycled in 12 hours. But Beryl had done this sort of incredible ride and was basically catching him and actually caught him with about about an hour of the of the 12 hours to go. So she didn’t when she saw him up in front, she didn’t quite believe that it was him she had caught as I say they both caught the other 98 men, which is astonishing when you think about it. But there he was the last of the men she hadn’t caught. And he was on course for a British men’s record, or a world record as well. I mean, no, no, no one in other countries have gotten faster. And she was obviously annihilating the women’s record but was also beating him. And she put in she eventually passed them on this, this lane, which is just south of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, and as she went past she would always say something to people when she caught them because obviously she caught people all the time and caught men very regularly in these time trials and she’d say thing and there were so many stories of things she would say like, ‘Hey, lad, you you’re not trying’ or ‘stick in there, Chuck’, or sometimes be quite nice, but sometimes in a sort of dry sense of humour, she’d sort of say something quite cutting to these people. And to Mike McNamara, she reached into her back pocket where she’s carrying her food and she passed him a liquorice allsort so she went past and he said ‘ta, love’ and, and ate the licorice allsort. He confirmed it to me while I was researching the book, but it wasn’t just the kind of fairy tale myth type story that had gone down in legend it really was how it went she didn’t really mean it I don’t think as a sort of put me down she just didn’t know what else to do. She went past them and

and the poor guy would then get handed massive Liquorice Allsorts at events.

Yeah, it became all you ever got asked about. Yeah, there was a an event where Beryl presented him with I think he took it in good spirits. He actually died last year. And but luckily, from my point of view, he was still alive during the early part of the research for the books, I was able to communicate with him before he before he died. And he was obviously a really great figure in on the scene, a really popular popular guy, but he you could tell it did slightly. There was a slight sense from the family that, you know, it was frustrating that his he was sort of remembered principally for this but I sort of said to them, what an amazing thing to be part of you know, it’s a real moment in sporting history where a woman broke not just a women’s best but a men’s as well. And as I say lots of things with Beryl Burton, this was obviously one of them, where she’d done something that just nobody in any other sport you could find a comparison for. So she won something 25 she was the best British or around the 25 times in a row, rode with their daughter in the world championships. They were both in the qualified for the road race. And this that I mean, they were three things straight away that you just could were completely without comparison in sport. So yeah, that that was probably the story that she’s best known for just being the fact that she broke a men’s record, but also just the style with which she did it. And as I say the drama of passing him and giving him a licorice allsort.

Carlton Reid 18:17
As a road historian and I’m also I love the fact that you’ve pretty much pinpointed the exact spot on the road, where there really ought to be a plaque that or some sort of, yeah, hanging there.

Jeremy Wilson 18:29
Somebody said that to me. A guy called John Churchman who was a marshal on the Otley 12 hour, because they were the club that organised it. And it took quite a lot of work to figure it all out. And we really worked hard to make sure we got it right. Someone called Phil Hurt from the Yorkshire Road Club found me the course. Then John Churchman and a guy called George Baxter, who was also a marshall. So they were at different points in the route so they could help me with with knowing exactly where it was that Beryl passed. And also you could there was a lot in the results sheets, and just the media reports at the time and what Beryl and Mike McNamara had said we got it to pretty much the precise stretch of road it was a long stretch of road where you could definitely see somebody in the distance and as I say that was borne out in Beryl’s recollections of it where she could see his jersey in the distance and wasn’t initially certain that it was him. So yeah, for the final chapter, the epilogue of the book, we I cycled the finishing circuit with Denise, Beryl’s daughter, and we sort of pulled over at that point into the had a look up and down the road and just tried to think what you know, her mum might think of what we were doing, actually and Denise sort of surprised me because she took off her she was wearing she had another jersey on top and she took off her and put her Morley she had her Morley club jersey on which is the jersey that her mother always always the club but her mother always raced for and she sort of said I thought I’d put it on for her. And she she didn’t know where it was on the course herself, even though she actually lives quite close, probably only about 10 or 15 miles away. She didn’t she didn’t know where it was, it was another thing because it just her mother was a very sort of Yorkshire person, you know, not much emotion, not much, certainly no showing off or dwelling on anything or no trophies up in the in the house, or she was always on to the next thing. And so she wouldn’t. They weren’t the sort of people that would have really kind of made a fuss about where it was and how it happened. Obviously I did. But, you know, she just didn’t she didn’t know she was that? Oh, I didn’t know this was where the 12 hour happened. I was there. You know, she was there in the car. That day is about an eight year old fortnight. Right? Yeah. 11 year old she would have been but she wasn’t actually she didn’t know which bit of road it was that it happened.

Carlton Reid 21:00
Yeah, that’s fascinating. There definitely should be a plaque. Let’s actually dig into your background. Because we haven’t mentioned that yet. So you’ve obviously been somewhere warm recently, if you want to talk about that. And yeah, and if you could tell us what your kind of your day job is. And then tell us your background in cycling.

Jeremy Wilson 21:20
Yeah, so my day job is, I’m a sports journalist at the Telegraph, but principally doing a lot of football. So I’ve just been to the World Cup in Doha and back after the last 16 phase. So and I’ve been doing that, really, for 20 years, I was at a local newspaper in Hampshire and then worked for The Guardian and The Telegraph for the last 15 years. So look, lots of football but some other sport as well. But I’ve done a few Olympics, and I love doing other sports. But obviously football is so dominant in the kind of sports news cycle, I do end up doing a huge amount of football. And the book really came about because somebody was interested in me doing a book about football and kind of the geo politics of football with the ownership now of teams, obviously from you know, by virtual nation states or some of the richest people in the world that we know about clubs like Manchester City and Paris St Germain and obviously Chelsea before with Roman Abramovich

Carlton Reid 22:26
And Newcastle where I live.

Jeremy Wilson 22:28
And Newcastle now, yeah, that was the premise of this meeting about sort of, and I kind of, I obviously do a lot of stuff around that day to day and I wasn’t that sort of keen to do that for whatever reason and sort of what have you got any book ideas and I was a club cyclist as a as a, as a kid. My family was sort of club cyclists. So I kind of knew the name Beryl Burton, because I was a bit of a sort of stats nerd and I’d look at, you know, records and times and who who’d won the most FA cups and even won, you know, in any sport who’d won an Olympic medals. And, and I remember we had, we used to get this handbook through the post every year, which was the it was called the RTTC Handbook of events for Britain cycling events in Britain, and it had the list of all the champions and records. And I distinctly remember this thumbing through it and, and reading and saying, he’s this, because Beryl Burton won 122 national titles. So the back of this book, it was just B and B. And I remember, I can vividly remember this. I’m not just sort of, it’s not sort of recollection that’s kind of embellished in any way. I remember seeing that 12 hour record that we just talked about, where she bettered the men’s record. And I remember looking at it and seeing it in this book and saying, Oh, this must be wrong. Oh, this is a misprint. And so I think somewhere in my subconsciousness Beryl Burton’s name was, was lodged. And then when, obviously, I didn’t do anything about it for a few decades, and but post 2012 when there was all this publicity, rightly so for all the cyclists that had done so well in the Olympics, and that generation of British cyclists and sort of Bradley Wiggins, Victoria Pendleton, Chris Hoy. I was kind of at that time, there were all these lists of the greatest British sports person are the greatest cyclists and I was looking at them as thinking, what about that Beryl Burton, you know, and I just, I knew she had won loads and loads and loads and obviously she wasn’t being given anything like, due billing in these in these sort of lists of sports people even though she would have surpassed any of them if she would have had a Olympics available to her or had a Tour de France available to her. So it got me it got me back interested and I looked at her her book, which was published in the mid 1980s, Personal Best, and sort of research the story a bit more, and just discovered all these wonderful tangents and sort of subplots because I mentioned her childhood illness, just her relationships with her husband who sort of gave everything up to support her, her daughter, who she ended up competing with just how she went on and on and kind of the circumstances of her early death. You know, when I, when I came back to it and look to hadn’t even realised I wasn’t sure whether she was alive or dead, I just knew that she was this phenomenal athlete. And so I suppose when the more I looked into it from a sort of journalistic point of view, I thought, wow, there’s some fascinating subplots here that you could really get into, you know, the competition with the Soviet Union riders was another one. You mentioned the wind tunnel and you know, how trying to work out how far she is. So there was all this extra stuff from a journalist point of view that I thought, wow, that’s amazing. I think if she just won loads and loads and loads, and there wasn’t a sort of fascinating human interest story, I would have sort of thought, well, you know, is there a book in all of that, but there was just so much else and my eyes were kind of widening, and my jaw was falling closer to the ground, when I sort of the more I learned about her really just thought, this is just an incredible story. And then fortunately, because it wouldn’t have been any fun. And it wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have done it, if the family were sort of very resistant to the idea. And it’d be wrong to say that they were sort of out there, encouraging it, or say, you know, looking for people to sort of amplify her achievements. They’re very sort of humble, not on social media, and not sort of shouting about barrel, but quietly, very proud. And it was a relationship where you sort of build trust over months and years really with them, because it was a four year process, from starting the book to being published, and more than a for just over four years. So they weren’t, as I say, they weren’t looking for it. But equally, I think they liked that they liked the fact that someone seemed to really appreciate what she had done, and really just thought she was as incredible as obviously, privately, they, you know, in a very, as I say, in a very sort of understated way they, they basically agreed that, you know, that she was she was just this incredible athlete that hadn’t got the recognition that she deserved. And they’re just sort of lovely, as I say lovely, kind of humble people that didn’t, they weren’t sort of bragging about barrel, but really proud of her. And also kind of got got this was really important, they understood that you kind of needed to tell the whole story. And we needed to deal with the more difficult parts of her character, like anybody would have, you know, in the difficult parts of the family relationships like anybody would have, but they didn’t, they didn’t shy away from that or say, you know, and, and not want you to speak to someone who might be critical of her, they kind of got that you had to tell it as it was, in fact, I almost got the sense from Denise that she probably got a bit weary sometimes just reading very sort of short superficial things saying you know, that Jan barrel burned, she was amazing, wasn’t she wonderful, full stop sort of thing. She, she, you know, there was a lot more to her story than, than that and a lot more to her personality than that. And fortunately for me, they were they were happy with me sort of delving into that as well as all the fabulous achievements because it’s all interlinked, obviously, and it wouldn’t make sense to do it in any other way. But you never really know how a family member is going to react and to you sort of asking things that you know, quite might feel quite personal but they kind of have that Yorkshire honesty about them, you know, and we’re quite happy to deal with it in the round but obviously they want it they felt it should overwhelmingly be a celebration of her life which hope hopefully it is but it still in that context of of dealing with it as a whole and trying to tell the whole story. So that was that was so important to the project that they were as they were and it made it such a pleasure as well and I’ve said this a few times and I’m on it I truly mean it you know it’s lovely to get on people saying nice things about the book but to have a sort of friendship now with with them and you know, get nice messages from them and Denise is you know, always happy to come to things where we talk about it and the book as well and that’s like the nice been the nicest part really of getting to getting to know them and that that part of Yorkshire so I’m really lucky on that sense that they were as they were about the book.

Carlton Reid 30:01
In those four years of writing, you must have been thinking, from a commercial point of view, perhaps even from a professional point of view, you really ought to be doing a football book, that book you talked about. And this is like, you might be thinking, you know, this is so nice, okay, you might win, you know, cycling of the book year award. But, you know, this is just not mainstream enough. But you’ve made it mainstream. So did you have that inkling of this is so niche, why am I doing this? Or was it always I want to get this story out there. This is really mainstream, and I can make it mainstream. What were your feelings?

Jeremy Wilson 30:34
I did. I mean, that did it did occasionally crossed my mind that you because obviously, it’s quite a lot of, you know, without sort of tunnel way all about the process of it. There’s so many little obstacles or tricky bits or hard moments or parts where other things are going on in your life, when you think, Oh, am I sort of, you know, being a bit hard on my family? And I’ve got two young children and you sort of doing job as well? Are you sort of, you know, is it a bit of a sort of it should I be doing, you know, keep ploughing on with this. But that genuinely just that I didn’t think that much about how it would be received, or whether it’d be mainstream or niche, whether I kind of just stuck with the fact that I thought it was an amazing story. So I kind of hoped that other people would agree. And also, I just felt genuinely such a passion for it myself. And so interested in it myself, I just wanted to do it, I wanted to find out more, I wanted to write about it. So it wasn’t a hardship really to, to do that, rather than something that might be more obvious commercially, because I just thought, wow, this is such an amazing sports story. You know, I’ve been doing lucky enough to do sports journalism for 20 years. And to me, it’s like the most amazing story that I’ve ever come across. So why wouldn’t I want to keep going with it. So that was what keeps you going. It’s just like, wow, this is amazing. And I don’t think you can worry too much about it. I didn’t quite know how it would turn out. But I didn’t sort of think that much about it. Because I was so sustained by my own passion for it really, and just No, of quite, it sounds a bit funny, but it’s quite sort of, you know, you think about it all the time. And you think and I feel quite emotional at times just thinking about the 12 hour record of certain rides, or certain the way she carried on and stuff like that. So it just completely got me, you know, at so many levels that it just wasn’t there, I wasn’t going to stop and I wasn’t going to not do it. Because I was just so into it. Funnily enough, Denise said something to me the first time I met her in it. And I thought about it often. Because I think she sort of met me and thought, Well, we’ll see whether he completes or not really, you know, which is fair enough. I think the same if some stranger come and met me and said, I would like to do this. And she said something about her mother. And she said, and then she says related it to me. She said, Well, if someone really wants to do something they’ll do it. Sounds quite simple, really. And she said that about her mother as well at different times that you can’t really someone really wants to do something, they will find a way to do it. And, and so it wasn’t in a way it wasn’t that hard to get it done. Because I just love the story and so much I really wanted to do it. So yeah, it obviously does take over your mind at different sections. And it was important to balance my day to day work with it. But yeah, just such a fascinating story that I think that was what sustained me, you know, it wasn’t anything to do with whether it did well or not really, it was just it was just I wanted to tell that story. And I think if you have that sort of passion for it, you’re probably on the right tracks because nine times out of 10 other people will find it interesting as well. And there’s so many people that had stories about Beryl as well that you know, even today, even though this last week, I get messages literally every week from people who haven’t read the book sort of have it prompts them a memory or prompt something because she was so out there she was so as Maxine Peake would put it, ordinary extraordinary so so there was all these everyday encounters that people had with her. And I just loved I loved hearing them I still do you know sometimes sometimes wish I wish I knew that before I wrote the book, but mostly

Carlton Reid 34:31
I’ll just jump in there because Maxine Peake of course is the person who wrote the play about Beryl which would brought her back much more into into public consciousness, you know, those those few years ago? So had you seen the play before?

Jeremy Wilson 34:46
No. Do you know what I didn’t know what people thought it might have been prompted by the play. It absolutely wasn’t. But I was delighted when I the first thing I did was listen to the radio play on Radio Four and then I went to see it And I’ve seen it to twice now I went once with Beryl’s, brother, Jeffrey, it was on in Beverly. And we went along and watched it. And then I watched it when it was on in London as well. But I was delighted when I discovered that there was a play because it was kind of like another thing that I thought, well, that’s interesting that people have sort of outside of cycling, have connected with it on that level. And it’d be good to speak to Maxine Peake and understand why she was so interested in the story. So I discovered the play, obviously, fairly early on in the research. And it was just an as I say, another thing that I thought, Well, that’s good, you know, that shows that it’s got a sort of a pool outside of cycling. But it wasn’t it as I said, it wasn’t it wasn’t a trigger to do it. But it was, it was something you couldn’t obviously you couldn’t help but stumble across it fairly quickly when she’s once I started researching. And it was just a really nice extra thing, because it was just fascinating to talk to people who weren’t into cycling the actors, and Maxine Peake herself about what it was about Beryl that had sort of touched them and connected with them. And it definitely has brought it to a wider audience because quite a few of the people I’ve spoken to someone like Dame Catherine Granger, who was a Olympic medalist, as most of your listeners will know, in five Olympics in rowing, she found she discovered Beryl Burton via the play, and sort of was really moved by the these folks, singers O’Hooley & Tidow And did they have to get that right? They wrote a song about they’re all on the back of seeing the play. So it definitely was something that connected with quite a lot of people outside of cycling.

Carlton Reid 36:49
And coming back to you again. Are you a transportation cyclist as well as having that club background?

