Remembering Tommy Godwin

British cyclist Tommy Godwin died last Saturday just two days short of his 92^nd birthday. He was a track cyclist who won two Olympic Bronze Medals in the Team Pursuit and the 1,000 meter (The Kilo.) Time Trial.

This was in the 1948 Olympics; the first Olympics after WWII and held in London. This Olympics was run on a shoe-string budget of around 700,000 British Pounds. Some of the athletes were housed in old army camps; others were taken into people's homes.  

When the Olympics returned to London this year Tommy was an Ambassador for the Games, and also at the age of 91, carried the Olympic Torch as it passed through his home town of Solihull, a district of Birmingham.

Tommy Godwin was born in Connecticut, USA in 1920; his British parents had emigrated there a few years earlier, but were forced to return to the UK in 1932 due to the Great Depression that hit the US at that time.

The family settled in the Birmingham area where Tommy remained for the rest of his life. At that time Birmingham was the center of the bicycle manufacturing industry in England, if not the world. When Tommy left school he went to work for the BSA Company; one of the larger bicycle factories.

In 1950 Tommy Godwin opened a retail bicycle shop in Kings Heath, Birmingham. A successful business that he would run for the next 36 years. It was a visit to this bike shop that I would first meet Tommy Godwin in 1952.

I was 16 years old and racing my first season; I rode my bike 70 plus miles from my home town of Luton, (About 30 miles north of London.) to Birmingham. I rode with two more experienced riders who were in their mid 20s.

On the ride there my two companions filled me in as to who Tommy Godwin was, so when I arrived I was somewhat impressed to be in the presence of an Olympic Medalist; but I think what intrigued me most was his Birmingham, or “Brummie” accent.

I had spent my childhood in London then moved to Luton in 1949; the deference between the two regions was not that marked.  But traveling over 70 miles to the West Midlands the dialect was completely different and strange to my ear.

I remember I bought a couple of very nice tubular tires and we rode back to Luton the same day. Years later as an adult I moved to the West Midlands area myself in 1969. I settled in Worcester, just 25 miles south of Birmingham.

In the years that followed I would meet up with Tommy Godwin again several times.

He was always present at various track events and BCF meetings in the Birmingham area.

Tommy had moved on from competitive cycling, to bike business entrepreneur, to the administrative side of the sport of cycling.

He was the first paid British Cycling Coach in 1964 and managed the British Olympic Cycling Team at the Tokyo Summer Games. He was also President of the British Cycling Federation for a period. I think it is safe to say that the success of British cyclists in recent years, especially on the track, was due in part to the initial coaching started by Tommy Godwin.

Tommy was not a close friend, but was someone that was always approachable and a pleasure to meet. I admired him as a teen, and when I met him again in the 1970s. I admire his memory today for all that he has given to the sport of cycling.

Footnote: This Tommy Godwin is not to be confused with another great cyclist with the exact same name. The other Tommy Godwin was a long distance legend who lived from 1912 to 1975 and holds the world record for miles covered in one year; over 75,000 miles, which is over 200 miles a day for a year

                        

Chasing Charlie

This story was posted here for Halloween 2006 when my readership was much smaller; you may or may not have read this before.

I neared the top of the hill on an evening training ride on a road so familiar to me I knew exactly what lay ahead; I had ridden my bike on this country road in the rural West Midlands area of England many times before.

There would be a short steep descent, a slight right hand bend at the bottom over a narrow stone bridge, then another tough climb even longer than this one. I lifted myself out of the saddle and stomped hard on the pedals, legs aching, breathing heavy, but knowing there would be a brief rest as I coasted down the other side.

At the top I sat up to allow my lungs to gulp in more oxygen; I saw him for the first time. He was just cresting the next hill ahead; silhouetted against a pale vanilla sky as the sun set. He was too far off to make out who he was but as I knew all the other racing cyclists in the area, I was sure I would know him.

All thought about coasting down the short descent was gone as I slammed into my highest gear and increased my speed; the chase was on. This is something that all racing cyclists will do instinctively; never miss an opportunity to chase down another rider.

