Girvan 2008: Tales from the back of the fridge

Easter is a festival which commemorates the death of a man nailed to a frame, and hung out in the wind for three days to die. Health and Safety regulations now forbid the use of nails, but to celebrate Easter, each spring we still go to Girvan to clip a hundred young men to frames and hang them out in the wind for three days...

How shall we describe the Girvan of 2008, the thirty-ninth Girvan?

It was this:

Cold.

The forecast, as I loaded up my battered truck on Friday night, was atrocious. Not that it needed a forecast; here, on the balmy south coast, we're sheltered a little from the Northern blast, yet still the wind was blowing forty miles an hour and the air temperature was hovering just above zero. I packed warm clothes. At Girvan, where the wind was hurling down across the firth from the snow-capped peak of Goat Fell, it was worse. I found my accommodation, unpacked my truck, and went to the crew meeting.

The veteran Jimmy Mullen, the only man to have crewed on all thirty-nine Girvan races, had finally rebelled. No longer would he lead the routing crew. So that job fell to another sacrificial victim, another parcifal lamb.

Me.

Stage one, Saturday: Round and around this world we go

Well, the thing about routing is, if you make a mistake, everyone knows. If you make a serious mistake, the race gets lost and everyone is pissed off. Routing is not an activity for those lacking in confidence. Nor, on a route a complex as stage one - straight up Byne Hill, down through Pinmore, up by Tormitchell quarry (dreadful road surface), down Blackie's Brae and then out for two laps around Crosshill, Kirkmichael and Straiton, before coming back through Girvan for another lap around the Byne Hill - Blackie's Brae loop - is it an activity for those lacking a sense of logistics and timing. We not only had to get all the sgns out before the race came past, we also had to switch them all round before the race came past again...

We nearly did it. We routed the whole course once in time to be at the Depart Real to see the race off. Then to Blackie's Brae to wait for the race coming down, and change the sign. Then out to Crosshill to catch the first sprint, wait for the race to pass, and change the sign. Then back to Blackie's... oh, but wait. What's this? Team cars lining up at the side of the road with bottles... is this an official feed zone? It's not on the sheet. We park up quickly and rush out with the feed zone signs, and the race is upon us. Well, never mind, we were going to wait for it to pass at Blackie's. But the race is now very strung out. Time is passing, and the broom wagon still hasn't arrived. We can't wait any longer. Into the van, change the sign (again) at Blackie's, onto Victory Park in Girvan, change the signs there.

Please miss... See, the thing is, last year there were permanent markers where the 'distance to go' boards should be put, but this year there hadn't been time. So the only way we could get them in the right places was to set the trip and drive back along the course, putting out a sign each time the odometer rolled over. We very nearly made it. We got the one mile to go out, and the two, and the three... and then the peloton was upon us. We couldn't turn, so we waited at the side of the road for it to pass, and then followed it into the finish. I got a bit of gentle ribbing from Jimmie Mullen about the missing mile markers, but it was not a bad day. We'd seen the race on the road four times, which isn't bad for a routing crew.

After everything was packed up, I went back to my lodging, changed into cycling gear, and got my bike out. The sensible thing to do in that wind would have been to head north, so as to have it behind on the way back. But I wanted to ride part of the route, to get a feel for what it was like. I headed out up Byne Hill, and found it not so bad at all. A good climb; a workout, but not so dreadfully cold. I unzipped my jacket. I unzipped the vents of my jersey. I stuffed my winter cap in my pocket. I rolled over the top, dropped down to Pinmore, turned sharp left onto the (relatively) flat and into the wind...

Oh, my, God.

Cold.

In a moment all my zips were up. In another, my buff was pulled up over my nose and my cap down over my ears. Bitter. And the road surface was appalling. On my 28mm kevlar reinforced commuting tyres and with the whole width of the road to use I was able to pick a route, but to negotiate this surface on thin racing rubber! No wonder one third of the peloton had punctured on stage one. Still, it was a great, envigorating ride, and then it was back to Girvan for the criterium.

Stage two, Saturday: A Ride in the Park

Fifteen laps around an urban park. On the flat. How hard can that be? Let me tell you. On the first lap, I had my camera, and I took pictures. On the second lap, I had my camera, and I took blurs. On the third lap, I had my camera, and I took smears. On the fourth lap I put my camera away, because my hands were too cold to hold it. It was excruciating - that word, meaning nailed to frames, exactly - and as the elastic snapped it separated the men from the boys almost surgically. Before long I was cheering for just one rider - so far off the pace I think he was lapped twice. I spoke to him later that evening and again on Monday, after the finish of stage four.