Jeremy Wilson 36:56
Yeah, to some extent, probably is not as much as I should be. But I do. Yeah, I’ve got a couple of bikes. And I do kind of got ones that I will get out on the road a bit further on in a sort of mountain bike to get around on but I love I love cycling as well. I do love cycling, but not not fast and not competitively, but do a few sport teams. And my my kids are in a cycling club in Hampshire as well. So I go along and and sort of watch them do cyclocross and stuff like that. So, yeah, I love I love cycling. And it’s, as I say, it’s something that my dad was a sort of touring cyclist. So I suppose that’s how we that’s how we came to it. But yeah, I think it’s a it’s a, it’s a brilliant sport. And obviously a real great, healthy, pursuit. When you look at as a discovered from big, big difference from footballers, you can’t you don’t meet many footballers, sadly, that farewell in you know, really late older age above the age of 80. But cyclists there, there are numerous those that are

Carlton Reid 38:04
quite going on, vary, but it’s true. So the transportation cycling in the book is fascinating, you know, that those, you know, long distance ride, she would do the opposite the ride when she died was was a transportation cycling, and then, you know, taking Denise as a baby and then in a trailer, and then on the back all quite modern things to do. Now, you know, this is a middle class, you know, thing to the, you know, like a Copenhagen style, Dutch style thing to do. But, you know, she was doing that, you know, in effect ahead of the curve. So her transportation cycling was just amazing. feats of cycling, amazing, of course, but just she went everywhere by bike and the family and there’s beautiful pictures in the book of you know, Denise, and Charlie, and Beryl, you know, riding together so she, she really lived cycling, did everything on the bike, didn’t she, I mean, she, if she got on the bike, those three hours of ironing she had to do every day, I’m sure she’d love to, to go on a bike.

Jeremy Wilson 39:08
It’s a brilliant thing. Not that many people pick up on that. But it’s such a great point because I think there’s probably a link to why she was so good as well, because she was doing lots of sort of easy miles on the bike, as well as the kind of what she would consider serious training. But she rode her bike everywhere. And she would, she would sort of say I don’t I have a break from cycling in the winter. And she’d really start again in January after the season when sort of end around September. But of course she didn’t stop at all really it was just in her mind. She stopped because she she very much differentiated between those kind of casual cycling and when she was training, but she would at the end of September every year when the world championships were done, and she’d won the British best all rounder for the time trialling when all the races are done, they’d go off on holiday and and Denise would miss the first two, three weeks of the school school term. I didn’t really think much of worrying about that. And they’d go to the, especially when you think of the late 1960s, early 1970s go to Morocco, Sicily, around Italy, France, really quite Canary Islands really quite far out places for for that, you know, for that for that time, and just incredible stories of these touring holidays where they’ve just cycled sort of 30, 40 miles a day. And yet, Denise, that one one daughter, who was Beryl was 18, when she had Denise, she just became part of the cycling routine. So should there be start off on a on a sort of sidecar side carriage kind of thing. Then she was on the seat on the back, no helmet on No, not much strapping in that thing in those days. And then she was on something called a Rann trailer, which looks a bit like a tandem, but it’s slightly different than a tandem. And then when she was about eight or nine was plunked on her own bike and basically it was right there you go if you want to, if you want to go to anything, that’s how you get there you go on your bike and wet and quite often Beryl and would be away for the weekend cycling and Denise it from about the age of nine which simply cycle you know, 11 miles from Woodlesford where they lived to Morley just sort of south of Leeds, both of those two places on her own, you know, to our grandmothers for the weekend. And they went everywhere by bike so if Beryl raced in London she might 50 mile time trial on a Sunday morning, she very often cycle home at the A 170 miles, or she would if you went to a dinner dance. At the end of season all the clubs held their dinner sort of dances should should take a dress in the saddlebag cycle there, go to this event, you know, help wash the dishes afterwards and cycle home again at night. So just went everywhere by bike, she never learned how to drive. So all her shopping trips to work. She worked on a rhubarb farm and she had cycled to work. Everything she did, she’d go for a month, early, early season sort of February, March time to Spain every year. And she would just fly to it was near sort of Mallorca type. No. Gonna get this wrong. Sort of Benidorm, I’m sorry, that’s what’s in my brain, she would sometimes go to Mallorca, but Benidorm was her normal one, and she would just fly there, get off the plane, have a saddle bag full of stuff for the next month and cycle to, you know, very sort of basic apartment. And she would and just train there for a month every year. So she did everything by bike. And as I say, sports scientists were quite interested in that as well, in terms of the kind of easy miles you know, we know the stories of the great African runners and how they kind of walk everywhere and go to, from a young age go to sort of job to school. So it’s the kind of easy, easy activity miles that she was doing, were probably a great foundation for for why she was so good. I mean, she must have we I tried to wake it work it out at one point, how many miles she might have accumulated in her life. And it wasn’t much of a million when you added it all up, because she was riding three 400 miles a week. And as I say, even when she was out of training, she was cycling the whole time. But she had a very clear dividing line, she would sort of say, oh, no, I’m not training at the moment. But she’d still be out on our bike every day. Yeah, that was a real big part of what she did. And they would, that’s one of the things that the older cyclists would regularly point out to me how different it is now because when people race now they’re in the car, to the bike on the roof or bike on the back, get out there, get on the back of it get on some rollers, or a turbo trainer, which is a stationary thing to warm up. And then they will race that’s kind of how how nearly all people who raised do it now whereas Beryl’s generation, you’d, you’d have these hooks on the front of the of the handlebars, and they would put their race wheels on there. And so they’d have these wheels sort of dangling off the handlebars, and they would cycle out to the race, change their wheels race and cycle back. That, you know, that was just how how they did it in that time. But as I say, it’s interesting because I think from a sports science point of view, quite a lot of what she was doing was obviously helping her hugely without quite knowing it as an athlete as well as just the fact she obviously just loved riding her bike everywhere.

Carlton Reid 44:56
And of course, famously and from a narrative you know circularity point of view for somebody writing a book she died on a bike as well as she’s delivering birthday invitations in going through Harrogate. She basically keels over. I actually read from your book here now, rather than you know, flicking through and finding it so this is a bit where you describe how she dies on our bike basically. So “it is a unique and yet instantly recognisable sound, the wearing of a bicycle wheel freely rotating until it slowly stops not because a brake has been applied, but because the momentum from that last push up pedal has gradually ceased. It was the dading — this is beautiful this — it was the fading sound that accompanied the last breath of Beryll Burton, after she collapsed on the side of the road in May 1996, while riding her bicycle on the outskirts of Harrogate while delivering invites for her 59th birthday.” So that’s kind of evocative, but also so circular. It’s almost perfect, but I know nobody wants to die, of course, but as her has Denise pointed out in the book, I mean, if she wanted to die, or you know, she would definitely want to die on a bike and she wouldn’t want to get old and be infirm. She kind of … it’s almost too perfect. It’s weird but it’s perfect.

Jeremy Wilson 46:16
Yeah, no, and I was a bit there was a sort of hesitation in almost describing it in those terms, because obviously you’re describing such a tragic event. But they did that was very much how the family felt obviously they wished it would have been decades later. But they definitely that there was a comfort that she died doing what she loved. And you know, a moment where she would have probably been lost in her thoughts because she just loved she would say that she loves cycling for the mental side as well how it just freed her of the sort of stresses and worries of the world which I think a lot of people exercise and cycle for that reason. So you’d imagine she would have been in a in that that mode whilst whilst whilst that happened and there was a quote as well from her when Tom Simpson famously then sort of France cyclist died on his bike going up Mt Ventoux in the Tour de France has different circumstances because he was racing to the point of exhaustion, exhaustion at the time, but it was reported that his last words were put put me back on my bike. There’s no again, it’s a story that might not be 100% accurate, but Beryl, there was a quote from Beryl that I found where she said he could have no finer epitaph than than saying that so I think it gave you a clue as to how she might view the circumstances of her own death, but obviously, just decades, sooner than everybody would have wished. But that yeah, there there is a sort of Maxine Peake said there’s a poetry to how that happened. And and as I say, the family different I know, both her brother and daughter do take some comfort from the fact that that was that was how she how she died, the jockey AP McCoy that he was the 20 times champion jockey I spoke to him about Beryl because I was interested in how the longevity it was very similar to him to keep going that number of years. And he he was very taken with the circumstances of Beryl’s death, and he said, it’s perfect as well, you know, because, and he said that if he felt the same, because obviously he’s stared down the barrel in a different way, when he’s fallen off horses, and you know, it’s a sport where there are fatalities and he he was very quite moved by that and taken by that and said that as well. And it was that that stuck with me as well that sort of mindset of somebody who’s so passionate about their sport but as he and Denise said it was just sort of you just was wished it would have been when she was in her late — thirty years later — was but yeah, very, very sort of that that does really you know, get to me to think about that you know, is is very evocative as you say and moving.

Carlton Reid 49:18
It’s quite unusual and not not just in the you know, the fact you didn’t get to 80 years old, but when when cyclists die as we all know it tends to be you know, when when motorists knock into them and kill them so you know, Davide Rebellin, Italian cyclist is just died by getting hit by motorists. So that’s how cycling stars tend to die. Many cyclists tend to die is getting hit by by by motorists, but she’s just keeled over at the side of the road. There was no other involvement. Nobody, nobody saw it happen exactly. But there was no talk of it. You know, she was not knocked from her bike, her heart gave out.

Jeremy Wilson 49:54
Yes, yes. Yeah, absolutely. There wasn’t like an early media report that sort of assumed that that was the that there must have been some sort of road traffic incident. But no, that wasn’t that wasn’t the case. And no, she was that there was a sort of full post mortem. And now it was she had anaemia as well. And it was her cause of death was heart failure and anaemia. But I think from the, I mean, Denise was kind enough to let me see the medical report from the post mortem. And, you know, it was it obviously, her heart had, there was this defect in it from, as I say, from a from a child, and that was very evident in the, in the post mortem so that she had reason she had reason she was risking her life every time she went out on her bike that there was no she was she and she was told that repeatedly through her life. So it wasn’t, in a way, it wasn’t a surprise that she should have that problem. It was one of those situations, which was a horrible shock. But, you know, rationally wasn’t a surprise because she had she had been told this throughout her life that she was, she was taking

Carlton Reid 51:06
Say it was it was it was part and parcel of her life as a cyclist, because it’s it’s, you know, her formative life in the convent that that that illness you had as a child, which would use, you know, quite expertly pick out in the book about like how super athletes, super-elite athletes often have some form of trauma in their childhood, which, which then drives them on to be these amazingly single minded hyperfocused and never satisfied with just one when they’ve got to keep on winning. So that heart problem she had as a child, which obviously, sadly died from was also probably the reason she actually had that career in the first place as a side. Yeah. So in that, that illness, and that, you know, time in the convent drove her and changed her mental makeup.

Jeremy Wilson 51:58
Yeah, absolutely. I think it was absolutely key, I don’t think it was the only thing. I got to the point with it, because it really interesting that that there was some research done in British Olympic athletes. And they found that they grouped them as elite or super elites, and the super elites were the kind of repeat winners, the absolute relentless winners, which barrel would have been one of those. And they had found this sort of staggering proportion that had had some sort of childhood trauma, which could be quite different. It could be sort of parents separating some sort of, you know, violence in the family, or some very, very different types of trauma, potentially. And Beryl’s was that she had this awful illness as a child. But it was really common in these high achievers that seem to galvanise or give them a driving force or sort of need to win a need to succeed and need to do their very best. And she obviously had that I think she also, she, her brother talked a lot to me about her childhood and their family. And she obviously came into it with a great sort of, she already had a kind of perfectionist type personality and a stubborn stubbornness. He, he called it the Charnock way, which was her her maiden name and and said, It was evident in a lot of family members very sort of stubborn, determined people. And then I think the other I think the other factor was what Beryl then was fortunate to discover coming out of the illness because she met Charlie, her husband, who was a club cyclist. And she was fortunate that this group of cyclists in Morley in just outside Leeds, were just so welcoming, so supportive, so but very competitive, as well. So she, the people who are the experts on this childhood trauma, say that it’s kind of three factors, you’ve usually got some inherent characteristic, and you’ve also got a supportive structure around you at the end of it. So it’s kind of not something you recommend, you wouldn’t recommend trauma to people obviously. And it can, it can be very destructive, but but with with those things around it with those inherent characteristics, and also the right support around you afterwards, it seems like it can be this added catalysts that can drive someone to amazing things. And with barrel you can vary, and that was kind of a theoretical model. But with Beryl, you can very clearly identify those other components that they talked about. Because she she she found this brilliant environment to to cycle in that was very progressive, because a lot of cycling clubs wouldn’t allow women but she She, at that time, but she she happened upon one that was welcoming to her and then they obviously became to love the fact that they had this incredible person in their club, and they were really proud of her and really supportive of her. So I think that was important as well.

Carlton Reid 54:58
She was very clearly proud of them too. Because I mean there was a quote but that you mentioned the book where and this is this is her words she’s one of another one of her amazing victories and she said “I have knocked up another victory for Morley and Great Britain” so not you know victory and for Great Britain I’m so it’s like she mentioned have cycling club first, my Great Britain is almost as a as an afterthought.

Jeremy Wilson 55:21
Yeah, that oh, she was was she never she was offered many times to be professional. But there it wasn’t professional in the terms of we think of professional cycling team. Now there was no races or team that you could you didn’t it didn’t open the door to some continental scene of earning lots of money and riding in better races, being professional just meant that you became an advertising tool for a bike company. And there were certain records placed to place records that you could go for. But you wouldn’t you would then be not allowed to race in any of the time trial events, any of the World Championships that she went for, because it was very strict that the line between amateur and professional, so going professional would have been financially quite good because she would have advertised bikes but she would have made no she would have had no very quickly ended her competitive career. So she very firmly stuck with writing for Morley Cycling Club and never went to a kind of a bigger club or anything like that. And she was incredibly loyal and would always talk about them. And I loved meeting all the personalities from the Morley Cycling Club because a lot of them were still alive. And you know, they were Beryl’s, they were Beryl’s team, they were Beryl’s support structure at that time and just again, very, very down to earth. Club minded, brilliant Yorkshire people who are so so so proud of Beryl you know, some of them have got one of them still have one of her world championship, jerseys, rainbow jerseys and

Carlton Reid 56:56
hidden away that nobody knew.

Jeremy Wilson 56:58
He had it under his bed. He went and got it. It was like it was it was still pristine. And he said, I’ve never worn it because when Beryl gave it to me, she said, You can have this but mind you never wear it because you didn’t earn it. And that was the kind of she wanted him to have the jersey but she was like, it’s it’s you haven’t got the right to wear it. But he was so it was in a in a plastic bag. And they kept it look, it looks, although it looks of the age 1960s and was made of sort of cotton, sort of silk it was still it was still perfectly maintained. So they were so proud of her and she was very you’re proud of Yorkshire she would in one of the World Championships, it’s very noticeable. She’s got this too, too. Russians either side of her with the CCCP or Soviet Union jerseys and she’s got a jersey, she hasn’t got a British jersey on that podium. She’s just got the Yorkshire rose on it on it thing she’s wearing. So yeah, very, very proud of that. Of her of her club and, and background. And Morley was very supportive to her because the archives in Morley at the local library have kept one of the really interesting sort of discoveries that kept all this correspondence between Beryl and the Morley town council because they would organise these civic receptions for her when she came back, and they’d raise money, that it was a mill town so that all the workers in the mills and social clubs would club together and sort of raise 100 pounds or something for Beryl. So that to help with her being able to go and cycle abroad in these World Championships. So she had this great relationship with Morley, and they’re wonderful these letters, because they’re very formal to, you know, to and from the town council and Beryl, you know, inviting her to different receptions or, you know, helping with the kind of fun, you know, raffles and, you know, very basics of funding that you could tell that the town really got behind her in that way.

Carlton Reid 59:03
And some of that funding, which which she couldn’t spend any other way was was, didn’t she spend it on, in effect, a record player?

Jeremy Wilson 59:10
Yeah, yeah, for a long time it got to a point where, and Denise that was one of the things that Denise was sort of she was I wondered where that had come. She goes, Oh, that record player still, I think she went and got it for me. She that was in every one of her houses. But it there was a letter from about 19. There’s about 1964 There was some money left over from an event that they had funded Beryl to go and do in Italy. And they were sort of like, well, what, what should we do with it? And they and they weren’t allowed to give the money to Beryl there was this great exchange of letters and they’d written to the British Cycling Federation, and they were like, no, if you give her that 50 pounds or 40 pounds or whatever it was, that was leftover. It might have been a bit less than that. Yeah, that will break that will convene her amateur that will break her amateur status and she will never be allowed to So called for Britain again. So they had to find but they said it is okay to buy her something. And so she chose a record prayer. And there’s a letter she wrote back to them saying, you know, really polite to sort of graciously thanking them for this this gramophone record player that she wanted. And as I say, Denise, wondering how they afforded it.

Carlton Reid 1:00:29
you knew more about the family for certain things.