Of course not knowing who was ahead meant I didn’t know his speed or level of fitness. I might never catch him, but I was going to try. This was in the early 1970s and I was in pretty good shape myself and the phychological boost of having someone to chase increased my adrenalin flow.

At the bottom of the hill I coasted through the slight bend and without shifting down I got out of the saddle again and let my speed and momentum carry me halfway up the next climb. Before my cadence dropped I shifted down, and up on the pedals again to the top.

I thought I caught a brief glimpse of him again and I was gaining on him, but the sun was completely set by now and it was getting quite dark. I reached down and turned on my battery lamps.

I must have chased hard for about four or five miles when I came on him suddenly; in fact I almost ran into him. He had no lights on his bike and he suddenly loomed up in the darkness. I pulled along side; I didn’t recognize him.

“Where’s your lights?” I asked.

“I wasn’t planning on being out this late, but I got a puncture earlier. I did a stupid thing; I was out of tubular cement and I had stuck my tires on with fish glue. I took me for ever to get the tire off.”

“Fish glue?” I thought, “Who sticks tires on with fish glue?”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“They call me Charlie.”

“I’ll ride with you.” I offered. “It’s a little dangerous to be out here without lights; where do you live?”

“Ledbury.”

I pulled ahead of him and increased the pace a little; Charlie pulled in behind me. Ledbury was a small town about five miles further on. After a short while Charlie came through to take the pace at the front.

I slipped in behind him. It was then I got my first look at his bike; my battery lamp lit up his rear wheel and gear train. He was using an old four speed, eighth inch, freewheel block with an Osgear derailleur; a single jockey wheel on an arm under his chainwheel.

I was thinking, “I haven’t seen one of those since I was a kid in the 1950s.” I moved to the front again and remarked as I went by, “Interesting bike you have.

Charlie didn’t respond, and we rode on at a pretty good pace. I noticed every time I was on Charlie’s rear wheel I could not get comfortable. I could not figure out which direction the wind was coming from. I would ride slightly to his left, then right, but neither was any easier.

We were within a mile of Ledbury; I was at the front when a car suddenly appeared coming towards us. The road was narrow and the car came so close that I had to pull hard to the side and I found myself on the soft grass. There was the sound of a tremendous crash behind me; my wheels bogged down and I came to a quick stop. My feet were strapped to the pedals, there was no time to release them, and I fell over sideways.

I was uninjured but my first thought was for Charlie; both he and his bike were gone. So too was the car. “It must have kept going without stopping.” I thought. I took my battery lamp from my bike and searched back along the side of the road. I turned around and walked slowly down the other side.

I couldn't find him; I was worried he was laying somewhere injured, hidden in the hedgerow. I rode into Ledbury and stopped at a public phone box and called the police. “There’s been an accident.” I told them, and I explained what had happened. A police car arrived and I parked my bike in an alley-way and rode back with them to the scene of the incident.

The two policemen searched both sides of the road as I had done. “Are you sure this is the place?” One of them asked me.

“Yes, I remember this big tree on the bend in the road.” I told them.

“Maybe he wasn’t hit but kept on riding as you fell by the roadside.”

“It’s possible.” I answered. “But you would think he would have stopped to see if I was alright.”

Eventually we gave up the search and the officers drove me back to my bike, and I made my way home.

The next day I didn’t go to work but instead drove my car over to Ledbury and started asking around if anyone had heard of an accident the previous night. Someone suggested I enquire at the local newspaper office.

I did this and met the editor of the little local paper. He listened intently as I told him of my ride with Charlie the night before and of the accident. He told me, “It sounds to me like you encountered Charlie Finch, you’re not the first.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Let me show you something from our archives.” He walked over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a strip of microfilm. He placed it in a projector and scrolled through the images; he stopped on a front-page story. “Here it is, about this time of year, 1948.”

I read the headline, “Local cyclist killed in accident.” The story told of a Charlie Finch who was riding at night without lights and was struck by an oncoming car. The car went out of control striking a tree; the driver also died instantly.

There was a picture of a 1940s style car smashed against a large oak tree; the same tree I had pointed out to the police officers the night before. There was also a picture of Charlie’s bike.

The front wheel was completely smashed, the front fork was bent, and the frame was buckled at the top and down tubes. The bike had an Osgear derailleur with a single jockey wheel under the chainwheel.