He was from Devon; a nice lad, bewildered, shell-shocked by what had happened to him. He'd never in his life, he said, been dropped before. He wasn't used to having to hide in the bunch; he was used to being able to attack off the front at will. But he'd come up to Girvan and been dropped on the first climb, punctured on the first descent, finished stage one as Lanterne Rouge. Stage two, that ride in the park, saw him even further back on GC. By stage three he would have learned his lesson; by stage three he would have learned to hide in the wheels, and be carried along to the third major climb of the day, where again he would be dropped. He would stagger in seventh from last, but still Lanterne Rouge on GC. And on Monday he would be stripped even of that dubious honour. Dropped from the pack, cycling desperately on by himself, he would miss a turn and became lost, and be the last man to abandon.

By continental standards the professional teams who compete in our domestic Premier Calendar may be small beer. But they are still a league ahead, both in terms of fitness and in terms of support, of the amateurs against whom they are pitched at Girvan. My heroes in this race were not the pro teams fighting for the jerseys. My heroes were Glasgow Couriers, East Kilbride Road Club, and the composite teams - yes, including that nice lad from Devon - who come to Girvan knowing that they will go home in the same shirt they came in, but who come anyway. Chapeau to you all.

Intermission: where to bonk

In the spring, as we all know, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of cycle racing. Young men are fools. In the spring the hills are white with snow, and the wild north wind rattles stinging hail pellets off your face and hands. Spring is the season for sowing, and for young men the crop of choice should be wild oats. But for that, to misquote the estimable Mrs Beaton, 'first catch your woman'.

Fortunately we saw, on the roads around Girvan, several fit and athletic young women out training - some of them exceedingly fit. But get this: they were running.

Running.

Lads, listen up, word to the wise. Girls don't ride bikes. Girls have more sense. Sell your bicycle and buy some running shoes. Next spring, bonk in bed, not on the hills. It's warmer. And more fun.

Stage three, Sunday: The Hills of Home

Sunday's route, I had thought in advance, Sunday's route would be a doddle. I could do it, I thought, with my eyes shut. On home territory, on roads I know and love, on hills I've sweated up and descents I've overcooked a hundred times... Well, maybe. The things was, my companion on Saturday and Sunday was Steve Lockhart, who was most excellent company; and consequently I was so busy yarning and sharing the craik that I completely missed our turn at Newton Stewart and got us hopelessly lost... So we did a circuit and bump and went round again, and this time found the start. Not the best beginning; but from there on it went smoothly, because I really do know these roads.

And it was beautiful. Sitting in the front of a van with the heater on full blast, it was beautiful. The icy wind had blown every scrap of dust and haze out of the sky, so that you could cut your fingers on the distant horizon. Above us, the snowfields of the Cairnsmore climbed white and pristine. On the descent into Gatehouse we met the police motorcyclists, who'd come out to scout the route, stopped to take photographs. It was that beautiful. On the top at Clatteringshaws I phoned ahead to Ian Sinclair, the race organiser, to tell him that there was no snow on the road. Snow on the verges, sure enough; but the road was clear.

At Minnigaff we just missed the race - I'd hoped to catch it there on its way through. So we changed the signs there and carried on north back over the border to Ayrshire and to Girvan. Arriving at Victory Park I was redeployed to marshal at the end of the finish straight, where we have to close a through road for the hour the race is coming in. So, having missed seeing the race on the road, I missed the drama of the finish line. After 89 miles at an average of twenty three and a half miles an hour into a biting twenty mile an hour headwind, five leaders came down the finish straight together. In the sprint, in the last hundred metres, two of them crashed and went down. One, Matthew Higgins of Corley Cycles, was able to get up by himself, and staggered across the line in twentieth place. The other, Dale Appleby of Rapha Condor, was stretchered off with a broken collarbone and is credited on the result sheet with seventy sixth (although with a time of +0.00). It's academic, because he was a 'did not start' for stage four; but it's sad.

Intermission: a gentleman's bicycle

A gentleman's bicycle, as everyone knows, is black. Coloured machines are for spivs, bounders, johnny-come-latelies and other riff-raff. Similarly, a gentleman is distinguished not by the garishness of his attire, but by the excellence of its cut. A gentleman, in short, chooses to ride in garb of sober hue. In consequence one has for some years been an admirer of the Rapha Condor equipe. Their machines are, discreetly, black, with plain white panels highlighted with tasteful banding in a hue which evokes, not the vulgarity of the Maillot Jaune, but the more recherche elegance of the Maglia Rosa. The livery of their riders is similarly smart, sable with a touch of rose.

It will come as no surprise, therefore, if one confesses that one has chosen to procure one's cycling attire from the establishment whose name - and clothing - the team sports; that one has chosen to cycle dressed from head to toe in the products of their workshops. Imagine one's horror, therefore, when one perceived that these same elegant black bicycles were equipped, with the products not of the dedicated craftsmen of Vicenza nor yet of the Gallic engineers of St Trivier, but of a soulless oriental vendor of fishing tackle.