Jeremy Wilson 1:00:32
Yeah, yeah. Cos, as I say, Beryl wasn’t one for talking about things that much when she she had, she got cancer later in life and had to go for an operation and for mastectomy, and Denise said, Oh, she didn’t tell me till she was in hospital. And she was kind of like, Well, why didn’t you come and see me sooner? And she’s like, well, I didn’t. I didn’t know. So that was, that was just how, how, how it was, I think, that was the way they, you know, they were the way they were. So yeah, she did. She did learn a bit from from from the book as well, which was nice. Obviously, I learned much more from her, but did learn something from the book.

Carlton Reid 1:01:16
And it was amazing what she’s, she’s turning down to to keep that amateur status, you know, things like contracts with Raleigh. And they got to like, the Cycling Industries Federation, you know, gave them an early version of the Reliant Robin, which was, which was like a Raleigh-branded car originally. So they got that. So that that was that was one thing, which they were but they were basically she could have got massive, like Reg Harris style contracts, if she had have gone, you know, one way, but she was very adamant that she didn’t want to go that way.

Jeremy Wilson 1:01:51
Yeah. And Reg Harris was trying to get her to because I think he saw an opporunity, I sense the saw an opportunity to, to sort of represent her because he wrote this great article about, you know, she should turn professional and she could have a future on the on television and after dinner circuit and sort of earn money in that way. But that was when she was only about it was after she had won about her fourth world title. So she would have only been in her mid 20s at that point. I mean, she cycled for another, she was winning titles for another 20 years after that. And it’s so misunderstood what she stood for and what she loved doing this idea that she wanted to be a celebrity rather than a racing cyclist just couldn’t have been anything further from the truth. She never she never had a TV in the in her house because she thought that it might distract her from a cycling you know, never had a phone in the house. Because she thought she didn’t want to be distracted from what she needed to do for her cycling. So the idea that she wanted to be a sort of use it to be a kind of sporting celebrity was just so far from what she wanted to do. I imagine the money at some point must have been tempting they came there was it’s as I say it’s in she describes it in some Cycling Weekly articles of the time, you know, Raleigh would turn up they were living in a two bedroomed council house in Morley. You know, Charlie would do the bikes in the corridor of this council flat. It was a it was a I had a look at it, it was just blocks of house you know, house flat. And he would do the maintain all the bikes in the in the sort of freezing cold corridor in the winter of the of this of this place in Morley, where they lived up until she was a fight that a move when she was she had already won five world titles when they moved and Raleigh kept coming to this to this address with, you know, different contracts for her. But she always she always said no, but it must have been I imagine there must have been some temptation because they they were living very much week to week in terms of being able to afford to cycle, they both worked. And the working was just to facilitate being able to pursue her passion. So I guess there must have been a temptation, but she knew that it would have as I say, because of this strict enforcement between amateur and professional, she knew that it would have been the end of her ability to race basically, in all the things that were meaningful to her. So it was absolutely the right choice for her and just so again, kind of there’s something so noble about her career now where we see sort of modern sport, it would be so different now is something so pure and genuine and about it and actually, in fairness or you know, modern sports people, I think roots still have that basic passion for what they do. It’s probably not their fault, but there’s all the other stuff that’s attached to it now, but I think that can change how they view their sport with some I’m for sure but never Beryl never face that because she just, she just was completely amateur completely did it for the love of the love of it.

Carlton Reid 1:05:11
We do share a sponsor in that she got a bike from Ron Kitching. And I also was sponsored in the 1980s by Ron Kitching who gave me stuff but then Ron Kit gave you know lots of cyclists Yes. stuff in obviously a Yorkshire and Rudding Park in Harrogate, which was, which was very much wereRon Kitching was from so she got she got a Ron Kitching bike. So she she rode that, but really didn’t get a great deal, said she, she wasn’t she wasn’t like, you know, no, absolutely dripping with with she just couldn’t

Jeremy Wilson 1:05:47
know the only things that she could get she she got she got this Reliant Robin car in 1960. Or the family did three wheeler, which Charlie would use to it wasn’t a Reliant Robin, as you say it was a three wheeler it was an early version of a three wheeler the Reliant Robins came later. And they would use it and there’s photographs in the book of it, you know, parked by the side of the road in Belgium and and Denise and Charlie were sleeping in the back of it. While Beryl’s becoming world champion in the age extraordinary kind of stories and this car went in became a bit of a sort of renowned sort of thing around the country because it would it would easily tip apparently, so it will quite often, it will quite often capsize in sort of ditches when Charlie was driving around the the roads trying to keep up with where a Beryl was. And people would have to come and sort of push it back up, right and stuff like this. So I heard lots of funny stories about this car was very well known to everybody. So they got that car in 1960 as a sort of reward it was for becoming she was double world champion that year. And other than that, there was a shoemaker that would that would, I don’t know if they were made any cheaper she’d have these quite often read shoes by someone in Northampton can called Peter Salisbury who would make these custom beautiful leather red shoes for her I don’t know the exact arrangement, as I say in terms of paying but Ron Kithcing. Charlie worked when they moved to Harrogate in 1976, Charlie worked in his bike shops, and I think she more or less had the run of things there, it wouldn’t have been a formal relationship, because you can be sort of sponsored, as I say, because of these rules about amateur and professional. But from what Denise tells me, I think I think she pretty much you know, she could she could borrow whatever she wanted from the bike shop by then. And obviously, Ron Kitching was pretty happy because his, his, his bikes were always in the sort of cycling magazines, because he would nearly all her records were on the sort of Ron Kitching bikes. So yeah, I think she had some help later on in that regard. But other than that, nothing, you know, absolutely nothing, and it would in fact, be have contravened the rules if she had. So she would know that there was there was some receipts at the BBC archive of her sort of, you know, claiming very precise expenses when she went in did sort of record breakers or something like that. And she wouldn’t, you know, very fair with what she claimed she wasn’t, there was no sort of making any money out of out of cycling. And she did tonnes of things for nothing. That was sort of promoting cycling, in terms of sort of TV appearances, or even, you know, she did a load of promotional stuff for the AA bizarrely, and she currently got paid nothing for it. But at that time, it was kind of like the prestige of being invited to shows or being invited to things was she’s she would say, Well, I want you know, I’ve got to I’m representing cycling as a sport and cycling was quite a minority sport at that time. So she thought that it was important that cycling was represented and it was a sort of honour for cycling to, to go to these things. So it was very much that way around in career.

Carlton Reid 1:09:12
Don’t I very much like to talk about some sexism in cycling, and that’s absolutely stands out in the book how staggeringly high the challenges that all women were facing in that era, not just bearable all women. But for now I’d like to actually cut to a commercial break. So let’s take this way with David.

David Bernstein 1:09:33
Hello, everyone. This is David from the Fredcast, and of course, the spokesmen. And I’m here once again to tell you that this podcast is brought to you by Tern Bicycles, the good people at Tern build bikes that make it easier for you to replace car trips with bike trips. Part of that is being committed to designing useful bikes that are also fun to ride. But an even greater priority for Tern is to make sure that your ride is safe, and worryfree. And that’s why Tern works with industry leading third party testing labs like EFBE, and builds it bikes around Bosch ebike systems which are UL certified for both electric and fire safety. So, before you even zip off on your Tern, fully loaded and perhaps with the loved ones behind, you can be sure that the bike has been tested to handle the extra stresses on the frame and the rigours of the road. For more information, visit www.ternbicycles.com to learn more. And now back to the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:10:43
Thanks, David. And we are back with Jeremy Wilson. And Jeremy as as I’m sure you if you’ve been listening to the the rest of the show, you’ll know has wrote this incredibly fantastic multi award winning book on BB Beryl Burton and and before the break there I was I was kind of mentioning to to Jeremy if he could talk us through some of the amazing sexism you know, we think of today is it being fairly bad and it still is bad, you know, you know, the parity in prizes, all this kind of stuff. But back in the you know, the heyday when when Beryl was raising 50, 60s and early 70s it was off the scale, the sexism and the challenges that women riderss had to had to face back then. Even though they were clearly as as Jeremy talked about with the licorice allsorts story, she was as good as if not better than many of the top men of the of the day. So Jeremy, tell me about the kind of challenges she faced with officialdom so with the with the British Cycling Federation, with the UCI, famously, you know, what, what did she have to get above and beyond before she even had to, you know, athletically win?

Jeremy Wilson 1:11:57
Well, she was she was very unfortunate in one respect, because she was came along in a sport that where women weren’t allowed in the Olympics. So if she was an athlete, a runner, athletics, or swimmer, she would have they were into the Olympics 50 years before cyclists but for whatever reason, the UCI, which was the world governing body was very sort of male dominated body and wasn’t much interested in in promoting women’s cycling. And it was only it was actually a British woman called Eileen Gray, who was the great champion for getting women’s cycling recognised, and Beryl was, well, she was unlucky in that sense that she didn’t have those competitions available to her Commonwealth Games as well, it wasn’t it was the same position. Eileen Gray was successful in lobbying the UCI to have a women’s world championship events from 1958 onwards, and Beryl kind of first reach world class level in the late 1950s. So she was fortunate in that she at least coincided with World Championships, but only very basic amounts of World Championships. So it was a road race, a pursuit on the track, which is a timed three kilometre race and a sprint on the track. So there’s just three events open to women, which meant Beryl could go for two of those, which was the road race and the time trial. She wasn’t a fast sprinter. It’s a completely different discipline. They weren’t actually her best events, because now there’s a time trial had there been a time trial, she would have been invincible for 25 years, maybe 20 years, something like that. I mean, she was way better at time trialling than the shorter three kilometre pursuit or a road race, but she had those events available to her. And she was seven times world champion in those events. Still, no British cyclists has ever been a double world road race champion apart from Beryl, and no British and no cyclist in the world as one as many perceived medals as her so she’s still excelled. Even though these two events weren’t her absolute best events, but the sort of surrounding stories of the challenges women faced even in these events, even though they had them were vast because they would always sort of not be given the the tires or the kit that the men would they were always given less money for accommodation, less riders were allowed to go, who were women. And also the schedule, the UCI schedule would just shut the women’s races whenever there was a gap in the programme for the men, so they never knew when they were going to race. So when they were riding they would spend let arrive at the track sort of seven or eight in the morning and often be there till like midnight. And Beryl might not know when her sort of World Final would be exactly because it was always done at sort of discretion of the organisers and the organisers were this sort of male or in male committee And they kind of saw the women’s races as sort of an add on that weren’t really that important. So she had that throughout her world. World Championships career, I think where she was fortunate was the club scene in in in Britain as we touched upon the club that she joined Morley. It had women in it and it was very sort of family progressive club in in Yorkshire. Other cyclists at the time would tell me very, very different stories. A lady called Val Baxendine, who rode with Beryl in the World Championships in East Germany. She wrote a letter to try and join her local cycling club and was told well, you can you can you can come and make the tease for us at the event that you can’t join the Club. Eileen Cropper, another lady from Bradford, she knew Beryl very well, she said that she was allowed to join the club but she would they would put that because they didn’t like getting faster she said the lads would put bricks in my my saddlebag when we went out cycling to to slow me down and the prize is for women as well. You know, it’s almost quite comical now looking back, but there’d be things like hair curling tongs, a pouch of washing powder, and stuff like that would be what the women were given if they won if they won something, which and just the way that women cycling was reported as well was was you’d be I’d be sacked on the spot if if I sent in anything that was resembled what you would read in that sort of cycling magazines and national newspapers at the time. You know,

Carlton Reid 1:16:31
you’re the Yorkshire housewife and Yorkshire has that kind of thing?

Jeremy Wilson 1:16:36
Yeah, but also sort of, you know, slender legs that will be easy on the eye for any man or stuff like you know, vivacious bubbly, you know, good looking bubbly personality it was all very commenting on on, on the appearance of the cyclists as much as what they actually were doing. But that was obviously normal at that time because there it was in in sort of print and wasn’t really you know, it was sort of accepted of that’s how it was so very, very different times but obviously Beryl was vital because although she wasn’t a great one for sort of, she wasn’t out there campaigning all the time to for for inclusion in the way that Eileen Gray as I say she was her great champion was but what were Beryl was so crucial was just cuz she was so good, athletically so extraordinary, she completely changed perceptions of women, women’s athlete, women, athletes, and women’s sport and what they were capable of, because this was a time when women weren’t allowed to do marathons in in athletics. They didn’t think that it was almost safe for women to push themselves in long endurance sport. And then there was there was this woman that was actually beating the men in these events. So it completely changed how women’s endurance sport was viewed and respected as well, because you couldn’t obviously not respect somebody who was better than the better than the men at the time. So you had I suppose this kind of mixture of things I did, but I did in fairness sense that that British Time Trial scene was was in the context of a lot of sport was quite quite progressive in its sort of welcoming way. And now actually, the men who who rode with barrel that they love talking about her love her, you know, love, she’s sort of figure that, you know, on the sort of Facebook pages of this sort of oldest cycling in the 60s are these you know, they Beryl was a sort of absolute legend to these men that were sort of regularly kind of beaten by her. There was one guy that said that he was a good, very good cyclist in himself. And he was quoted as saying, if if Beryl Burton ever beats me, I’m gonna bury my bike, you can bury my bike in the garden, and his brother was a very good, good, very great rider Ray Booty who is the first rider to cycle under four hours for 100 miles. And he, there was a speech he gave, and he was telling the story of what his brother said about Beryl Burton, and he sort of just ended his speech with both events came to pass. I, he got beaten by Beryl and he had to bury his bike. I don’t know if the second is strictly true, but they had to get used to you know, they had to get used to the fact that there was this woman who was stronger than them and there was so many stories that I would hear. Along those lines, they’re kind of like folk hero type stories. There was a guy called Roy Caspell, who was the national 12 hour champion men’s champion, and he and Beryl did 100 mile time trial one morning and they were both they were first and second in the event, but Roy Caspell just beat Beryl they were both under four hours. For 100, which was very, very rare for a man or a woman at that time, and he narrowly beat Beryl but Beryl didn’t like the fact that she had she had lost and so she challenged him to to go for another ride through the Yorkshire Dales on the same day, and apparently he sort of they went and he sort of felt for his honour, he had to say yes. And he came back and one of his club mates said that when he came back, he was just begging for mercy. So it was an absolute, it’s actually said, He’s, she’s can’t remember the exact words, but it was, it was a

Carlton Reid 1:20:35
mess or something.

Jeremy Wilson 1:20:37
She’s not a wreck. Yeah, or something like that. And she was five foot six inch women, not, you know, eight and a half stone through this guy was six foot two at the absolute peak of his powers. So she’s just in terms of the respect that I think women’s sport gave, she was hugely important. And the other thing that she did do, she campaigned to have men’s and women’s races in the time trials together. So I mean, it was probably quite as from Beryl’s point of view, a selfish thing, because she wanted the competition, she wanted to ride in the men’s races as well. She was successful in that sort of campaign that she had, but that, mostly she was mostly she was important, I think, in that fight for equality, just because she was so extraordinarily good. As I say, someone could, Eileen Gray was this amazing campaigning figure in the committee rooms of the British Cycling Federation and the UCI, but there were lots of Beryl would have lots of problems throughout her career with the BCF the British Cycling Federation, they were, they were always quite awkward with what she wanted to do, and would try and get her to do different events and things like that. But quite interesting. And quite another thing, I think that’s a characteristic of someone who’s hugely successful, even when she was very young, she really stood up for herself, and she’d do what she wanted to do what she believed was right. And I think that’s it, you know, wasn’t worried about fitting in and doing, you know, not not ruffling feathers, she would, she would do exactly what she thought was right. And if they didn’t like it, you know, hard luck. And they would threaten a few times with her sort of the selection from World Championships because she would insist on doing lots of time trialling, and they wanted her to focus on other events, and they would back down in the end, because it would have looked ridiculous if they didn’t select her for these races. So she actually had sort of fractious relationship with the the governing bodies at different points in our career.

Carlton Reid 1:22:44
So in the book, you’re very, very, incredibly well demonstrated how amazing she is, as as a sports person, in general, compared to other sportsmen or how she ought to be up there with, you know, all the sporting greats. And then you mentioned in in the book about how, in 2016, the telegraph, your paper is one of the culprits of not because it’s they placed her at fifth in the list of Greatest British sports people, you know, behind Gavin Hastings, and Sandy Lyle. Now, do you think and this is a very, very difficult question for me to ask or for you to answer. But do you think with your book now, especially as we’re winning so many awards? Do you think she’ll be much, much further up that list? Now that you’ve been elevated?