                        

Too good to be true

There is an old adage: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” As I reflect on the whole Lance Armstrong saga, in retrospect that old saying should have been applied but wasn’t.

The Fairy Tale story of a young athlete who almost died of cancer then came back to win the Tour de France seven times, has now been proved to be just that, a Fairy Tale.

The thing is I knew it was too good to be true; which is why now I feel pretty stupid. Not because I really bought into the Armstrong story, but because I sat safely on the fence, not having the balls to take one side or the other.

Had I taken the stand that Armstrong had doped; (Which is what I suspected.) back when I started this blog in 2005; LA was just coming off his Seventh TDF win and I probably would have made far more enemies than friends. However, I would now have the satisfaction of saying, “Told you so.”

On the other hand had I preached along the lines that Lance was the greatest cyclist ever who never took dope; I would be looking even more stupid now. So like many others I took the safe neutral ground and said nothing.

It is easy to speak out against the “Big Tex” now that everyone else is, but it brings little satisfaction. We should have all spoken up years ago. When I say “We” I mean everyone who writes about the sport of cycling.

I am just an old guy who used to be in the bike biz, with a blog that gets a couple of thousand hits a day; I am not pretending to have a huge influence on anything. But anyone who writes about cycling has a responsibility; from the independent blogger all the way up to the mainstream media.

It is usually the mainstream media who expose wrong doing; it is their duty to keep people honest. From Watergate to more recently the Catholic Church and Penn State, the media did it.

But Armstrong was different; he manipulated the media. He shut out those who asked tough questions, and silenced others by suing them. It took a government agency to bring LA down.

Those who spoke up about Lance Armstrong doping before this story broke; good for you, you are a hero. If you are a blogger or journalist who supported Armstrong over the years; it is not enough that you jump in the band wagon now and condemn him along with the rest.

There needs to be an apology to the few who did speak up but were ignored even vilified. And if like me you sat on the fence; we are not much better because we did nothing. This is by way of my apology.

This weekend Five major European newspapers – The Times, Belgium’s Het Nieuwsblad and Le Soir, French title L’Equipe and Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport – have today joined to launch a ‘Manifesto for credible cycling’

This is huge; these big national newspapers have a real influence on sports, and can hold governing bodies like the UCI accountable.

If I did not speak up about Armstrong, I have always said here that the UCI has failed the sport. (Click on the UCI tag and scroll down to read previous articles.)

The nature of any sport’s governing body is that the mini-politicians who run a sport, are often former failed or at best mediocre athletes who once in office are hard to remove, and become entrenched in their own importance and power.

Pat McQuaid, the current President of UCI, and “Clown Prince” of Cycling, is a typical example. The media was split when USADA report was first released, with many coming out on Armstrong’s side. Most have since recanted, but a few stay on LA’s side.

But through all this I have not read a single article that supports McQuaid or says he is doing a good job; there are calls for his resignation from every quarter. In spite of this McQuaid refuses to step down.

This just goes to show the arrogance and ego of the man, that he would refuse to step down when there is practically a unanimous call for his resignation.

Pat McQuaid (Picture top on right.) and his predecessor Hein Verbruggen (Top left.) looked the other way as Armstrong and others doped; they cannot say they didn’t know.

Like many who have been caught in recent years doing things they shouldn’t have, those who knew they were doing wrong but did nothing are just as responsible. McQuaid and Verbruggen must resign if cycling is to move on from this.

                       

Fiorenzo Magni: 1920 – 2012

Italian cyclist Fiorenzo Magni died early last Friday morning; he would have been 92 in less than two months.

Often referred to as the “Third Man,” because he raced in the late 1940s, early 1950s with the other two Italian greats, Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali.

Sometimes on the same national team, sometime rivals, Magni was capable, and often did, beat the other two.

In a period when the sport was less globalized, he won the Tour of Flanders three consecutive years in 1949, 50, and 51. At that time the second non- Belgian to do so.

The press named him, "The Lion of Flanders." He won the Giro d’Italia three times, the last time in 1955 at the age of 35, which to this day stands as a record for the oldest person to win the Giro.