A gentleman is tolerant. A gentleman does not make a fuss. One can stand a great deal, but not this. Lines have to be drawn.

One simply must change one's tailor.

Stage four, Monday: The Best Laid Plans

On Sunday night, at Girvan, it's traditional that the officials and crew go out for a slap-up meal. Of recent years, it's become traditional that the organiser somehow manages to miss it. This year, it was weather. The plan had been for the classic Girvan final stage, over two nasty third category climbs and then up the first category Nick O' Balloch. But rumour had been trickling in all day of bad conditions up the pass, and while we sat down to dine Ian was driving up to inspect the pass for himself. At eleven that night, we had a small conference to discuss the options. Ian thought the Nick would be all right. An alternative route was quickly drawn up just in case; we agreed that Comm4 (the fourth commissaire) would go up to the Nick in the morning to report on conditions. In the meantime I would start to route the Nick O' Balloch route, but prepare to change to plan B.

Morning came, and Ian was gone. We'd agreed that I'd give him a few signs in case he had to change the direction of the start, but his car wasn't there and it was time for us to leave. But we'd barely got rolling when he phoned; he was once again up the Nick, and it was a no go. The ascent, he reckoned, was passable, but the descent was too dangerous. We were to route plan B, over four category three climbs of which the big one was Hadyard Hill; but Ian asked me to phone back a condition report from the top of Hadyard, and be prepared to reroute again with a plan C. We routed the now familiar loops over Byne Hill and Blackie's Brae, and out round Straiton (turn right at straight on, that classic cyclists' routing instruction) and Crosshill, before turning left up onto Hadyard. It's a great climb; although still third category, much more severe than the other climbs of this year's race. And on the top, when we got there at about ten, it was wintry. Bitter flurries of snow were spinning down the icy wind. We stopped several times to check the condition of the road, but there was no ice. The descent, however, was hair-raising enough, with concealed cattle grids and one blind bend with spectacularly bad camber and a run off onto a steep boulder strewn slope leading to a stone dyke. We put a whole series of 'caution' signs out...

Then through Barr and up the Screws - yet another hill prime - to Penkill, just above the top of Blackie's Brae and, by coincidence, the junction at which I'd marshalled last year's Scottish championship race. There we waited for the race to come through, amid a small knot of spectators. The peloton was pretty much all together this time, and soon we followed it down Blackie's to change the signs there and route out to Victory Park. That done, we were free until the leaders were onto the last loop, so we went up Hadyard again partly to spectate and partly to act as extra broom wagon if that were needed. Team cars had already gathered there; soigneurs and seigneurs alike prepared to hand out rations to their troops. There was a long, expectant pause. Cycling.TV's lead camera team came up and joined us; they would catch just a glimpse of the race before leaping back onto their motorcycle to race down the descent, desperately trying to keep ahead of the leaders to the bottom.

The announcer's car arrived earlier than I expected, to tell us that there had been a breakaway but that it had been caught, and the group were once again all together at the foot of the climb. The lead car came racing up, a commissaire's car, a motomarshal or two, and were gone. They, too, were all too aware that the race would descend that hill faster than any car could. Again, we waited.

At last a line of riders came into sight, working hard but in smooth rhythm. Someone counted; twelve riders, of the seventy who had started the climb together. The rest came through in dribs and drabs; about fifteen minutes after the leaders the rear caravan came up to us, and, although there were still riders behind, we followed after it; we had to get the final signage out while the leaders were riding their last loop. We just made it, leapfrogging one determined back-marker along the road as we put out the distance to go boards. Then we were done; into Victory Park. I had just time to go to the loo before the announcer's car arrived. And so I didn't get redeployed to another job, and I did get to see the finish, which was dramatic in its way. In a rather classic bike race sort of way.

And, in the end

Kristian House of Rapha Condor had started the day just one minute six seconds down on GC; he swept into Victory Park in a breakaway of just four riders, to take line honours and the precious bonus seconds. But how much lead did he have? Would it be enough?

Bike racing - professional bike racing - isn't like that. Team Pinarello are a competent outfit. They'd done their sums. They knew - to a tee - exactly how much effort they had to put in. Russ Downing swept in sixth on the day, to hold onto his yellow jersey by just four seconds. Competent. Efficient. Professional. But not romantic.

So that was Girvan 2008. Half a dozen men, from just four teams, went home with jerseys. Fifty eight men went home with the knowledge that they had survived the rigours of their passion; that they had hung on their frames in the icy blast for three days, and been undefeated by it. And forty-one men went home knowing that the wind and the hills had beaten them; that Girvan had been their bridge too far. But they, too, may rise again; they, too, in some future spring, may roll over the top of the Nick O' Balloch, and see the promised land.