Jeremy Wilson 1:23:33
I would hope so. I think obviously, you know, it’s going to have passed, it’s not going to have sort of it not everybody’s going to have noticed notice this and and other things that have been done to promote what she’s, you know, to amplify her achievements. But I think she would be now I do think I do think people and something that’s really interesting. I don’t know if people are just being polite. But when the title in search of Britain’s greatest athlete, I sort of thought I’d have a few people going sort of Yeah, right. Or no, no, that’s ridiculous for this reason, or, you know, whatever. But just isn’t. Nobody’s even tried to argue with the tough times and the Financial Times, reviews of both, both of them said, it’s not hyperbole that the title, and I haven’t come across anyone that sort of really sort of thought no, when you stop and think about it, sort of is a fair case to make there. So I think she would be a lot higher. There was a sort of poll of the sports journalists Association a couple of years ago for the greatest British women’s athlete, and she wasn’t even mentioned in this poll, and I was sort of do I sort of kick off social media about it? And I thought, I’ll wait till after my book, I don’t want it, you know, so it’s a bit early to sort of, and think Jessica Ennis Hill was sort of named as the sort of greatest ever British Britain’s greatest ever sports woman. And you know, as much as Jessica Ennis, who is is fantastic. And I’m not trying to knock what she’s done. If had Beryl had an Olympics open to her shoe in a time trial, she would have won the time trial, in my opinion every years from 1960 to 1980, which is six Olympics. At in adding the pursuit road race, you would have won a few of a few pursuits for sure, maybe one road race, something like that, you know, you’re looking at sort of Redgrave times Wiggins, and then a sort of Tour de France, if a women’s Tour de France was available to her, she would have annihilated the field in a in a, in an in an endurance event of that type day to day being having to ride along miles day after day. I mean, that would have suited her perfectly. So

Carlton Reid 1:25:51
on that on that subject, but let’s talk about you’re bringing her into the modern day, let me tell tell me about the the wind tunnel, and you put a you know, the rider on on the same bike, because you got you got the bike, and you’ve made conclusions from that. So just tell us about that bit.

Jeremy Wilson 1:26:07
Yeah, well, I wanted to try and find a way to sort of benchmark what she had done. And I knew that what she’d done was so phenomenal her times, because her times at the time, her records at the time were the 12 hours we touched on was was actually in excess of the men’s record of the day. But the 100, the 1500 miles, 50 miles, 25 miles and 10 miles, were all very close to the men’s record of the time, way closer than you would normally get not just in cycling, but in athletics swimming record. So she was obviously highly unusual in terms of how good she was. And her record lasted between 35 and 50 years, which again, is just completely unheard of, particularly in a sport where technology advances were so so big, you know, be completely unheard of in athletics, but you’re only really changing the shoe there or swimming where you’re just changing the trumnks, you know, it’s fairly marginal differences. Here we’re talking about a sport with the carbon fibre bikes, the aero bars, the helmets, the clothing, vast, vast improvements, and yet her records still lasted, you know, the 12 hour record lasted half a century. So I knew that I knew that she must be athletically completely out of the park. Unusual. So I was speaking to Chris Boardman about it. I interviewed him and we were talking about Beryl Burton, and he you know, he knew he got he got our autograph as a kid, he got approached to a race. And he said, Well, why? And I said, Is there a way of modelling it because he did a he did the our record on a super bike. And then he did he did the what they call the athlete’s Hour, which was on an old school bike with dropped handlebars, and there was about six or seven kilometre difference in an hour in the two records. And I sort of said how, you know, could you in any way there’s a wind tunnel at Silverstone which which the a lot of the professional teams in top amateur riders use to measure different bits of equipment because they can objectively just analyse the difference in times of various changes you can make to the bike or your position. So a guy called Xavier Disley does this for for some professional teams and as I say top athletes and top and he’s trying to invent things as well all the time to make the bikes faster. And he was like yeah, we could do that you know, it’s not not that difficult really. You just need to get somebody in the wind tunnel on barrels old bike or a bike similar to Beryl’s old bike similar build of person, old clothing, you know, he even said jokingly he said if you can get a wig that’ll be good and I was like okay, we’ll get it didn’t think I was but I did we I had to leave it down to get it to the right Beryl look, but I was pretty look at the photos they’re pretty close. And so we’ve got a cyclist called Jessica Rhodes Jones who’s a good time triallist now and she rode Beryl’s bike with the wig was kindly put the wig on and some of the old Morley cycling club let me the kit and and we did the same with her super bike now with all the carbon bike, Aero Club clothing and handlebars and everything. And he was you basically just measured the drag effect in the wind tunnel of the two and he from there he could then calculate what Beryl’s times would have been on the modern kit. And she came up faster still in the current record at 25 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles and 12 hours. So we were doing was literally changing the kit and nothing else. So you would have literally if you You could have picked up Beryl Burton from 1967 and plumped her in a time machine and plonked her on a super bike. And you know, she might have needed a day or so to get used to it. Although Jessica told me it is much easier to ride the new bikes than the old the one Beryl was riding, they’re much less comfortable. She would have still been beating the records that are out of date, despite changes in training, diet, Sports, Science, everything else, which is literally all we’re doing is picking Beryl up as an athlete and plunking her forward. So the 55 years, which I think is and he said to me, Dr. Disney, who did it, he said, I don’t think you could get an athlete in any sport where you could do that he just couldn’t believe that that was possible. Because even as I said it in athletics and swimming, the technological advances are much, much smaller. But the improvements in 50 years are still absolutely massive now, so it just kind of underlined again, I stayed out of the calculations, I wasn’t like I said to him, it just do it. I kind of expected it to show something amazing, but because because of the reasons I said at the start, but you obviously don’t know what he’s gonna come back with. So I was selfishly I suppose I was pleased that it showed how remarkable she was, but not not completely surprised. I would have been more surprised. If if it was I mean, you know, the 12 hour record was only first beaten five years ago. So I couldn’t see anywhere in the world that that that wouldn’t wouldn’t be much faster if she wasn’t on the if she was on the same kit that they use now. But yeah, as I say, I sort of stood back and let him Let him work it out. So great. And it’s actually that’s got quite a lot of interest as well, you know, that you could do something a bit different and something that’s sort of fairly objective, obviously, there’s going to be you can’t do something absolutely perfect to the second but it’s, it’s a fairly good, good, good guide, I think to how good she was.

Carlton Reid
You know, it’s a fascinating part of the book. There’s tonnes of fascinating parts of the book of course. So I’ve made 1000s of notes here and I could absolutely talk all day with you. And I am very very aware that we have actually been talking for an hour and a half Jeremy which is an awfully long time so thank you for that. Let’s let’s kind of end even though I could talk all day with you about belt but let’s just because she’s clearly hard as nails in in many different aspects of our life. But let’s just just this one I did talk I did say that we would bring Yvonne Reynders the great Flemish rider back in, and that’s just in one of the rides. And this is what Yvonne didn’t know. This particular bit. So just tell me about the ride. Where Charlie, excuse me, Beryl’s husband, she she’s basically had an injury. Yes. And she’s been in effect tied to a track bike. With with a leather toe strap. So tell me about that. Because that that that definitely tells you a lot about her as a person as a rider as an athlete.

Jeremy Wilson
Yeah, that was an amazing, amazing story. She said she was warming up for the World Championships. Off the top of my head. I remember it was Paris, I think it would have been 65 but but she was warming up with a lady called Val Rushworth who was a sprint one of the British sprinters so she was able to help me a bit with this story as well. But it’s in Beryl does tell this story in her book Personal Best as well. And so one of the male cyclists that they were warming up with actually just moved out across and wiped her out when they were do riding around the track to warm up, Beryl went down and great pain in a wrist and they didn’t know what it was is a good a good example of the sexism, Eileen Gray, the British team manager wanted to take her to the medical centre to get this looked at and they wouldn’t let her go in because she needed to be accompanied by a male doctor and need to be accompanied by a man. So the British women’s team manager was not good enough to accompany Beryl to get this checked out. So in the end, she found a medic from another team who sort of looked at it and they didn’t think she was gonna ride and it was obviously really painful. And in the end, it was what do we do, and they gave her an injection which numbs the pain, but she lost all feeling in a in a in her hand. So she couldn’t, she couldn’t clinch the handlebars with one of her hands. So she could with one. So she’s effectively riding one handed in a way. And they kind of thought, well, she won’t, she won’t be able to ride, you know, there’s no way she can ride. And she she, I think from memory, she did this in this it was before the semi final. She rode the semi final with it strapped and got and won. And then she was into the final against Yvonne Rynders. And that was one of the times where she didn’t win, she was silver medal that year. But obviously, she was at a huge disadvantage because of the fact that she had no feeling in one of her arms, but nobody could believe that she would actually ride, Val Rushworth couldn’t believe that she would she was going to ride but that was I think that was just that mentality of you sort of you get on with it, you get get on with it as kind of like what she would say about things. And you know, she had many crashes in life and was always she was always back on her bike as quickly as possible. But just amazing, really, because you would because it’s not just the the being one handed, it’s not just the steering, that would have been difficult. A lot of the power where you grip kind of comes from comes from your arms, it would have said would have must have been really difficult to not just control the bike, but go full out, and then just probably the whole shock of it. But that was what they

Carlton Reid
So when you say strapped, you know, people might think, oh, you know, people have put bandages around it. But this is actually literally strapped to the handlebars with a leather toe strap.

Jeremy Wilson
And yeah they just that was that was I guess that was that those sort of straps were what they used to kind of transport a lot of things at that time, like related things, you know, on the sort of roof racks and stuff like that. They were able to hold her that one thing I didn’t do was find a picture of this, which I would have loved to have found the finding the photography of the era was a whole nother kind of journey of discovery as well, which was which was great fun, but hard work. And I didn’t find I wanted to find a photo of that race, but I don’t know if there’s one out there. So I’m going by the kind of how it was told to me it but as I say Val Rushworth was there. And I met her and it’s recorded in Beryl’s book as well. So but she wasn’t one that would make a thing of it. She knows she didn’t Yvonne Rynders didn’t know, really what what was happening in another race where she had a knee injury when she she didn’t she was going for this record for 24 hours. She didn’t tell people that about the injury afterwards. It was almost deemed bad sportsmanship to kind of talk about talk about why you didn’t win in the immediate aftermath. So a lot of these stories would come out some time later. Because it was that was just the way you just sort of got on with it. And but Yeah, amazing story. There was another one where she did a two uptime trial where you ride with somebody else. And she had a guy called Malcolm Cowgill, who’s the guy that’s got her rainbow jersey preserved and she touched his back wheel and went down on a dual carriageway. And there’s blood sort of pouring down her face, legs and on a bike. And he went, went went stopped to check she was okay and kind of thought, you know, there’s no way we can fit, you know, said should we get an ambulance, what do you want to do? And she was like, No, we’re gonna finish and she got back on the bike and they said she was like cycling in front of me and shouting at me to go faster while bleeding away on the road. And they actually won this two up event where you did you do a time trial with somebody else. So that was her. That was her mentality. You know, there was an anecdote when her daughter Denise was they were warming up together for the world championship road race, and daughter crashed across quite a busy road and knocked herself out on the side of the road. And I said to her What did you know what did your mum say? Say she said all night she completed a warm up, which was a bit like, crikey. That’s pretty, pretty hard. It’s really tough mentality. But I think that was that was kind of the approach to sort of injuries and crashes. And that if you can, if you can physically find a way of carrying on you just get on with it basically. And

Carlton Reid
There’s so much we could talk about because because clearly there was there was much more we ended with rivalry with with Denise later in our life and you know, events and you showed the photographs in a book where she’s not even looking at her daughter says there’s tonnes of stuff, where we could we could carry on going, but I’m gonna recommend people just gonna have to go, we can’t just carry on talking all day. But I recommend people to go and get your book and read it cover to cover and just be amazed by the the life of Beryl. But now my friend Dave, who were riding a few weeks ago, he has read your book. Okay, he recommended it to me anyway. And you know, at that point, I hadn’t read the book. But the only anecdote I could tell at that time was the Licorice Allsorts anecdote. That’s the one I knew very well. And now I’ve got so many more anecdotes. So thank you for absolutely going, you know, so deep into into life of Beryl Berton that we now have all these anecdotes, including strapping being strapped to a track bike in a championship, which is which is amazing. So your book has absolutely open many people’s eyes, I’m sure who weren’t aware of her story, hopefully outside. Absolutely outside of cycling. But just for now, as we wrap up, can you please tell us where we can get this book? And and how much it costs? Give us the give us the biography of your book.

Jeremy Wilson
Yeah, I think it’s available. You know, from all certainly independent stores, Waterstones, Amazon, Profile Books was the publisher. So I think all the kinds of outlets that you would expect to be able to, to get a book. It’s it retails at 20 pounds, but I think that it is a hardback book, and it’s pretty, it’s fairly a lot of photos and a lot a lot in there. But I think it’s sort of 15.99 or something like that on Amazon, I noticed. So it varies slightly the price, the exact price of it. So yeah, but it’s pretty widely available.

Carlton Reid
Thanks to Jeremy Wilson there and thanks to you for listening to what has been a much longer than normal episode of The Spokesmen podcast. A click through to Jeremy’s book and a transcript of our mammoth conversation can be found on the show notes at the-spokesmen.com And this has been episode 315 of the Spokesmen podcast brought to you in association with Tern Bicycles. The next episode will be Milan flavoured but meanwhile get on out there.

17th November 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 313: Tour de Luxe — riding with legends on Ibiza with upscale Leblanq

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Justin Clarke, Mark Cavendish, Monica Dew, Sophie Power, Jamie Criddle, Johan Museeuw, Rob Gitelis, Margaret and Joyce from Taiwan, Matias Bjork, Sean Yates.

TOPICS: Balcony views, posh food, drafting behind legends — listen up for what guests think of their luxury bike break with LeBlanq in Ibiza. Carlton Reid also interviews Mark Cavendish and Johan Museeuw while riding with them on the party island, and Leblanq cofounder Justin Clarke reveals why c-suite execs love rolling with world champions.

TRANSCRIPT:

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 313 of the Spokesmen cycling podcast. The show was engineered on Thursday 17th of November 2022.

David Bernstein 0:23
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or even caring another adult, visit www.tern bicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.

Justin Clarke 1:02
LeBlanq isn’t about hero worshipping. It’s about really good people just getting to know other really good people and having a really good time. That’s it. It’s that simple.

Carlton Reid 1:11
That’s LeBlanq co founder Justin Clarke, introducing himself to guests at the company’s upscale bike break on the party island of Ibiza. LeBlanq marketing materials described the experience as joy riding and, dear listener, I bravely volunteered to discover the accuracy of that pitch. I’m Carlton Reid and I could have kicked back and relaxed on this warm weather winter cycling trip. But, no, I packed my recording equipment so you could hear what it’s like to ride with legends, legends, like Lion of Flanders with Johan Museeuw, and world champions Mark Cavendish and Óscar Freire. I interviewed Johan and Cav while we were riding along.

Mark Cavendish 2:05
Let’s go left. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 2:06
Okay. So, er, you’ve enjoyed it here?

Mark Cavendish 2:11
Yeah. Been nice. ,

Carlton Reid 2:13
Also riding with us on this short break was Ibiza legend Pete Tong whose nightclub session on the final night was the highlight of the weekend for Sigma Sports coowner Ian Whittingham. I recorded the audio with Ian and other company principles, including Rob Gitelis of [Factor] bicycles, who flew from Taiwan to be on the trip. Swedish concrete magnate Matias Bjork told me what it is about LeBlanq that hooked him and you’ll also hear why former pro Monica Dew is so stoked to be a LeBlanc guide.

Monica Dew 2:51
Yeah. Loving it.

Carlton Reid 2:53
You’ll also hear more from Justin Clarke and I also talked with Jamie Criddle, manager of Chevin Cycles branch in Harrogate, who explained why he helps out on these joy rides. And as we were riding along behind Adam Blythe, ultra runner Sophie Power explained it was the inclusivity and no-drop protocols of LeBlanq that saw her back on another trip. And this was a recurring theme. Many of the riders I spoke to were on their second, third and fourth LeBlanq trips. Yes, they’re expensive. But considering you’re riding — and eating — with genuine legends of the sport, LeBlanq could easily charge three times as much for their joyrides and see no drop off in custom. Before we set off in our curated-for-speed groups, I hooked up a mic on event director sportif Sean Yates, who can be heard here discussing logistics with Justin and one of the guides.

Justin Clarke 4:00
Ranges and ratios. Everything else. So

Sean Yates 4:04
Cav’s going in the last last group.

Justin Clarke 4:06
Yes.

Sean Yates 4:06
Johan’s going in the green groups. Where’s David Hesketh?

Justin Clarke 4:11
Just there.

Sean Yates 4:14
Yeah. David. So you’re you’re following the green group, following Johan?

David Hesketh 4:21
Yep, that’s right. Yep.

Sean Yates 4:23
You can get a radio which means you will be in contact with the green group.

David Hesketh 4:27
Yeah.

Sean Yates 4:28
So you want the 9am green, which is channel five, and it’s all lined up without without headphones.

Carlton Reid 4:38
Before we set off for the first ride from Hotel Riomar we had to pick up our bikes from the empty hotel opposite where there were mechanics on hand, including Jamie Criddle. So the bikes that we’ve got here. There’s a whole bunch of bikes different bikes here. So what we got we got like customer bikes. We’ve got people who shipped them out?