This era is sometimes called the “Golden Age of Cycling.” In the decade following the end of WWII, cycling was the main sport on the European Continent with Italy, France, Belgium and Switzerland being the main players.

Italy had been on the other side during the war, so there was little love lost between Italy and the other countries. But all these nations had suffered a terrible beating, and the exploits of these great riders once again instilled national pride.

I started racing in 1952 so Fiorenzo Magni was one of my heroes, Just as today’s teen racing cyclists would follow the likes of Phillip Gilbert, Tom Boonan, Bradley Wiggins, and Taylor Phinney.

On rare occasions I got a glimpse of my heroes in action in black and white news reel footage, but mostly I just read about them, and studied photographs.

Surely one of the most famous photos of Magni is the one at the top of this piece; he had fallen in the 1956 Giro d’Italia and broken his collar bone. He refused to quit the race, reason being, this was to be his last Giro a race he had won in 1948, 1951, and 1955.

He would rather suffer the immense pain of a broken bone, that to give up on the last opportunity he would have to finish a race that was obviously dear to his heart. The photo shows Fiorenzo with a piece of inner tube around his stem which he held in his teeth because he could no pull on the handlebars due to his broken clavicle.

The amazing end to this story is that Magni not only finished he placed second in the General Classification, beaten only by a younger Charly Gaul, incidentally one of the greatest climbers of all time. How could such courage not go unnoticed by a young cyclist like myself? Fiorenzo Magni taught me a valuable lesson in life; push on, never give up.

Later in more recent years, while researching to write about him here on this blog, he taught me another lesson. This time one of humility.

Let one’s achievements speak for themselves, while accepting life’s disappointments, and realizing that this is the way it was meant to be.

I speak of the 1950 Tour de France. Magni won the Giro three times but the TDF eluded him. Magni was wearing the yellow jersey when the Italian team pulled out en masse after Gino Bartali was threatened by French supporters on the Col d’Aspin.

In an era of national teams, and with Fausto Coppi in his prime, Magni would never again have such an opportunity. (Magni leads Coppi, picture below.)

In recent years he spoke of the 1950 Tour in an interview:

Of course I felt bad about that but I believe that there are bigger things than a technical result, even one as important as winning the Tour de France.

Team manager Alfredo Binda and the Italian Federation made the decision, on Bartali's suggestion. I stuck to the rules and accepted their decision. In my life, I have never pretended to have a role that was not mine.

When asked did he feel he could have won the Tour? His reply was:

That's another story. Hindsight is easier than foresight! I think I had a good chance of winning. But saying now that I would have won would not be very smart.

Rest in peace, Fiorenzo Magni; you will be remembered by me and many others I’m sure.

                       

Be seen at night

I was recently in downtown Charleston for a Saturday evening event, and walking back to the car park at around 10:00 pm. I was pleased to see a great many people riding bikes; at the same time I was dismayed that most of them were riding without lights.

Apart from being against the law, a person has to be crazy to ride in the dark without lights. There is a big enough danger of being hit by a car in the daylight, but in the dark? At least give a driver a fighting chance to see you before you become a hood ornament.

Lights are available at any bike store, and even stores like Target and Wal-Mart have them for as low as twenty bucks for a front and rear light.

I often ride early morning soon after 6:00 am. when it is still dark. I use front and rear lights, with a solid red light on my bike, and an extra flashing red light clipped to the rear pocket of my jersey.

One little tip I would like to pass on; I found the batteries in my front light vibrate loose and the light would go out as a result.

A piece of masking tape around the batteries takes care of the problem. (Left.)

Also I recently found some reflective ankle bands at a local Dick's Sporting Goods Store. (Pictured top.) They were in the shoe department, and were actually made for runners.

When I started wearing these I noticed immediately, car drivers gave me a lot more room when passing. Moving reflectors on pedals or ankles are very effective.

Velcro fastening, they would double nicely to hold pant legs in place for anyone commuting to work in regular clothes. The cost was around eight dollars.

Speaking of pant legs and commuting; here is a handy device called “Leg Shield.” Made to go around your right lower leg, (Picture above.) it prevents chain grease from getting all over your Khakis and you arrive at your work place looking clean and sharp.

Remember, be safe out there and be seen, especially at night.