Graeme Obree, aka The Flying Scotsman, has confirmed he will open this year’s Macmillan Cancer Support Etape Caledonia cycle challenge – immediately after bearing formal witness to the start line nuptials of fundraisers Rick Millin & Jo Louden who will tie the knot in front of 5000 participants in the UK’s biggest closed road cycling event.
A quick plug for a twitter associate, Phil Jones, who has relaunched his blog at race-pace.net. Phil is a big fan of Sir Chris and Graeme Obree, and met them both- booking Obree for public speaking, and attending a business lunch with Hoy.
Questions for Sir Chris Hoy
Graeme Obree interview
Phil, like me is relatively new to the sport of cycling and has posted several useful pieces such as an introduction to bike fit and bike buying guides.
Jason McIntyre in 2007 riding an 18:49 to win a midweek 10 on the West Ferry course. I mistakenly thought this was the Scottish Championships, but David Martin aka threepockets advised me on twitter that the champs were on the A77 that year. He won that too, and beat a record held by Graeme Obree.
For some reason I feel a bit of a fraud posting pics and info about Jason- his untimely death was relatively recent and he is sorely missed by many in Scottish Cycling. It still feels a bit close to the bone and I don’t want to be jumping on the bandwagon. As I’m new to the sport, I never watched him race but I still enjoy learning more about such a class rider.
Graeme Obree in the colours of his local club, Fullarton Wheelers, riding a typically massive gear.
thanks to Ian Johnston on flickr for permission to use the pictures. Click on the images to see his other photography.
Graeme Obree designed a watch to celebrate his record-breaking hour record.
Graeme Obree interview – The Hour from Mr Jones on Vimeo.
The watch appeared last year, and the other week he was on STVs ‘The Hour‘ programme (available on limited catch-up, click ‘part four’). There’s his typical frankness about the pain of attempting the hour record in this video, mixed in with some philosopy about time.
I have had the photo below, (by Andy McAndlish, originally published in an article on bikeradar) on my desktop for a while and the moment had been lost to blog it. Sometimes you have to be quick, which is why I try to stay away from race news and results.
But I have started listening to old episodes of the Velocast again (still available on podomatic), and in episode 10 they discussed this bike, albeit with aero bars.
There’s another great shot of Obree riding the bike if you click through to bikeradar, showing his outstanding aptitude for innovating to find an extremely aerodynamic position. He used his trademark custom parts to get an aerodynamic position, but within the “new” UCI rules, which aim to keep bikes within the style of Eddy Merckx’s 1972 record.
Velocasters Scott and John covered Obree’s attempt on the hour record, which at 43 years old would have been a great challenge, but alas the machine did not work on the velodrome bankings as expected, which hit Graeme hard. He was advised to abadnon the hour attempt.
The bike remains though (and I wonder where it is now). It has a Selle Italia Flite saddle with a purple fluffy cover reminiscent of some sort of muppet. The Reynolds 653 steel frame catches the eye, with it’s 1-and-1/8 inch tubing that is very thin-looking by today’s standards. Added to this are aluminium time trial handlebars that were hand-whittled by Obree for for three months! And some custom pedals, again hand-whittled! The sort of obsessive attention to detail that made Graeme such an amazing time trialler.
More shots of the bike
Bikeradar interview with more great pics
This information comes from deep in the bowels of the Scottish Cycling website, a resource that it full of great tidbits that are hard to find (like it’s parent site, British Cycling).
At the original time of writing this post, the current Scottish Cycling Champions information was only up to date for 2009, although some of that info – that the National men’s road champion was Evan Oliphant, Kenta Gallagher was National Cyclocross champion, or that Dave Henderson was Cross Country series champion– I covered some of these championships on this blog with lots also on veloresults.
The time trial records are interesting though, because many of them have stood for a long time. At one stage Obree held the Scottish record for the three staple distances of British time trialling- the 10, 25 and 50 miles. And George Berwick still does hold the 24 hour record, a mark that has stood since 1967. I pondered this question in a previous post.
amended to include Jason MacIntyre’s 10 record.
10 Miles 1997 Jason MacIntyre Unattached 18:49
25 Miles 1994 G. Obree P.C.A. 48:43
30 Miles 2004 M. Atkinson Team Velo Ecosse/Montpeliers 1:02:47
50 Miles 1992 G Obree Greenock RC / Castle Levan Hotels 1:43:04
100 Miles 2006 M.Atkinson Equipe Velo Ecosse/Montpeliers 3:49:45
12 Hrs 2005 J. Wilson Sandy Wallace Cycles 279.97 miles
24 Hrs 1967 G. Berwick Glasgow RC 448.70 miles
An amateur from Scotland who built his own frames, trained alone and became world champion in 1993 and 1995 and broke the hour record in 1993 (51.596km) and 1994 (52.713km).
If you want to hear about this and his hour-record achievements, you can book him for speaking through Cyclevox, although he also has his own website now and may be taking bookings through his manager Charlie Milarvie.
Continuing this weekend’s Obree theme, it’s time to bring out a few links that I have been sitting on. They are to stories on an archive BBC Sport website that I came across by accident after some tweets from SMaryka relating to old doping cases (Virenque, I think it was).
8 November 2000: Obree is considering a comeback, following Boardman’s world record of 49.441km for the hour, on the UCI’s new standard traditional-style bike.
15 November 2000: a date is set for a new hour record.
To those that know the Obree story, the subtext or the following quote cannot be ignored:
Speaking soon after the UCI announced the rule-change, Obree said: “I have nothing against what the UCI are doing.
“So long as they stick to their new rules I will support them.”
As many will be aware, the UCI attempted several times to thwart his success, banning his innovative bike positions, and decreeing at the 11th hour that bikes and equipment must be available commercially.
10 December 2000: due to a virus, Obrees record bid is off.
In a real Obree mood this weekend so here’s some more. Further to John Galloway’s comment on the last post, here’s a picture of Obree’s tuck position in use with upturned bars before he developed his custom ‘Old Faithful’ bike that won him the hour record.
The sharper eyed amongst you migh notice that this scan of the SCU handbook 1992 was blogged at My Shaved Legs- I’m pretty sure web addresses weren’t in common use back then!
The blogger recounts his arrival in Scotland from the USA and refers to this cover as one of those “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore” moments.
Inspired by Graeme Obree’s tweets and the emergence of a long-overdue website, I’m in the mood to blog a few more things about him.
Up to now I hadn’t found a decent picture of his revolutionary tuck position. He used it when he won the world individual pursuit championship and broke the hour record in 1993. I saw the image on Phil Jones’ blog and wanted to add it to my own collection of Obree pictures.
I’d blogged Graham Watson’s pic of the Superman position, which he developed after the position below was banned by the UCI. He won the individual pursuit and broke the hour record a second time riding Superman style in 1995. That too was banned by the officious UCI.
Read all about it, and his other struggles, in The Flying Scotsman: The Graeme Obree Story
It’s the spirit of innovation and invention that I love about this. That’s a particularly Scottish trait, because as many people know, we invented just about everything.