Jamie Criddle 5:02
Exactly that. We’ve got a real a real mix. We’ve got some hire bikes that have come from Mallorca and hire bikes that have come from just down down the road, a shop five minutes where we’ve got some bikes that we brought out in our vans that belong to customers. And then the rest are bikes that people have brought with themselves, however they’ve arrived.

Carlton Reid 5:22
Are there any electric road bikes here?

Jamie Criddle 5:25
So we’ve got some electric e-bikes, and we’ve got some electric mountain bikes even they’re going to be coming out on the on the ride routes, but not road bikes, not road bikes at the moment.

Carlton Reid 5:38
And where are you from?

Jamie Criddle 5:40
I’m from Harrogate.

Carlton Reid 5:43
In Yorkshire, God’s own country.

Jamie Criddle 5:46
God’s own country. Yes. Yeah, so we we helped the Grantley Hall event just outside Harrogate. And now we’re here in Ibiza enjoying the

Carlton Reid 5:59
You’re saying “we” there so what do you do in Harrogate?

Jamie Criddle 6:04
I work in in bike store Chevin Cycles. Run the store look after some bike fitting.

Carlton Reid 6:11
And are you seeing more electric bikes being sold?

Jamie Criddle 6:13
Absolutely. We have kind of very much a — we’re probably not a million miles off of a 50/50 split now. But that split is interesting that mostly mountain bike, mostly hybrid and cargo bikes.

Carlton Reid 6:28
And cargo bikes what you got?

Jamie Criddle 6:31
Well, Tern is is key brand for for us they

Carlton Reid 6:37
GSD?

Jamie Criddle 6:38
Yeah, the one that I personally own.

Carlton Reid 6:41
Car killer?

Jamie Criddle 6:42
Yeah, the family love it. The kids love it. The kids refuse to go in the car now.

Carlton Reid 6:49
But not in the rain?

Jamie Criddle 6:51
In the rain.

Carlton Reid 6:52
In the rainy weather and family as in this little kids?

Jamie Criddle 6:55
Yeah. Martha is 9; Ned’s 7. They want to be on the bike all the time. Literally tell us that they feel sick whenever they get in our car. They’re all right in other people’s cars, but they feel sick in our car. So want to go on the e-bike everywhere.

Carlton Reid 7:11
So this is genuinely has been a car killer then for you?

Jamie Criddle 7:15
Yeah, we got our our bike in 2019 in the in the September. And when Mel is going to get in our car in February the battery was dead. And she genuinely didn’t feel she would use the bike that much. And was totally taken with it. It’s a big bike is a big

Tern GSD. So both kids on the back, heavy bike as all the bikes are, but it doesn’t matter because it’s got the got the motor to overcome that. And she felt she wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre and be comfortable with it. But she literally uses it every day, takes the kids to school, goes to work, does the shopping,

Carlton Reid 7:54
Right. That’s a heavy bike. That’s an electric bike, even though you’ve got the power but these bikes here and I can actually see my name on the back there. So Carlton is on the plaque on the back there. So what we’ve got here what what kind of bike is this? I’m gonna put my water bottle into this Specialized.

Jamie Criddle 8:09
And probably double the weight, specialized

Carlton Reid 8:12
water, okay.

Jamie Criddle 8:14
Seven kilo bike, built to be as light as possible, should feel like you’re gliding up the hills, even when the legs don’t want to try SRAM Force E-tap groupset. So nice, simple, straightforward shifting. Yeah, should help you enjoy

Carlton Reid 8:32
but you’re coming out as well. Jamie?

Jamie Criddle 8:33
I’m coming out as well. Leading one of the one of the groups.

Carlton Reid 8:37
But you’re not in your Lycra do I’m presuming you’ve got to rush away?

Jamie Criddle 8:41
Get my shorts and shirts off and put my jersey on and we’ll see you on the road.

Justin Clarke 8:45
We’re in the white and the turquoise. Their right leaders. There are LeBlanq ride leaders that ride with us all over the world. They’ve done multiple events, they know the drill. They are part of our core team. They have radios, they know how to connect with the rest of the riders in the group etcetera very experienced. So just keep it nice and steady. Just ride together, find that tempo and keep you sane. I just want to say welcome Sean Yates.

Sean Yates 9:12
Thank you. Thank you, Justin. So as Justin said, we’re here to obviously enjoy ourselves and stay safe on the flat sections. Try keep it real tight. Roll along tight, so you’re quite compact. There will be a following car behind on the climbs. If you feel a bit frisky then obviously you can push it a little bit you know, but don’t exaggerate. Today it’s fairly simple and straightforward. And the idea is to just roll along. Okay, tomorrow is another kettle of fish. We’ve got 2000 metres climbing on the downhills – do not at any point overtake the lead rider is for the safety Give everyone so that’s that’s about it really just go out there be sensible have fun and look after each other.

Carlton Reid 10:06
Before group went off for that first ride. I chatted to Rob Gitelis of Factor Bikes. So, Rob, we’re outside the W Hotel. Where we’re all picking up the bikes. A lot of people are getting Specialized bikes from from the organisation but you haven’t got a Specialized bike? No, why wouldn’t you ride a Specialized Rob?

Rob Gitelis 10:29
I have good taste. And I’m the owner of Factor.

Carlton Reid 10:34
Exactly. So it’s cool that you’re coming out here on a on a on a trip, you’ve come out here especially for this thing of like a round Europe trip.

Rob Gitelis 10:44
I’ve kind of connected some things together so that I could you know, charge this to the company. But this is really more about pleasure to come in here for this event.

Carlton Reid 10:53
So Factor is doing okay at the moment with some pro teams and

Rob Gitelis 10:57
Yeah, it’s um you know, we grow quite a bit every year we have a number of ladies professional teams, men’s professional teams, but coming out here I really get to meet who was our customer is, you know, I can speak to Chris Froome all day, but he’s not our customer.

Carlton Reid 11:13
Because the last time — talking about Chris Froome and his Israeli team — the last time I talked to you in the flesh was was actually at the Giro d’Italia in Jerusalem. Yes, you’ve come on for a fair bit since then.

Rob Gitelis 11:26
Yeah, you know, back when we met in Jerusalem, we were sponsoring the AG2R French team. And you know, that was very, very good start for Factor but we needed a more international team. So after taking one year out of the world tour, we came back in with Israel Premier Tech, which features Chris Froome and you know, Giacome Nizzolo and some other very fine bike racers

Carlton Reid 11:48
On the bike that you’re riding there. Now what what exactly is that?

Rob Gitelis 11:53
This is a Factor Ostro it’s pretty much the flagship bike of Factor at the moment. And it’s the one used by most of our professional teams.

Carlton Reid 12:03
So just describe what you got here because it looks pretty trick.

Rob Gitelis 12:06
Ah, yeah, it’s pretty much like the ultimate poser bike. It has a Black Inc, five spoke wheels, a new Shimano Dura Ace 12, speed group set, Black Inc handlebars, and then a few kind of like special details on it. That based on my own personality and ability to do something,

Carlton Reid 12:28
because it looks it fit me there, Rob, so if you don’t want to take it back, you know, I could just I could I could help you out there. Yeah, sure. So how much is that? How much is that?

Rob Gitelis 12:37
This bike would be about 15,000.

Carlton Reid 12:39
US dollars.

Rob Gitelis 12:41
Yeah, Euro/US.

Carlton Reid 12:43
That’s kind of okay. It’s not ridiculous.

Rob Gitelis 12:46
Yeah. I mean, some of these Specialized yes, definitely more

Carlton Reid 12:54
And then you’re not the only person from Taiwan here.

Rob Gitelis 12:56
No, these two lovely ladies are

Carlton Reid 12:58
So you come all the way from Taiwan as well, you it was the same flight from where we there’s

Rob Gitelis 13:02
Same flight but we didn’t actually know each other.

Carlton Reid 13:06
No, now, but where was the flight from? From Taipei. So let’s get your names?

Margaret 13:13
I’m Margaret.

And I’m Joyce.

Carlton Reid 13:15
Hi Joyce and Margaret. So how did you find out about this trip?

Margaret 13:27
Oh, we got through Rapha cycling club, there was a introduction there. So we thought it’d be fun.

Joyce 13:35
And yeah, we saw the picture of Ibiza. And then there’s Mark

Carlton Reid 13:40
So Mark Cavendish is a draw. It’s the rider so that is the food, it’s the place or the rider? Sounds as though it’s the rider

Margaret 13:53
It’s a combination, right.

I will say Mark was a big draw.

Joyce 13:58
And Ibiza very exotic.

Carlton Reid 14:06
So how much riding do you do in Taiwan? Because it’s a beautiful island – Formosa, the old name, means beautiful – It’s a wonderful place to ride a bike.

Margaret 14:13
Yes. So

Joyce 14:15
150 to 200.

Margaret 14:17
I do 250 a week.

Carlton Reid 14:19
Okay. Whereabouts?

Margaret 14:21
Mountains. Yeah. Because it’s a mountainous Island. Yeah. Yeah.

Joyce 14:28
Very steep mountain. So we are generally better climbers.

Margaret 14:33
Not really.

Carlton Reid 14:37
You didn’t bring your own bikes?

Margaret 14:40
We don’t all own bike companies.

Carlton Reid 14:44
So what do you ride when you’re at home?

Margaret 14:46
I have a Pinarello

Joyce 14:50
Yeah, yeah. And I ride Canyon.

Carlton Reid 14:56
So coming on to these bikes as you know, cuz you went out for the ride yesterday. Okay. Yeah,

Margaret 15:04
Yeah. My first bike was Giant. So

Carlton Reid 15:08
That’s kind of the ubiqitious bike on the island. Really, we’ve got King Liu who rides everywhere when he did. Well enjoy your ride today.

Matias Bjork 15:23
I am Matias Bjork, from Sweden. And it’s been a beautiful couple of days cycling here in Ibiza.

Carlton Reid 15:29
And because this is not your first trip, you were in Champagne as well weren’t you?

Matias Bjork 15:33
Yes, we were in Champagne last year, it was supposed to be early, it was postponed due to Covid..

Carlton Reid 15:39
Now, this is a bigger trip than that. So it’s more intimate the last one. But this kind of suggests it’s a good one for having a bigger trip, because you had the Pete Tong last night you had all these things with a small group, it would look a bit weird.

Matias Bjork 15:53
I don’t know might be fun as well. But I think if you want to have the likes of Cavendish, you need to have multiple, it’s very 120 guests. And he’s been cycling in six different groups during the weekend. So we all get to meet him. That’s amazing. And Johan and Oscar and everybody else.

Carlton Reid 16:14
So what’s the draw? Is it everything? Is that a daft question? Or is it no the riders that that that’s what sets this apart, the fact that you can ride with real genuine stars?

Matias Bjork 16:24
The biggest joy is, of course, the rider. Knowing that the hotel is good, the food is good, wine is good, and champagne is good. I think that the combination is quite unique. I don’t know if any other type of events that similar. And I’m mostly a runner, but can see doing an event like this from runners. It doesn’t really work out. For cyclists you can split up in different groups. You can have nice dinners. And it works out. You can even be hungover and go cycling. I wouldn’t do that running maybe.

Carlton Reid 16:56
Okay. And you were telling me before that you have, you sit on the board of two businesses and you have you have a concrete business in in Stockholm.

Matias Bjork 17:08
Yeah, around Sweden many different places.

Carlton Reid 17:12
And you travel a lot with that job?

Matias Bjork 17:15
No, honestly, I don’t actually. I travel maybe to the board meetings, but otherwise I don’t. Business managers do. Which is nice.

Carlton Reid 17:24
Okay. But this is a this is a typical holiday for you? Or is this usual?

Matias Bjork 17:30
No, no, I’d say it’s typical. Every time we go travelling, it’s always a question about finding good training. You go on swim camps, you go on cycling camps, you go running camps. We did one in Mallorca trail running camp only this year, which was great, but not on a level like this. This is so much higher quality, also the camaraderie of having 120 people.

Carlton Reid 17:57
And you looking it’s this kind of thing you’re gonna think right? I’m gonna be doing this twice a year, every single year. Is it sounds like right when so Justin’s just standing over there. It’s gonna be like, Justin, where are you going next? Because ‘sign me up!’

Matias Bjork 18:08
That’s the been the biggest discussion so far. It’s been okay, what’s gonna be the next year’s trip? When are you gonna go to South Africa? Are you gonna go to Italy? You’re gonna go to the US? Yeah, I think so. Looking at sort of what people doing that, and you want to do adventures, you want to experience things, but at the same time, want to stay in a nice hotel, and have good food. So the combination is perfect.

Carlton Reid 18:30
Johan, we’re here on Ibiza, riding along. This is your second LeBlanq trip because you went to Champagne. So tell me what do you think about these LeBlanq trips?

Johan Museeuw 18:44
Now my third, fourth event with the LeBlanq. Last year in the Champagne area, it was together with Eddie Merckx, legend. So this is really a luxury holiday on the bike. So it’s different than other companies. So I go a lot because this is my job what I’m doing around the world. So I’m freelance. I’ve also my own company, Museeuw Cycling Experience. But LeBlanq is different than everyone.

Carlton Reid 19:19
This is potentially are you going to be potentially having one in Flanders as well?

Johan Museeuw 19:25
Yes, last week, we are have done a reconnaissance of something to do in Flanders next year.

Carlton Reid 19:32
Very cobbly, cobbles, lots of pavé?

Johan Museeuw 19:36
Not always but if you go to Flanders, you have to do the famous hill Paterberg, Koppenberg and also some section and cobblestones. So, yeah, it will be fun next year. We start in the. No, I can’t say where we started because still a secret.

Sophie Power 19:54
I’m Sophie power.

Carlton Reid 19:56
Well, you’ve been running here because you’re normally a runner. But you’re doing incredibly well at cycling.

Sophie Power 20:02
I’m a runner enough to try and excuse my descending skills but I kept up. I kept up. I was watching Adam and his lines. Yeah, I was like right I’m gonna follow him and then kept up.

Carlton Reid 20:14
Yeah, follow somebody who knows what they’re doing

Sophie Power 20:17
in terms of like life achievement I got down hill without getting dropped.

Carlton Reid 20:24
Is that the draw for you the rider star riders is the draw for you. What’s the draw?

Sophie Power 20:31
Time away from my kids. No. That’s so this is my 40th birthday present, hubby’s a cyclist. We love Justin. We love what they do. We love food. We love enjoying cycling, like it’s great cross training for me. But I think the events are, as a cyclist I’m nervous. I’m nervous. Like, I don’t know everything. And these are the most inclusive events because no-one gets dropped. They look after your bike. They take, I think for women they take out a lot the uncertainties you have about cycling and is that you can ride your bike and met some amazing people and not so riders. Everyone else.

Ian Whittingham 21:14
Ooooh.

Carlton Reid 21:15
Ian, that sounds like a groan of happiness, that you were finishied, a groan of happiness is age related?

Ian Whittingham 21:23
Yeah, I think I think it’s age related. And yeah. Sitting down after a very lovely, what, 50 odd miles of Ibiza lanes.

Carlton Reid 21:33
That’s Ian Whittingham the co owner, co founder of Sigma Sports, the amazing kinda London bike shop. And you’ve just shown us your Strava there. We’ve basically done half of the island. That’s a small place, but quite varied, and quite green, isn’t it?

Ian Whittingham 21:53
Very green, roads are lovely and quiet. Yeah, it’s like everyone in the group is asking ourselves, why have we not come here before cycling? It’s amazing.

Carlton Reid 22:02
Because it’s Mallorca isn’t it is where you know, people go. Yeah. And they deliberately avoiding going to Mallorca for that reason.

Ian Whittingham 22:09
Yeah. coming somewhere like that. Yeah. I came here before many years ago for a stag weekend. So my memories of Ibiza are quite different to what I’ll leave with this time round,

Carlton Reid 22:20
but the fact there was somebody there when you were 20. When you were 25. Yeah. How long ago was that was

Ian Whittingham 22:27
26 years ago.

Carlton Reid 22:28
But there was somebody there at the same time. Who’s here today as well?

Ian Whittingham 22:31
Oh, yeah. Right. So yeah, so when we were here we were treated to Pete Tong, doing doing a set at next door to Cafe Del Mar. And while we were drinking mojitos, and yeah, as you say, he’s here on this trip. Not seen him yet. Now, he has a cyclist as well as obviously a famous DJ.

Carlton Reid 22:47
You were saying he’s one of your customers.

