That Sinking Feeling

The worlds first bicycle

Hands up if you know who Kirkpatrick McMillian is? Come on, don’t be shy. Anyone?

How about John Boyd Dunlop? Or John McAdam?

I am guessing that a fair number of people who read this blog will have at least a passing interest in cycling and a few others will be Scottish. If you fall into either of these camps and you don’t know who these gentlemen are – then you really should.

There are a few places that can claim to be the spiritual home of cycling. The Italians, Belgians and the French will doubtless have vociferous claims. But perhaps the South West corner of Scotland has the strongest claim of them all and that we don’t shout it from the rooftops is strange indeed.

You see, Kirkpatrick McMillian, of Keir, in Galloway, invented the bicycle in 1839. I wont lie to you. It wasn’t the fleetest of machines. Made of wood, with iron wheels and solid rubber tires, it must have weighed a tonne. No carbon or space age materials on this baby. Still, Kirkpatrick was able to get from Kier to Dumfries (14 miles) in an hour and even up to Glasgow (78 miles) in two days.

Dunlop of Dreghorn in Ayrshire invented the pneumatic tyre in1887, bringing a little more comfort and speed to our velocipedes.

And the last of this trinity (or chronologically the first), John McAdam of Ayr, invented tarmac. Bringing us smooth roads to race our bikes on. All of them born within a cycle ride of each other in Ayrshire and Galloway.  It’s remarkable that they were born so close to each other, but perhaps even more remarkable is that you probably didn’t know.

I found myself down in Dumfries again this weekend only about 30 miles from where the bike was invented.

There are so many unknowns in bike racing. Over the course of any race there are so many things that can happen, it makes trying to predict a winner very difficult. That unpredictability is what makes it so exciting. All you can do is make sure that you are as well prepared as possible. Physically, tactically and mechanically. All you can do is make sure that you give yourself as good a chance as possible to ride as well as you are able.

After last weeks race, I had high hopes of a good performance and good result. Having been caught out by the finish of the last race, I decided to get down there the night before and make sure I knew the course as best I could. I had planned where on the course I was going to attack and what my race tactics were to be. I was confident that I was as well prepared as I could be.

Unfortunately we have had some pretty horrible weather over the last few days. Lots of snow and as a result the race organisers changed the route of the race at the last minute. They decided, correctly, that taking us up over high ground wasn’t sensible given the snow. So all my plans went out the window. I quickly thought up some new plans, which amounted to try and stay at the tete de la corse, as the say in French and as far as possible stay out the gutter, as that where the potholes are.

Then 10 miles into the race I hit a pothole hard. Which wasn’t part of my plan. But when it’s wet, potholes have the ability to effectively disguise themselves as puddles. When you are in a bunch riding at race pace its hard even see the puddles far less try avoid them.

When you hit a pothole, there is always a jolt through your arms. You groan internally and hope that you are going to get lucky and not puncture. Without fail, just as you think you have got away without puncturing, you get the rattle through the handlebars the slight loss of control and that sinking feeling when you  know you have a flat, and that in all probability your race is over.

In pro races top riders always have a willing domestique to donate a bike to his team leader and another couple who will wait and pace the rider back to the bunch. Alas, at this level of racing all you can expect from a team mate is a ‘hard luck’ shouted over a fast disappearing shoulder.

It took me a while to change my wheel and I knew it was going to be a tough job to get back to the bunch. However, not knowing the course, I then missed a turn. I think the marshalls were sheltering from the atrocious weather and who can blame them? I battled on but ended up coming in second from last. Dumfries is a long way to go to spend a morning forlornly chasing down a peleton.

As another luminary of the South West of Scotland might say:

‘The best laid plans of mice and men,

Gang aft agley’

Kirkpatrick was ahead of his time, a visionary. Of that there is no doubt. I wonder if he knew how ubiquitous the bike would become? His bike provided little comfort for the rider and came fitted with solid rim tires. That was maybe because Dunlop wouldn’t invent the pneumatic tyre for another 40 odd years, I prefer to think it was because he knew how pot-holed the roads of Dumfries are. With no air in his tyres, there’s no chance he would have suffered from punctures.

Visionary indeed.

From Dumfries,

n

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