by Paul Kimmage
In an effort to improve our Irish, Michael organised class trips to the Gaeltacht for a month in the summer. We stayed with a family, Mrs O'Donnel's in Carraroe, a small village twenty-six miles west of Galway. Speaking Irish for an hour a day at school was fine but having to do it non-stop for a month was terribly difficult. Most of us took our bikes and I loved taking off for an hour to discover the lovely Connemara roads. But riding on my own soon became boring. I wanted a challenge.
Before I left for Connemara, my Da had just come back from the Tour of Britain (the Milk Race), where he had worked with the Irish team as a masseur. His stories about it fascinated me and I decided to organise a 'Carraroe Milk Race' among my classmates. Because it was a stage race, I decided I needed food. I knew from going through the pockets of my father's racing jerseys that he often took raisins with him, so I bought a packet of dried raisins at a small grocery shop across the road. I had a bit of a job persuading the others to race, but finally they agreed and I won the first stage easily. But it was too easy and I wasn't satisfied.
For the second stage I decided not to speed off at the start, but to stay with them for the first mile and then fake a crash. I chose the spot for falling off, a patch of gravel on a corner, as I was planning the circuit. The race started and I skidded purposefully on the gravel in front of the others, making sure they saw me and then jumped back on the bike, caught them and beat them. Persuading them to ride a third stage was now a real problem. I offered them a big handicap before setting out in pursuit. But I was too generous. I soon realised I wasn't going to catch them. I couldn't face being beaten, so I took a short cut that reduced my deficit. I came out just behind the leader, Pat O'Grady, and I passed him for my third win. But he saw me cheating. There was a big argument, and the fourth stage and the race were cancelled.
I was glad to go home at the end of the trip because I was homesick. A month later my father started working on an old racing frame of his. He bought some new parts for it and started putting it together. I hoped it might be for me, but didn't dare ask. My suspicions were confirmed when he presented me with it a week later. I couldn't believe it, a real racer with gears. He asked me if I wanted to ride in the under-age championships in Phoenix Park that Sunday. I did, so he took me on a training ride.
We left the house and headed for Balgriffin. He instructed me on the rules of a game we were to play. The idea was for me to stay behind him and to count to twenty, then I was to pass him and he would count to twenty, and so on. The second part was that I had to ride as hard as I could while at the front – not that I needed any encouragement. At Balgriffin we turned right and straight down to the seafront, then left to Portmarnock and back in the Malahide road, about ten miles in all. The ride finished with a finishing sprint and my Da just pipped me for first to the road sign – although I knew he was faking. When we got back to the house I was shattered, absolutely wrecked. Da sat me down in a chair and asked me if I still wanted to race. After getting the bike, I didn't think 'no' was the right answer so I said that I did.
'Well, that's fine but you must remember, Paul, that in cycling you will experience more heartbreak than happiness.'
God, Da, how right you were.
I don't remember much about my first race, which is unusual when you consider how vivid the memory of beating my classmates in Carraroe remains. Most of the lads were much older than me and I think I finished second to last.
I started going out on regular Sunday runs that winter. A few clubs would meet outside the General Post Office and it wasn't unusual for a thirty-strong peloton to ride out of the city. Most of the lads were from a club on the south side, Orwell Wheelers, so I joined them. When I was riding home a week or two later I noticed one other lad from the group heading in the same direction. He told me he lived in Glin Drive in Coolock and was in the Obelisk Wheelers. Martin Earley was a month younger than me and had only just started cycling. We soon became best friends.
Although I was only eleven, I started taking cycling very seriously. As soon as I came in from school, I'd meet up with Martin and we'd head off for an hour's training. I won two races in my first full year, both times beating Martin in a sprint finish. In the years that followed, the rivalry between us became too great for our friendship and from the age of fifteen until we both turned professional we became bitter rivals.
Looking back on the early years I can't help laughing at the sacrifices I made for my new sport in my quest to reach the top. But this had its advantages. It protected me from that dangerous adolescent period when teenagers are tempted by all sorts of outside influences such as smoking, drinking, drugs and women. Cycling shielded me from all of this. I lived for the school bell on Friday nights. Every second weekend, the Orwell organised youth hostelling weekends to hostels in Wicklow, Meath or Louth. As soon as the bell rang, I'd dash home and pack a sleeping bag, food and spare clothes for the weekend into the carrier of the bike and then speed into town to meet the lads.
It was through youth hostelling with the Orwell that I first met Stephen Roche. One of my best friends in the club, Paul (Smidler) Smith, asked me to go hostelling with him one weekend. I rode across to Paul's house in Dundrum, and when I arrived he decided he would ask his neighbour, 'Rochee', if he wanted to come along. 'Rochee' was totally unprepared when we knocked on his door; but he said he would join us at the hostel, Baltyboys near Blessington in County Wicklow, next morning.