Ian Whittingham 22:48
He is a customer of ours as well, when he’s in the UK,

Carlton Reid 22:52
will actually say you’re you are a founder of a pretty well known bike shop in the UK. Certainly if you’re in the South East of England. So

Ian Whittingham 23:02
Yeah, so so that I’m founder of Sigma Sports. So we’ve been we’ve been going now for 30 years. And I’ve been involved with with LeBlanq since its inception, actually. So it had a bit of a bit of a stalled start because of the pandemic. But yeah, I’ve been involved with Justin since the beginning. I did I went and did the Isle of Wight event last year and was just really blown away by the quality of the event. I mean, truly, these are, I think the best cycling trips I’ve I’ve been on. I’ve been doing trips

Carlton Reid 23:38
And you go on lots of industry trips.a

Ian Whittingham 23:39
Yeah, indeed. Yeah. But in terms of like, yeah, cycling events. It’s just every every detail is thought of staff are amazing. It’s yeah, it’s really fantastic.

Carlton Reid 23:49
And you told me before that you used to race with Justin.

Ian Whittingham 23:51
I did yeah. And his brother back in the day his brother, Russell. Yes. So yeah, I’ve known, Justin for well, yeah. 40 years. Sorry, 30 years.

Carlton Reid 23:59
So this is before you created the bike shop?

Ian Whittingham 24:02
Yes, just before, when I was when I was a teenager, and race racing back in the day and then I hadn’t seen Russell for years actually. And then he popped up say three years three or four years ago with this with this idea and mixing his passion for food and cycling and I think you’d really hit a sweet spot

Carlton Reid 24:19
Is it fair to say that the average or certainly some of the customers that you’re attracting in your shop are just ideal. But here because you sit let’s face it, you’re a high end shop. And these these people here are high-end consumers.

Ian Whittingham 24:37
They are it’s obviously you know, it’s not it’s not a it’s not a cheap trip to come on. But you know, it’s you can when you’re here you can see why the the hotels are great. The catering is great. But yeah, I mean, this is this is an absolute sweet spot for us in terms of the the kind of customer demographic

Carlton Reid 24:55
It’s a cross fertilisation and so you’re selling you know the trip to them. They’re selling the bike shop to them.

Ian Whittingham 25:01
Very much so. Yeah, so that’s something is one of the reasons we got involved just in the beginning was to, to, to be able to access our customers and tell them all about LeBlanq and sell a few trips for him in return for some support for their riding needs in return. So yes, it’s a great

Carlton Reid 25:18
ecosystem. Because there’s, I mean, there’s there’s an international audience I mean, there’s there’s the founder of Factor is here. Yeah, it’s kind of strange. I was talking to Rob before and then you got two Taiwanese ladies who come all the way from Taiwan.

Ian Whittingham 25:36
A ouple from Austin, Texas. Yeah, it’s a it’s a quite a diverse range of people, which is which is fantastic. And also, you know, it’s also great to see so many women cycling here as well. It’s definitely a really fast growing part of part of the sport.

Carlton Reid 25:55
I thought we’d see more electric road bikes now. How big is electric bikes in your shop?

Ian Whittingham 26:02
Yeah, the terrain here is just is made for an electric road bike. It really is, you know, up up and down all day. But yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen one yet actually. But for us as a business I let them electric bikes now make up about 30% of our bike sales. And actually, you know, we’re now appealing to different audiences we have our work we have our our heritage and history and road biking but we’ve also embraced the electric bike revolution and we’ve opened dedicated store for that in Kingston. So yeah, no doubt about it. You know, electric bikes are the kind of future of the cycling industry

Carlton Reid 26:34
Pretty much within about 10, 20 years hold of the industry and then we’ve got like legacy bikes. Yeah, he’s a legacy bikes. Riding on me every bike is going to have not not just one of the the Shimano gears and stuff that are gonna have electronics. It’s just gonna be there’s gonna be some form of propulsion on everybody.

Ian Whittingham 26:59
Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re exactly what they’ll come a day when you start talking about electric bikes are not just be bikes that happen to have some kind of a propulsion, as you say,

Carlton Reid 27:08
I mean that’s been good for the industry?

Ian Whittingham 27:11
Absolutely.

Carlton Reid 27:12
Perception price point, you know, now apart year, of course bikes got £2500 because an electric bike costs £2500. So that brings, like, raises the whole ships and like every ship has risen with

Ian Whittingham 27:23
absolutely, it’s gonna. Yeah, it’s huge for the industry. Absolutely huge for the industry. And yeah, hence why we couldn’t, we couldn’t, you know, despite our roots, being in road biking, we couldn’t I couldn’t stand by and just watch that train leave the station, if you like, we have to, you know, want to get involved. I ride an e-bike to work myself every day.

Carlton Reid 27:44
British bicycle industry did miss it. But they certainly weren’t in that day early. There was a whole there was a whole period of time when bike shops famously didn’t have electric bikes. Really didn’t want to get in touch with them. And then you found a whole bunch of electric bike shops came out. And there was that kind of ecosystem. Has that changed? There? Was it my job said no, no, we weren’t.

Ian Whittingham 28:07
Yeah, it’s definitely changing. You are right. It was it. There was like really a handful of ebike specialists to begin with. And then a bit of hesitation about you know, is this gonna, is this going to take off? But right now? Yeah, I think most most bike shops are going to probably have at least half of their half of their bikes on the on the shop floor are going to be electric. And imagine.

Carlton Reid 28:28
Specialized famously did take a while. I mean, they’re fabulous bikes, you know, designed in Switzerland, you know, the whole whole unit. That’s Specialized got that, but it took a while to actually get into it. So was that something that bike shops waiting for? Or waiting for the big brands come in with some sweet bikes? Cos they weren’t fantastic looking bikes before.

Ian Whittingham 28:48
They weren’t. I mean, the very first e-bikes, in fact, you know, anecdotally on the street, where are our store is in Hampton Wick? We had two e-bike stores on that street 10 years ago, but both were just ahead of … They were before their time and the bikes were very, very much like a regular bike with a battery strapped on it and a clunky motor. So yeah, absolutely. It’s only really in the last I’d say kind of five years and that’s that they’ve really started to to look start to look better, perform better have much better ranges and charging times. And yes, the big manufacturers now are all embracing it. And, you know, Specialized are definitely one of the leading, leading manufacturers of e. Is certainly certainly our biggest brand. Ebike in the business is Specialized I think every every brand you speak to, if you talk about 2024, 2025 and they expect the vast majority their business to be electric. And regular acoustic bikes, as we call them, I think will definitely become a diminishing part of part of the range.

Carlton Reid 29:51
Is that a bad thing?

Ian Whittingham 29:54
It’s it’s it’s evolution, isn’t it? It’s I think as long as you know what, as long as people out on two wheels, then I don’t mind what they’re riding. You know, just discovering the joys of cycling.

Carlton Reid 30:05
I captured that interview with Ian after a day in the saddle, but grabbed this one with former elite cyclist Monica Dew as we were riding along. Monica, who rode for Storey Racing until 2020 is now a cycling coach, and one of the expert guides on these LeBlanq joy rides. So, Monica, we’re here on the climb back to the hotel on the second day. And you’ve been leading what group are you your blue? Yeah. Okay.

Monica Dew 30:37
So 100k each day. So we got here on Wednesday, did a prologue on Thursday. Yesterday’s ride. Really lovely, very short, sharp climbs. Today’s ride. A lot more rolling. Loved it. Having a laugh, having a bit of fun.

Carlton Reid 31:01
So, Monica, how did you get this gig? Because it is a sweet gig.

Monica Dew 31:04
It is a pretty good deal to be honest. Yeah, so I used to race. I’m really good friends with Adam Blythe.

Carlton Reid 31:11
Everybody’s good friends with Adam Blythe.

Monica Dew 31:13
Everybody’s friends with Adam Blythe.

You can’t not be. Yeah, and he just said just in this set up. So I joined. Yeah, the rest is history really like second year in and it’s pretty special. Very fortunate to call it my job

Carlton Reid 31:34
Riding a bike is also Mark Cavendish’s job. But when that involves nosy journalists asking him questions, he’s famously less keen. So when we went for a quick resort ride together, I didn’t pump him for any exclusives. I just wanted to know what he thought about LeBlanq’s formula. Okay. So you’ve enjoyed it here?

Mark Cavendish 32:03
Yeah. It’s been nice. It’s good, innit. Just riding with other people that like cycling. Bit of music from Pete Tong yesterday.

Carlton Reid 32:13
Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Mark Cavendish 32:14
Good, like. So you’ve enjoyed it?

Carlton Reid 32:18
Yeah, it’s been fantastic. Now we nearly knocked into each other there. So that’s a good point. How are you like riding with with, with us because we’re amateurs, we don’t know where to go. And we’re not very fast. So how, how do you find that?

Mark Cavendish 32:32
It’s riding, it doesn’t matter. That’s the thing about cycling you’re free to go where you want, with who you want, when you want.

Carlton Reid 32:37
Getting the chance to ride with Cav and the other cycling legends was clearly the major draw for most people on this not-cheap LeBlanq trip. And after ended, I sat down on a beach sofa with company cofounder, Justin Clarke. This is bigger than all of your previous trips. The vibe is gonna be different anyway, because it’s Ibiza and it’s not Champagne. So it’s not that kind of vibe.

Justin Clarke 33:07
Yeah.

Carlton Reid 33:10
It’s a more laid back vibe. So that suits this trip anyway, because just five in with Pete Tong wouldn’t be good.

Justin Clarke 33:26
Yeah, so great question. The, you just described two factors that the first factor that dictates the size of a LeBlanq event is venue. So we wanted to come somewhere that felt really special, and also have all of the operational elements that we needed, space for the bikes, space for the care, space for the people; there are many things that we need. So the Riomar hotel, absolutely ticks all the boxes, and it has 114 rooms. So 114 rooms, and so OK, so this could be a much bigger event than we’ve done before. And then because we’re in Ibiza it’s yeah, obviously we’re about food, we’re about cycling, we’re about camaraderie, relaxation, having a good time but in Ibiza you have to do music as well, because it is in is in the blood of the

Carlton Reid 34:20
Pretty fluky that the man who was most, you know, note noted for being a bit of creating the scene really almost on Ibiza is a cyclist.

So that’s magic. That’s perfect.

Justin Clarke 34:34
Yeah, so a colleague of mine when I was at Endeavour, a guy called David Levy, head of electronic dance music for William Morris, he was the one who told me a few years ago, that if ever you do an event in Ibiza, and it’s cycling, you’ve got to get Pete Tong involved because he loves cycling. So as soon as we decided we’re definitely going to come here. David got a phone call from me and said, we’re going to do it and he asked Pete. Obviously, bringing all this together is very complicated business: dates, availablity.

Carlton Reid 35:09
Cos you couldn’t do this event in July.

Justin Clarke 35:11
Absolutely.

Carlton Reid 35:21
I guess I’m where I was going for with that question is because you got pros here, you got you got okay got ex-pros who are coming too, but they’re probably going to be commentating anyway. Absolutely. So your your window of when you can do these trips are actually narrower than if you are just to say a holiday company.

Justin Clarke 35:36
Absolutely.

Carlton Reid 35:37
You can’t do the pro season.

Justin Clarke 35:39
So we, well, actually, you can, it’s every event that we create, it starts with the place. And then we build out the narrative of the event based around the place. The professionals who are current, and the broadcasters who are working on the Grand Tours are focused on the Grand Tours when the Grand Tours are on. There’s a whole bunch of people who love cycling and food, who are massive names. Chris Hoy, for example, who July is actually quite quiet, because there’s no track season going on in July. So Chris Hoy, you’ll notice, every July event we have is our main man. And we have something very special planned for Chris for next year. And this one actually, I have a message message by by Chris couple of times was was Ibiza looks amazing. Looks amazing. It’s like yes, he says, Please really come next here. And the answer is yes. Alright.

Carlton Reid 36:37
So your name dropping there, but that’s fine. Because you know, everybody, yes, you’re allowed to to name drop. Because you aren’t like an agent for some, right? So give it give us just a very brief cuz we have had you on the show before. So let’s just get a brief overview of where Justin comes from.

Justin Clarke 36:54
Yeah. So my background, I was a very average domestic professional in 97, 98, 99. And I, I did the riding that I wanted to do. And to be honest, I didn’t want to be on a doping programme and every other pro that was in a team where it was on a doping programme, so I had no interest in that. So I just wanted to see how good I could be. And the answer was averagely good. And then I got into live events and live events has been my last 20 odd years. And for about 10 years, I was the Global Head of Culinary for IMGg which is a sports marketing agency. But culinary is like a, you know, chefs were becoming superstars. They’re rock stars, and I was working with many of the best chefs in the world. René Redzepi, Gordon Ramsay Heston Blumenthal, etc, etc. So, I know that that world, I built a brand, from scratch with Taste, started with Taste of London and began Taste in 20 cities around the world. And I’ve always loved the interaction with consumers. And talent. I much prefer the word talent over celebrity. I don’t like celebrity, because often you can have a vacuous celebrity, you can have someone that’s famous just for being famous, whereas I like working with people who are the best at what they do. So champion cyclists, amazing chefs, or those kind of people. I love working with them because they’re inspirational. And they’re inspirational to me, but they’re also inspirational to the visitors and the guests that come on these these trips. And you can feel it. When you’re there. It’s like, Wow, I can’t believe I am in the presence of greatness. So, so yeah. So in the representation space, there was only one person that I’ve managed, I say manage rather than representative. And it’s Bradley Wiggins.

Carlton Reid 38:57
Do you want to go there? On why he’s not here?

Justin Clarke 39:03
Yeah. Brad is this amazing guy. And he’s very complicated. And a can of worms, a bit of a can of worms got opened up In an interview that I’d arranged with Mens’ Health magazine, and yeah, a whole programme of activity that have been built around him unravelled with a no-show, but no-show was because of fragility. And I love him. I’ve known Brad since I was 12. And I do love him. He’s, he’s complicated. But I don’t I don’t have any intention of representing anyone else whether share for talent. This is this is about building the LeBlanq business and created experiences like these that people fall in love with.

Carlton Reid 40:03
So you are quite rightly able to name drop because you do know people, you’ve known Brad’s since he was 12 so that’s a good name drop. But then you’ve got somebody else who could do that maybe with other with different people, maybe even that you wouldn’t perhaps not as know as well. And that’s Sean Yates. So is he a lynchpin in that he opens lots of doors that I’m not saying you wouldn’t be able to open those doors. But he really opens certain doors on the professional side, if Sean says, this is the event, people go, ‘Oh, it must be right.’

Justin Clarke 40:38
Yes. Sean is probably one of the most respected people, human beings in cycling. He’s adored for good reason, because he’s just an amazing man.

Carlton Reid 40:50
He’s famous for being a tough guy. Well, when you when you meet him, he’s a he’s a softy.

Justin Clarke 40:55
He’s, he’s actually famous as a writer famous for helping other riders, his whole thing he was the original, super domestic. He was the rider that was normally strong, and would destroy himself at the services of other people. And although he won things, he won the obviously the 1988 trial in the Tour de France. And he won. The reason, obviously, the reason why he won time trials was because he’s so good. And in the territory, you can’t ride for someone else unless it’s a time trial, team time trial. So he won time trials. But you know, he’d probably maybe he lacked a bit of self belief or he lacked a bit of self confidence or something. It could be argued that he could have won more races had he been more selfish, but the reason why everyone loves him is because he isn’t selfish. He is a straight down the line, brilliant, decent human being.

Carlton Reid 41:50
So what’s he doing for you apart from opening his wonderful contacts book he’s coming out of here he’s recceing things for you. He’s like looking at that’s got a pothole, we can’t go on that route. Yeah. That kind of is it? Is it that kind of granular?

Justin Clarke 42:02
So Sean is a stakeholder in LeBlanq, so there are two people that I wanted to be integral to the growth of LeBlanq one is Sean Yates on the cycling side and the other is Ashley Palmer Watts on the chef side. Both have stakes in the business. And it’s very deliberate. Because where Sean is highly respected by virtually every rider of the last 40 years, Ashley Palmer Watts is respected by almost every chef in the world. And I’ve worked with virtually every top chef in the world actually is a top chef in the world, and therefore there’s a different relationship. And then it’s one of when we work with the talent and you’ve seen this. We’re not booking the talent to come and just do a job and go again. The talent are integral to the narrative and the story and the experience. Nieves was on the right. Michelin star chef from several was at Barrafina Barra fina was obviously sensational restaurant that became a restaurant chain. She’s beautiful human being a member of the RCC, she rides a bike, she cooks the food. Pete Tong is the ultimate DJ, he’s out on the ride on Sunday. It’s these people are integral to the experience. They’re not just a booking. If they were just a booking, they just kind of do what they normally do. They fly in, they fly out. That’s it. But that’s not what.

Carlton Reid 43:29
So this is not a bike holiday. So there are lots of companies that do bike holidays where you could come riding. So you’re you’re offering something extra to that. I mean, look, there’s the other companies that do food as well, and bikes, but you’re offering the riders, and very, very, very close access to the riders. So close, you are following them, you know, an inch away from their their back wheel down Scary, scary. The sense as I found out that that’s where you’re coming from that is that is that that element is the riders is what people? What do you think people are coming for?

Justin Clarke 44:09
Tthey’re coming for escapism, we do luxury escapism on bikes, that’s what we do. The riding is joy riding. we’ve coined this expression of joy riding and it could be, you know, technically joy riding is stealing cars, but joy riding for us is riding your bike for pleasure, whatever your version of pleasure is. And you know, because you’ve been on the rides, we have the black group, but the black group was smashing themselves to bits to ride as fast as hard as they can, because that is their pleasure. And then we have our green group, which half of them were riding the bikes, and they are just take you there drinking in the scenery, because that is their pleasure.

Carlton Reid 44:52
And how do you do that? This is what I’ve found very, very, there’s many things about this. I’ve found impressive, obviously all the things you’ve already mentioned. But what I found really impressive compared to .. because I’ve done many, many bike tour trips with a variety of companies — is the way that you’ve somehow got people in the right group, I would say 95% of the time. And yes, you’ve got a questionnaire. But people probably don’t actually fill questionnaires in properly anyway, sp how are you, how are you physically matching people to those groups and getting it so spot on, you know, from the get go not having to ditch people or people up?

Justin Clarke 45:32
Yeah, so LeBlanq has its own concierge. And Lisa, who, sadly she was, she was ill on a pretty critical day. And there’s like, it’s tragic for her. And it was kind of difficult for us. But Lisa builds relationships with every guest. And the relationship is not just a fill in the form. It’s have a conversation with a person. And we’re interested in the guests that are coming, we do our research,

Carlton Reid 45:59
Are you looking at their Strava profiles? Like I’m in black? Yeah, no, you know,

Justin Clarke 46:05
Wo what we know to be true. And here’s the thing. One of the reasons why we’re pretty good at getting right, is that we take in multiple pieces of information, and we make our own judgement. Because if we just asked the person,

they’d get it wrong. because I’m not being

sexist, but many men over exaggerate. Women under estimate.

Carlton Reid 46:29
Yeah, that’s why I was definitely coming at it. From that point of view, I slightly different from me, in that I was in many groups, and that was fine. And I’m I’m doing it for different reasons. I’m doing it for work, I’m trying to photograph at the same time. And so I couldn’t go out in the black group, because within three seconds I’d be left behind. If I wasn’t doing those things, I would like to think I could keep up with them. But I probably couldn’t. So I have been in, you know, it was just perfect. That group is just because it wasn’t stressed out. It was just it was it was mellow. So it was a joy ride. For me. And I haven’t heard of anybody here saying they, you know, they’ve gone above and beyond what they ever thought they could ever do. It’s just been rightful. So that’s, that’s a part of this, which you’re getting absolutely spot on.

Justin Clarke 47:14
Thank you. It’s so our final piece of the test to work out which group people should be in is the prologue. Yes, the prologue is a short ride, and it deliberately has a hill in it. And as you can see on the hill, that are any question, who should be in which group?

Carlton Reid 47:30
Why was that? Black? They must have seen me storming.

Justin Clarke 47:34
Because you were clearly yes, that’s, that’s the final piece of the jigsaw, we, we work very hard to make sure that the experience is as close to faultless as it can be. Yeah, you know, it’s there are so many data points now, that, that people want to share about what they’re doing that, you know, if you’re bothered, and we are we use those all those different fantasies, but it’s not just how good someone is. It’s what kind of what is a joy ride for them? You know, because some people, what not some, many people are here as couples. And the couples either want to ride together, and therefore one or rather, the non rider is on any bike to be able to keep up at the same pace, or are very happy to just go in different groups or owners, you know, they know that they can’t ride the same point. But they both want to ride for themselves. Yes. So they’re like multiple factors of what makes up a hazard. Right? And therefore, that’s why we have concierge, because when you really understand the people you can then deliver to what they’re looking for. And LeBlanq is not a race, it’s not a fixed ride. It’s a ride for pleasure for the people who are coming. And that’s that’s kind of it, you know, if we, if we had riders who are all semi professional, we probably put in 160 kilometre route, probably. But we had we had Brian Briggs, who is still what is it? He’s the Masters cyclocross champion, so he’s like an amazing rider. But we still thought now 130 kilometres, that’s enough hours in the saddle. You don’t you don’t want people to come back broken because you still got all the other bits. The meal and the recharge and everything else.

Carlton Reid 49:23
So you’re not carbo loading. You are gourmet loading. Do cyclists end up hungry on your trips?

Justin Clarke 49:34
No, no, the key meal, which is carbohydrates is the meal we give them as soon as they get back from the ride. That is pasta salad, potato salad that is carbohydrates, but it’s consumed almost without thinking. It’s a callback for the ride hungry and you walk in, you get back to the hotel, you walk in you sit down still in your sweaty cycling kit and you you have a really delicious immediate buffet meal. And that is what takes the edge away. And that’s what actually puts the calories back in from the calories who really burn, meaning that the meal they have in the evening you’re not starving, hungry. So you’re not just in your heart just need to eat this, you’re appreciating the meal. And the meal is about culture, is about location. It’s about the seasonality. And we don’t want people to be eating because they’re ravernous, we want them to be eating, again, for pleasure.

Carlton Reid 50:27
So how much are people paying? I know, I could go on the website and I could find that out. But you tell me on the tape. How much are people paying for this, including say, in addition and give us the fee that would pay to hire the beautiful Specialized Athos that I had? And and maybe if I was coming out here, it was just me the single room supplement so how much that’s a package that’s an average package how much would that cost me?

Justin Clarke 50:50
So the the average spend across the board is around about £3000. The price the price for two sharing is £2750. The single room supplement is £750. And the bike you can use for the whole weekend, a Specialized Athos is £250. Or we also did the service for exactly the same £250 where we bring your bike from the UK and you can ride your bike without the hassle of using the bike bag and everything else.

Carlton Reid 51:21
I’ve seen the photographs the bikes were brought in in the same van as the beer that’s it yeah so you see the picture by osmosis sucked up the beer. Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way and I can well appreciate if you go ‘I don’t want to answer that Carlton’ bu, and I asked ask you the price for this for a reason, because some people will go ‘how much?’ and I don’t go like that I go well for what you get. That is phenomenal value for money — for FFS — considering you know the people who just behind me still in a lounge you can see Adam Blyhe. I can see Matt Stephens, I can see your Andrew your photographer and Cav was there but he’s no longer there. So we’re still surrounded by a whole bunch of incredible people that cyclists such as me and you get very excited about. So it’s not expensive, really, at the end of the day. Beautiful hotel, beautiful route, 45 staff you’ve got the guides, everything is on the bring the chef’s out from lunch all this is just that is phenomenal value for money. Even if people think it’s a lot of money, it’s still phenomenal value for money. My question is, using the arithmetic of how many people you’ve had here, how much you must be paying people to be here because the riders aren’t doing this for you know for a stick of toffee, how are you making money?

Justin Clarke 52:47
It’s um, I’ll tell you how we are. We’re very good at being extremely efficient with how we work with our staff and our talent and our brand partners. One of the things that is integral to LeBlanq is the association with our brand partners. Almost everybody here will have a really close affinity now to Laurent-Perrier champage. Everybody here will understand that Cold Bath beer is a beautiful beer. They our brand partners and they are very intelligently integrated into the overall experience

Carlton Reid 53:25
Are they are different brand partners for different trips?

Justin Clarke 53:28
So we have global brand partners. Okay, so our brand partners are there this year, they’ve been talking about contracts and we’re going to go into multiple year contracts. So it’s an overall strategic programme but also we’re very good, I don’t want to give the two weeks secrets away but we are booking a hotel at low season

Carlton Reid 53:53
This is this is totally end ofseason if not there might not even be open everyone here kind of date we are

Justin Clarke 54:00
That there are many things that we do to be extremely efficient. But yeah, it’s

Carlton Reid 54:07
Even so yes and I appreciate that and I can imagine yes you’re getting sponsorship from so it’s it’s it should be £4000 or £5000 per trip for you to make money

Justin Clarke 54:21
You sound like myus board.

Carlton Reid 54:26
You know, I am not in the hospitality business. So I don’t know exactly what discount to get with what is and then how much your staff getting paid. But just as a former entrepreneur, who who tried to make money in publishing, and using all my arithmetic skills, which isn’t many is still like that’s that’s still a tight margin. You’re on even with those those things. So you’re amortising this across all of the trips across the whole time and you’re hoping people will come back. And then they’re your your valuable customers. So is that the way you looking at it as a as a this is this is a brand building? Yes, across the year?

Justin Clarke 55:12
So our first experience, so this event here average about £3000, the first event that we had, which was in Perthshire with Ashley cooking was £1800. The price. That is there’s two things, there’s price and value. The value is extremely good. The price as who you are, you see that extraordinarily high or is really cheap. That depends on how much money you have. So we are in the building process of proving concepts. We had 140 people here. And if I told the guests in advance all of the detail of exactly where it is they go, there’s no way you can possibly give me an extraordinary experience for 140 people. It’s just not possible. But we have. So we are very happy to prove ourselves and to build and to grow with a long term, medium long term strategy. The number of people who have been blown away by the fact that Leblanq has its own Master of Wine. And we are very good at choosing.

Carlton Reid 56:26
David.

Justin Clarke 56:27
Yes. David Hesketh. He is one of 320 Master of Wine in the UK. And every trip, he always selects the wines. We have a three Michelin star chef who is overseeing every single dish that goes out, no matter who’s cooks it, we have standards, you can charge four or five or six or 7000 pounds when people believe you to be true. And you’d have to prove it first

Carlton Reid 56:55
Is that you saying you’re gonna put your prices up? I’m gonna put it the other way ‘Get on the trip quick because the prices are gonna go up you know in three trips time, do it now.’

Justin Clarke 57:07
Thank you. I like I like good value, you can still have a very high price with very good value. So we will always be good value but the price will be reflected with experience.

Carlton Reid 57:20
Thanks Justin Clark of LeBlanq there and thanks to all of those who talked to me in Ibiza. This has been episode 313 of the Spokesmen podcast. Show notes and more can be found at the-spokesmen.com. The next show will be an interview with author Hannah Reynolds and will be out within the next 10 days or so. Meanwhile, get out there and ride!

30th October 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 311: You don’t have to be horrible to win

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Donna Tocci, Jim Moss

TOPICS: Roundtable discussion on Cav’s chances of winning a stage of the 2023 Tour de France, Musk’s takeover of Twitter, Mario Cipollini’s three year prison sentence for domestic abuse, and will Denver’s super popular e-bike rebate program reduce car trips? See links, below.

LINKS:

Joe Lindsey article on Cav in Bicycling

LeBlanq

Denver’s e-bike rebate program

Mario Cipollini sentenced to 3 years in jail

Jim’s article on Bicycle Retailer

10th October 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 309: Old crew is back

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: David Bernstein

GUESTS: Tim Jackson, Donna Tocci, Jim Moss, Carlton Reid

TOPICS:

• What is everyone up to these days?
• The Hour Record
• UCI Gravel Worlds
• Cycling Tips Reporter Disallowed From Worlds in Australia
• UCI Changes Rule to Combat Aero Advantages in Time Trials
• Official at Finishing Line Gets Handsy with Lorena Wiebes
• National Cycling League
• Electric Bikes

David says:

• Filippo Ganna’s Hour Record
  • Excellent WSJ Article “How Far Can You Ride a Bike in an Hour? Start With An Aerodynamicist”
• The Armstrong $30,000 ride? I don’t know if I want to touch this one. Up to you all. (How about LA allegedly getting “weird” with women/ woman at a wedding he supposedly crashed? 
• Central Park Activist

Tim says:

• UCI Gravel Worlds
• UCI is “sport washing” some bad actors, still/ again/ as always … (link?)Can’t I just rail, as always? (TIM- part of a Twitter dialog, with Joe Lindsey, I’ll try to find. Lapartient gave a tepid response to reporter’s question about risk of sportwashing- basically, “we need the money.”)
• Bike market is auguring like a lawn dart. (???)
• e-Bikes are here to stay, even as Rad Power Bikes is getting sued into extinction, battery fires are making the news, Florida hurricane Ian e-bikes represent a huge fire risk through the damage/ flood zones … (David loves his eMTB) ?

Jim Says:

• Video of Lorena Wiebes Riding Away from Handsy Official Goes Viral 
• Professional cycling coming back to Colorado with $1 million on the line
• UCI changes rule to combat aero trickery of TT support cars

My truck last night bringing 19 bikes back from the BSA Camporee.

Josh Reid https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvtrjFpGvwkihRfAQxlywYg

24th September 2022

The Spokesmen Cycling Podcast

EPISODE 307: Kidical Mass: How, Why, Where, When

SPONSOR: Tern Bicycles

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Kat Heath, Kidical Mass, Reading

TOPIC: Hundreds of “Kidical Mass” rides are taking place across the UK and Europe this weekend. A more family-friendly version of Critical Mass, these rolling demos show decision makers – with an abundance of cuteness — that children need safe space to cycle and that roads are theirs too. Kat Heath of Reading’s ride explains more.

TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 307 of the spokesmen cycling podcast. This show was published on Saturday 24th of September 2022.

David Bernstein 0:29
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Tern bicycles. The good people at Tern are committed to building bikes that are useful enough to ride every day, and dependable enough to carry the people you love. In other words, they make the kind of bikes that they want to ride. Tern has e bikes for every type of rider. Whether you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or even caring another adult, visit www.tern bicycles.com. That’s t e r n bicycles.com to learn more.

Carlton Reid 1:04
Hundreds of critical mass rides are taking place across the UK and Europe this weekend. A more family friendly version of critical mass, these rolling demos showed decision makers with an abundance of cute purse that children need a safe space to cycle and that road of theirs to Kat Heath of Reading’s ride explains more.

Kat, you’re organising the Reading version of critical mass. First of all, what is Critical Mass is like a form of putting kids in the way of trouble because critical mass where does this come from, of course is famous for being quite an anarchic.

Kat Heath 1:52
So Critical Mass is a worldwide grassroots movement that is intended to say that cars, not cars, the street should be for kids not cars, and that we need better cycling infrastructure to make it safe for our children to cycle. If you imagine an eight year old cycling to school, for most parents, that’s absolutely terrifying. And that shouldn’t be the reality. They’re not designed with the same principle that critical mass has a lot of these rides are fun, fun, family friendly rides that don’t even go on the roads. Some people do want to use them more as protest rides, which is absolutely fine. But the heart of these rides is just trying to raise awareness of the diversity of people on bikes, and why we need better infrastructure. I think, a brilliant point that we consider that a city that is designed to be good for children is good for everybody from your pensioner who’s out on a bike because is there any mobility aid? I have a friend that has MS and having an electric trike has completely revolutionised his life. And he’s been able to maintain a degree of independence he just wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s just a good thing in general, I think. Does that answer the question? I ramble, you can tell me to shut down

Carlton Reid 3:06
and that’s fine. So is this by using kids using this perhaps the wrong word probe? But by involving kids? Is that a kind of wave of almost softening the message? Or is it that’s the absolute message we need to do this for kids?

Kat Heath 3:21
That is the absolute message, we need to have this for our children. I my little boy is 18 months now. But we’ve been cycling since he was five weeks corrected. And my ability to cycle with him completely changed how I could cycle I couldn’t cycle defensively like I used to. I couldn’t fit in gaps that were there before and I became I had to be in traffic because I had a trailer behind me. And there was just no way that I could like how I used to if your child is five years old, our setup just does not allow the children to cycle and they need to be at the heart of these decisions. I think the other thing that like is really key for why it’s so important for children. They are the people that are going to be living on this planet long after you and I have died. And the reliance on car travel at the moment is fueling climate change. We have an obesity crisis. We have a air crisis, air quality crisis and enabling active travel whether that scooting or cycling or walking or wheeling has to be at the heart of everything. At the moment most of our towns and cities are just not set up to support that.

Carlton Reid 4:31
So by riding with with your kids and with families and is that something that you can try to get local politicians involved? So you know, you’re basically the message is gotta go to them to improve anything in your in your city. Are you getting the media involved? How are you pushing this message apart from the actual ride?

Kat Heath 4:50
So again, this will change from group to group. So I helped form the one in Inverness and the one in Redding. So I can speak for both of those. We have actively invite It counsellors to all of the right and we’ve seen different parties turn off different frequency. Inverness and reading, we’ve got the right mic normally me or somebody else invited to a lot of like the clean air or the active transport committees, so that we can start being that voice for, hey, this is a great design, but that’s not going to work for a child. So let’s rethink this. I think also the Inverness ones especially, every council meeting, we heard different counsellors reference them about why active travel was so important. People that weren’t turning up to the rides were using us as a really good example of why the city needs to be designed better. It also just highlights awareness, I think the amount of people that have stopped and chatted to me and my son, when we had a trailer and now is on the back of my bike to say hi, I’ll be like, Oh my God, that’s a brilliant idea. I didn’t realise you could cycle with a child. I think that helps other parents that maybe aren’t as confident doing it as well. So you start having that knock on ripple effect.