Smidler and I cycled off in the pitch dark of the night to Baltyboys and, sure enough, Rochee turned up at the hostel next morning with all his gear, having left Dundrum at first light. They decided (being youngest, I always followed) that we should go to Aghavannagh, which meant a long haul over two mountains; Glenmalure and Aghavannagh. On the slopes of Glenmalure, in a small dry ditch at the side of the road, we bivouacked. Tinned fruit salad, my Ma's best fruit cake and a can of Coke. We munched away in the spitting rain, and laughed and joked about how lucky we were. Then it was back on the bikes and the climb to the Shay Elliot monument, where some film-makers were shooting a clip for The Thirty-Nine Steps. The evening meal at the hostel was real 'gourmet' stuff: packet soup, beans, smash and sausages, tinned rice and fruit cake.
Oh, how I loved those weekends. They were completely carefree and wonderful. I'd arrive home, totally knackered, to my Ma's hot apple tart and a mountain of homework. Stephen and I still talk with great affection of those weekends, planning each time to do it once more for old time's sake, but knowing that something will come up to prevent it happening. Could it ever be the same? Probably not, and maybe it is this which prevents us doing it again. But remembering is a joy in itself. When I compare the professional life with its glamour, its corruption and its suffering with those innocent times, I scratch my head and wonder why I bothered.
I stayed on at school until my final exams for the Leaving Certificate. When I left, a friend of my Da's, Peter Brambell, gave me a job binding blocks at a cement-block-making plant five miles from our house. It was great to be earning a few bob, and I enjoyed the work and the new freedom. But my Ma wasn't having me binding blocks for the rest of my life, and she made me apply for every job that appeared in the newspapers. When I wrote my address on the application forms, she always made sure that I wrote Artane instead of Coolock because Artane was much more fashionable. I had an interview for a plumbing apprenticeship at Dublin Airport and was offered the job. I started work immediately.
When I entered the airport in September 1979, I was seventeen and still cycling mad. As a junior, I was perhaps one of the ten best in the country but was a long way off being in the top three. Martin Earley was easily the best junior. This infuriated me and incited me to train even harder. For the 1980 season, my last as a junior, we formed a club of our own, Tara Road Club. Raphael and Gary Thompson were my team-mates, Da was team manager. He oversaw our training and planned team tactics. He was merciless in his approach. In return for his time he demanded full dedication. Bed at 9.30, hard training, tidy appearance and
, above all, honesty. He never accepted excuses and he loved attacking, aggressive riding. We were a phenomenal success. From March to July we won every single race we entered. Sometimes myself, sometimes Raphael, sometimes Thompson – but always a Tara man. But the bubble burst at the junior championships in Lurgan. The whole field rode against us – and, to rub salt in the wound, Martin Earley was champion. In our three years as juniors, he was twice champion while I had just one silver for second. The dice seemed always to roll for him and fall off the table for me. I despised him.
4
THE NEARLY MAN
In 1981 I was nineteen and raced my first season as a senior rider. Adapting to the longer races was difficult initially; I was often the victim of my own enthusiasm, attacking too early and exploding before the end. But it didn't take long to adapt and, once I did, I never doubted I would reach the top in Irish cycling. Most of the young guys I had started with had given up, victims of love, alcohol and pop music. I had been in love, tried alcohol and was a great music fan. Love had left me frustrated and unhappy, alcohol happy but unconscious. I liked music because it was the only thing that didn't interfere with cycling, and I was a regular visitor to the record shops. In 1981 Stephen Roche made his professional debut with Peugeot in France. Ireland now had two professionals, Kelly and Roche. Their exploits inspired me and I wanted to be a pro. But all that was further down the road. First, I had to prove I was good enough, which took five years.
In June I represented my country for the first time in the Manx International on the Isle of Man, a 100-mile baptism of fire around the TT course. Pulling on the green jersey should have been a proud moment – it wasn't. The jerseys were faded and torn. They had been used six months previously in the Tour of Ireland and hadn't been washed properly. The washer had forgotten to remove race food from the pockets and I had to pick rotten Mars bars and other stinking remnants out of them. So much for the honour of representing your country.
Martin Earley made his international debut in the same race. We were both in the front group approaching Snaefell mountain for the last time and going really well. But I was stronger on the seven-mile climb and finished tenth, very pleased with myself.
The Irish championships were held a week later in Waterford. One of my Da's greatest fears when riding a championship was to miss the winning breakaway through tactical error. At Waterford I decided that whatever happened I wasn't going to miss the boat. I attacked early in a big group and, on the last lap, went clear with two others, Brendan Madden and Mick Nulty. They were both stronger than I was, but neither was a good finisher. In the finishing sprint, slightly uphill, sheer will to win was the difference between us and I beat them easily. I was Irish champion at nineteen, the youngest ever to win the tide. I was thrilled.
Stephen Roche was in Waterford that day. He was home on a break from the Continent and he turned up in a lovely white Peugeot with his name on both doors. He had made a sensational pro debut, winning the Tour of Corsica and Paris-Nice – an instant star. He brought a girl to Waterford. She was French, blonde and wore an outrageous mini-skirt. Her name was Lydia, and seeing her with Stephen that day made professional cycling seem very enticing.
Winning in Waterford was very important to me: I was Irish champion and no one could ever take that away. I loved the tide. In the pubs in the off-season I would often bump into someone who would ask if I was into sport.