Carlton Reid 6:03
That critical mass, famously, was like once a month. So how often is critical mass,

Kat Heath 6:10
again, depends on this is all local people. So it’s normally local parents, but not always raising it. And it’s how many marshals you can have. So marshals are there to keep the children safe when you’re cycling. We reading is working we’re working on now. So we do ours every other month Inverness, there’s monthly bath has a different frequency, it’s really dependent on the city or the town, and how much time the people organising it have got to do it.

Carlton Reid 6:39
And how many places around the UK and perhaps worldwide are organising critical mass.

Kat Heath 6:48
UK, there has been so Germany who are incredibly good at this have been organising worldwide events. So they had one in May, there was 11 towns and cities writing and I think that had doubled from the year before. In September, were aware there’s about 15 or 18 rides happening in September. So it’s growing little by little, I can find the stats from the last ride and actually email it to you. But there was over 100 I think almost 200 rides across Europe in May. So it is growing. And it’s coming to the point about like raising awareness, the more people see these happening, and the more we can get word out about these very fun and very cute events. And I think more people will start doing them. I hadn’t heard of critical mass until last year. And now I don’t stop talking about them.

Carlton Reid 7:41
And, again, that this will be a question that your answer will be, you know, it depends on each town. But if you give us a broad spectrum here of kind of the the amount of people that have kids matter, parents, how many people are attending these events, so So give me a flavour.

Kat Heath 7:58
I think it’s about 100 people. So including parents and children that are coming. school holidays have a surprisingly big impact, which I didn’t think through. But yeah, most of the rides that I saw in May, were about 100 people that said some rides had 200 London gets a lot more. So yeah. Yeah, about, I’d say 50 to 100 on every ride that I’m aware of apart from one last month, which where we had 10 people turn up.

Carlton Reid 8:31
Was that bad weather? What was the 10?

Kat Heath 8:33
Heat wave? Oh, like we Yeah. Also, I think we put it in the wrong location. And a lot of it’s trial and error. You try new things and school holidays.

Carlton Reid 8:47
What’s what’s the right location?

Kat Heath 8:50
For the rides? I, I got the same answer. It depends on what you’re trying to achieve. So I think if you haven’t done that many of them sticking to safer paths that you know, well, is a really good idea. Edinburgh to have, like, I think they had 200 people came and they were on the road. And they gave people lots of warning. And it was just fantastic to see children doing these beautiful routes, we tend to go from Park to Park, one of the things we’ve been trying to do and reading is highlight cycle routes that take you to areas that children actually want to be to help inspire parents cycle with their children.

Carlton Reid 9:31
Because if you did it on, say, an existing bike path that was already great. Yeah. Which is which would be fine for the kids to ride on already. But kind of not really promoting the message you’re trying to get out there is it’s like we want bike paths here. Not to use the existing ones which we know are okay for kids.

Kat Heath 9:52
I slightly disagree with that. I think highlighting good infrastructure especially if you’re trying to inspire more people to cycle is a great idea. At the same time, highlighting where there needs to be more, because it’s a massive gap. So you want to cycle to things like your hospital, to your doctor’s, to your schools, to your parks, I want to be able to cycle my kid to nursery and not have someone tried to run me over and then be able to go to a coffee place. And I think it all needs to tie in and be connected. Have you read invisible women, where it highlights that most carers which predominantly are women, we don’t tend to go A to B, we tend to have these A to B to C network journeys. And what we need to show is that we need connected networks with secure bike parking, that are segregated paths so that we can get everyone cycling. And there’s a million different ways of highlighting that. But it needs to be designed with accessibility in mind. And I think some plans assume a confidence level that not everybody has all that it will work for every that it will work for a single person on a bike. But then that doesn’t account for having a trailer, it doesn’t account for being a recumbent or traffic lights are a nightmare when my son is in a bad mood with me because he was my bike. And it’s just something you’d never find. And I’m not I don’t shoot the red lights, by the way. But it’s just finding what’s right for where you are and how engaged your active travel teams are and how engaged your counsellors are, and also the maturity of the cycling infrastructure in your towns and cities.

Carlton Reid 11:29
So what’s it like in Reading already?

Kat Heath 11:31
awful, it is absolutely awful. And reading, it’s like being in London 10 years ago. I’ve lived in London, I lived in London for when I was 18 when I was in my early 30s. And I cycled most of that time. And it feels like that here, the drivers are not prepared to see cyclists on the road, where they do see cyclists on the road like I regularly get sworn out, I regularly get driven at. I have had one guy scream at me with my kid on my bike to get on the effing pavement. I’m just like, that’s not even legal dude.

Carlton Reid 12:06
Kat, why would you in that camp? I’m being devil’s advocate here. In that case, why would you then inflict such an awful activity on on children, if you’re getting, you know, this kind of part of

Kat Heath 12:19
the reason they’re behaving like that is because we don’t have segregated bike paths. And they see us as an intrusion is the dog really annoying in the background?

Carlton Reid 12:29
There’s dogs, there’s dogs everywhere, don’t worry about it.

Kat Heath 12:32
Dogs, my sister. At the moment, some drivers and not all see us as a conflict were to be less than 2% of freaking road traffic. But if we had better segregated paths that were safe to use, more people would be using them, there’s less traffic on the road, it is better for everybody. And I think this is why Critical Mass ride and engaging with your counsellor. Any form of activism that argues for active travel is so important, because we need to get people out of cars for short journeys and onto bikes and, or onto scooters or onto whatever it is. But that’s not going to happen until the infrastructure is there. And if these rides can safely and in a fun way, highlight the need for that infrastructure that has to be a good thing. Which coming back to your question of whether it should be on the road or on pavements, non pavements on like in existing infrastructure, show a family a route that they wouldn’t have dreamed of, to get between their school and their part. And that to me as a win as much as it is getting highlighted highlighting the need for why this road needs infrastructure on it. It’s got to come from every angle. And it’s got to be fun. Because again, you’re right. Why would children and families turn up if it’s not fun, and they don’t feel safe?

Carlton Reid 13:49
So I’ve been on my local one which is was in Whitley Bay, North North Tyneside, I find I felt kind of awkward, because I was invited along to take photos. But I didn’t have kids. And well, I hadn’t I didn’t have kids there. So my kids are, you know, flown the nest and stuff. So and they’re riding their own bikes now in other cities. So I didn’t have like a tot with me. So I felt a bit awkward. So these rides, do they welcome everybody to join in? Or is it if you haven’t got kids, you can’t come along?

Kat Heath 14:19
I again, this is going to be on an individual talent level. All the ones that I am aware of that I have been involved in or that everybody is welcome. I think one of the ways we’ve marketed it as please come you don’t need a responsible child to look after you. If you don’t have a responsible child and you’re interested in marshalling please chat to us about that because we always need more marshals. But again, the whole idea is diversity. My parents live up in Inverness, and my poor dad every right I was like, Dad, I need you to come with mom on the tandem. Just so we can highlight that we have pensioners cycling it’s important to show diversity in every area. I’m the person that organises them in Exeter, the Powell doesn’t have any children. He just thinks that cycling should be safe for everybody, no matter their age group and loves critical masses. So he’s led on organising one that everyone is genuinely welcome, the more people we have out there, and the friendlier these things are, it’s got to work for everyone, right. And one of the things I’ve been discovered when I talk to taxi drivers, and this is their living like livelihood, they obviously get anxious when we talk about or anyone talks about shutting down city centres. But actually, if you had less cars there and you had more bikes, the people that did need to get into there, we’ll be able to use the taxis or we need to start engaging everybody in his consultations and making sure that the best solution for the future is heard in my opinion. And we’re not doing that because we’re prioritising people’s convenience about using a metal box over our children’s future. And like I don’t, I don’t know how old you are. But if your children have flown the nest, probably, like, not in your 20s anymore. Like when I grew up, we had water fights in the street, and I could psych on the street. I’m teaching my little boy how to walk right now. And I hate taking him down our quiet road because the cars are parked everywhere, there’s cars racing up and down a residential street and it just doesn’t feel the safe area that I grew up in. And my dad was Army. So we grew up in villages and cities and towns like we moved a lot. But that’s not our children’s reality anymore. Because our streets are for our cars, not for our communities.

Carlton Reid 16:30
Let’s let’s dig down into any differences between this and critical mass because I’m, I’m struggling to see how it’s actually any different apartment, maybe there’s ice creams at the end and that kind of stuff. There’s more entertainment. Yeah, there’s like there’s the kind of that that blackmail at the end to get the kid to come. Because at the one at Newcastle, the one on the way into it was like we’re going to have an ice cream van at the end. And it was free, free brownies and stuff. It’s like okay, that’s not on critical mass. That’s that’s the difference. But just generally what what genuinely is the difference between because the describing events are actually pretty much similar.

Kat Heath 17:07
I think they come from the same ethos Critical Mass is started to raise awareness of the amount of people that were dying by bike. And sadly, that hasn’t dramatically changed has. To me, the main difference is someone’s organised both is the amount of planning that has to go into a critical mass. Critical Mass is you say a name a day, and then you cycle together. And you’ve got grown adults that know how to cycle. And you don’t have to worry about it as much critical mass we spend months sometimes figuring out routes that we can keep our kids safe on other people’s kids safe on accessibility as a huge issue for critical mass. Again, them having fun and enjoying this. So they want to carry on cycling outside of critical mass here is a thing. I do think it is a there is a lot of anger towards cyclists or people on bikes. And I think critical mass helps with that, because it shows that some of these people on bikes are children on bikes, and it is very difficult to have the same level of anger. So I think it raises awareness in a more positive tone potentially, then critical masses due and Critical Mass is a great fun. And I love attending them. And they still have the same bribery at the end, by the way, because they finish in a pub, what’s really the adult version of offering an ice cream. But they are all raising awareness that our roads aren’t just for cars, and it needs to be safe for all people on those roads, not just people in a metal box.

Carlton Reid 18:47
So Critical Mass is that famously, there’s no organisers of it are meant to be no organisers of it certainly no organisers who are named and can be contacted in in any named way. Whereas Critical Mass is very much you know who the organisers are? Yeah. It’d be easier for the police to come in and just stop this. So do you have to approach the police? Do you what do you have to do as an organiser to actually organise these things with your name on

Kat Heath 19:17
so we have recommendations on this you. We recommend you get in contact with your police force and let them know at least six days beforehand. Some of the police forces have been amazing sunrise, the police force are coming out and acting as marshals. Other ones there’s been more of a debate. I think one of the things if you are cycling on the road, you’re not holding up traffic, you are the traffic and that’s a really big thing to remember. You don’t have to ask permission you need to inform people that these rides are happening. In my experience, informing the council as well has been really, really positive. You don’t have to but in Vaness Council and Reading Council have been really, really helpful with us. In Venice, we had a problem with the route. And the event planning and road team helped me find an alternative route and got the permission to go through this area that was closed off by a private company. So we can keep the kids safe in reading, we were using a non we were using a lovely Riverside path, a part of the road that was completely overgrown with stinging nettles and I let them know and they went and cut it down for me. So I think there’s a huge benefit in working with your counsellors, but that very much depends on your councils and your relationship with your councils. I product managers live as a job. So communication and coordination and getting people to work together, I find makes anything in life work easier. But again, that comes down to your relationship in the city or town.

Carlton Reid 20:51
So the city or town that you’re in reading, have you seen any change? So organising these critical mass event? Have you seen any inkling that there might be some differences coming up? Or do you think this is a multi year, your child will be 23? Before you even get anything in? What do you see is the the progress?

Kat Heath 21:11
So I only moved down in February, I came down from m&s and wanted them here. So I said I’ve set them up here. I think the fact that we are sitting on council groups now is a great sign. So we can input on consultation, these things aren’t going to happen overnight. It can’t be 23 years. We just don’t have the time anymore. We are at a critical point in climate emergency. And we need to get more people doing short routes by active travel. Don’t expect it to happen overnight. Like realistically these infrastructure changes we’re talking about we’re talking years, not months. But I do think we need to start seeing changes a lot earlier than 21 years. And when I hear visions for 2035, or 2050 is like that, that’s too far away for my kid. I’m a very effective product manager. So I basically decided to take this approach with these.

Carlton Reid 22:14
Hmm, and how much organisation does it take and you get an inkling before that it takes more than a critical mass. But just just tell us exactly what you have to do.

Kat Heath 22:26
A high level you need a few people involved, definitely. You want to you need a route, you need a route that is safe for children and accessible for children. And just thinking things through like drop curbs. Or if you’ve got bollards, where you’d be able to get a trailer through or how a tandem would work. So a lot of route planning and that tends to be where the most focus is spent. You need marshals. So when you have kids going past junctions, just having a martial there to make sure someone doesn’t inadvertently or intentionally drive into the middle of the children, because they are like some of these kids are four or five on a balanced bike. And that’s not going to keep them safe. You need cake. So encouraging people to bake stuff. They’re fun, right? You do need that. What else telling the place that you’ve suggested is a good option. We’ve written a how to guide. We’ve also sorted public liability insurance. So people anyone organising critical mass can sign up to public liability insurance, which you don’t need to. But in my opinion, is a sensible idea to do. I think yeah, maybe and then you need to promote it. And whether that’s Facebook or parents, WhatsApp groups, talking to the local media, talking to the national news media, hopefully, I think it’s just raising awareness and getting people to turn up on the roads. That is most of it, find a safe route. Tell people about it. Make sure you’re keeping the kids and other vulnerable users safe.

Carlton Reid 23:57
I should be asking the kids this, but for obvious reasons. I can’t but what are kids think about this, this these rides.

Kat Heath 24:03
So mine doesn’t talk yet, but he seems to love cycling. He is so content on my bike is incredible. I can share a five year olds account of the last critical mass from one of the other organisers and he absolutely loves it. His main question after the last one was when’s the next one? Going back to Inverness. Some of the other people. Their children’s spoke to STV about what they thought about it and why these rights were important. And overwhelmingly the kids love it. They get to cycle they get to spend time with their friends on bikes, their parents on bikes and they’re safe. And then they get coke at the end or the he invested a lot working with 42 cycling to have ramps like mountain biking ramps so they could get exposed to that they got a pennyfarthing and a lot of the riders do have fun at the end and I think that’s me highlight head just how much we’ve lost that as well. Like you don’t play out on the street with your friends anymore because you can’t. And having those play out areas at the end have become a really important part for some rides on having that sense of community. But

Carlton Reid 25:17
yes, the ride I went on Whitley Bay was ended at a at a play park basically. So the kids could just leap in there, you know, jump off their bikes and go play together, which was, which was very cute. You mentioned before about the abuse, the sadly, the abuse that you get when you’re riding your bike, when you’re on the critical mass. Do you get any abuse from drivers then? Or is it the fact that there’s quite a lot of kids and parents on their bikes actually stopped any abuse?

Kat Heath 25:46
Very, very little. So I’ve probably done 11 right across in Vanessa reading. And I think maybe two or three drivers I’ve seen have been annoyed with the ride. For the most part, you just get these huge smiles and a few curious what’s going on. If you’ve been to the ride, it is a lovely, lovely thing to see small children on their bikes or on their parents bikes, ringing their bells or smiling. And for most people, I think it just makes them smile. We Inverness had a thing with the hospice, we went past the hospice room, and some of their patients would request to come over to the hospice window so they could see it. Because honestly, they just really enjoyed seeing it. I think the aggression towards cyclists has changed. I get a lot more aggression now than I did even 1015 years ago. A lot less sexual comments. But a lot. I mean, it could just because I’m older, right? But a lot lot more aggression than I did a few years ago, which is bizarre.

Carlton Reid 26:52
Yes, yes, it is very sad turn of event. And how long are these rides?

Kat Heath 26:57
In general? Three miles ish. You’ve got people on small wheels. Yeah, in general, just think through your target audience if you’ve got a small bike, a very small ride for you. Isn’t that small and also getting to them and leaving as well.

Carlton Reid 27:16
And when is the next event for you personally in Reading?

Kat Heath 27:19
Our next one is on the 25th of September as part of the European Critical Mass weekend. We’re going to do a combined ride so working on are going to start and then they’re going to join us at 1130 and Palmer Park, where we are going to ride together to finish at the reading Bicycle Festival where there will be cake and but also some stunts and tracks and cargo bikes so people can really see the breadth of bikes bikes available to them.

Carlton Reid 27:49
Thanks to Kat Heath there And thanks also to you for listening to Episode 307 of the spokesmen cycling podcast brought to you in association with Tern bicycles, show notes and more can be found as always on the-spokesmen.com. The next episode will be out next month. But meanwhile, get out there and ride…