'Cycling, hmmm that's interesting and have you won anything?'
And I would reply with false modesty, 'Well, actually, I'm the current national champion.'
The glamour of being champion didn't last. Later that month I was picked in an Irish team for the Tour of Scotland. There was a Czech team riding who were huge brutes of men. Milan Jurco was the most impressive; I had never seen so much muscle on one man or anyone quite as ugly. The Czechs taught me a new game – the art of riding in crosswinds. In Ireland the hedges are so high that crosswinds are rarely a factor in deciding race tactics, so we were inexperienced. The Czechs toyed with us all week, and I can remember going to bed one night dreading having to get up for another hammering the next day. I remember the second to last stage in particular. It lashed down with rain all day and I arrived in a group hours down and totally miserable. At the finish we rode straight to the dressing room. The Englishman, Mark Bell from Liverpool, was getting changed. He had just beaten two Czechs to win the stage, a fine performance. Someone asked if he wanted to turn pro. He laughed and in his best scouse accent replied, 'No way! It looks great on the telly, seeing them pulling faces on the climbs, throwing themselves all over the place, but it's not like that in real life. It's pain. No fuckin' way.'
I knew that Mark Bell was right, but it didn't change my mind. I reckoned I was still young and had still a good margin for improvement. I reckoned I would go much better with another two years under my belt. But he did make me think about it.
Stephen came home for the winter and was in great demand all over the country. He had won four stage races in his first season with the professionals and was already a big name. I phoned him and invited him to our house for a chat and some advice about going to France. When he came, he talked of the problems he had faced as an amateur, of the need to be two-faced with the team managers and the French riders because they were always two-faced with you. He told us it was important to 'get them before they get you'. The message struck a chord. He promised to find Raphael and me a place at ACBB at the end of 1983 when we finished our apprenticeships. After the talk, he cleared the spread of cakes and pastries my mother had laid on – it was nice to see he had lost none of his old habits.
1982 started well, then flopped, but was most memorable for meeting Ann. I have always thought it a strange coincidence that I met my wife and my best friend on the same day, at the same time and in the same place. It was in Phoenix Park in Dublin at the end of the week-long Ras Tailteann. I had been noticing Ann since the start of the season. She was a sister of one of the guys who raced, Paul Nolan. I knew Paul was riding the Ras and guessed she might be in the park. I found her in the crowd after the race and we started talking. She had followed the race for the week, taking notes for a journalist from the Irish press, David Walsh. As we talked, David and his wife Mary approached and Ann introduced me. I arranged to meet her later at the post-race dance. We had two more dates during that week and on the following Sunday I won my first race for over two months at Carrick on Suir.
Carrick was one of the rare occasions in 1981 when I beat Raphael. He had a superb year and was heralded by all as the new Kelly. It was hard playing second fiddle to my younger brother; he was the apple of my father's eye, but we were always close and his success did not change this. Meeting Ann was a great consolation. She came into my life at an important time. My poor form frustrated me. The more I tried, the less I succeeded. I was impossible to live with whenever I travelled with an Irish team: moody, grouchy, a real pain. Ann changed me. She lightened me up, brought me out of myself, got me smiling more. It was no coincidence that I started to ride better almost from the first day we met.
For me 1983 was about two races. The Milk Race, a two-week Tour of Britain sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board, had the reputation of being one of the hardest amateur stage races in the world. I was a bit dubious about entering for it as I had never ridden a stage race of more than a week, but decided it was time to test my mettle.
The first stage was a marathon 120-mile trip to Bristol. With about twenty miles to go I went clear in a chasing group with race leader Malcolm Elliot and Tony Doyle and finished sixteenth. It was a good start and I was determined to hang on to my sixteenth place for as long as possible. The morale in the team was excellent. We had been slaughtered by the Irish press before leaving, but the criticism united us and made us try harder. There was no pressure on us, so we had nothing to lose and attacked every day. The good start continued when my mate Phillip Cassidy finished second on the third stage to Welwyn Garden City. He stole some of my thunder and
spurred me to attack. On the sixth stage to Leicester I got into an important break that moved me up to sixth overall. Sixth in the Milk Race, I couldn't believe it.
I rang home every night: one call to my parents, another to Ann. They were all very excited and said I was getting rave reviews from the papers. On the ninth stage, a 94-mile mountainous stage from Kirkby to Halifax, I hit the jackpot – race leader. A star at last. But getting the lead was one thing, holding on to it quite another. Our team was young and very inexperienced and I was convinced there was no way we could defend the yellow jersey. I didn't sleep that night and felt a terrible pressure on my shoulders. I had worn a yellow jersey only once before on a Tour of Ulster and had lost it after one day. The Tour of Ulster wasn't a patch on the Milk Race, how could I possibly hope to hang on? I weighed up my options all night. I had a 42-second lead over German rider Ulrich Rottler and 54 seconds on Peugeot professional Sean Yates. The next day was a 100-mile stage to Hull, but this was followed by a rest day. Defending the jersey to Hull would ensure that I kept it for three days. It was a good incentive.
