pure nostalgiayrs MAN & BOY

Racing

Hardest game in the world

Cycling

Thirty years, man and boy

Halcyon Days

Great races, good times

Training

Oh, yeah. Used to do a bit meself

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Cycling Weekly

'CYCLING', affectionately known as the comic.

No main-stream news coverage or internet and scarcely ever on TV, so CYCLING was pretty much your only way to know what was going on!

Explore them in Deep Zoom right here

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15

Years worth

720

Copies

33710

1987 Circulation

5898

Deep-zoom size (MB)

PUB

Who doesn't love a pint?

There isn't much better than finishing the ride at the pub with your mates, sinking a few beers & enjoying the banter.

Archie

Archie

..watch out for the pub bores!

Listen now..
Mike

Mike

T.V.

Loved televised races!

There was so little cycling on the telly. Just a bit on Channel 4 with Phil & Paul in July.

So getting into a race that was on TV was something to savour! See the coverage..

Sex

Following Sean Kelly's advice...

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Photos

A picture paints a thousand words

Drugs

Doping reached right down to the amateurs

An awful lot has been written over the years about drugs in cycling, but it was still sad to see that the doping culture went right down through our sport.

I reckon there's some underlying sentiment that the lifestyle is full-on with a whatever-it-takes approach to diet, sleep, training etc.. and so correspondingly to a rider's "preparation" as well. I think the guys going into pro cycling, especially in the 80s and 90s, knew that they'd be entering a tough profession with the culture that you needed "full commitment" in every quarter.

CLEAN TESTS.

All my own drug tests came back negative - although I seemed to always get a bit of 'stage-fright' and generally took an age to finally piss in front of the sampling officer and the observer.

I was called to the doping controls four times:

  • National 100km TTT Champ.s
  • SCU Hill Climb Champ.s
  • SCU Road Race Champ.s
  • Final stage of FBD Milk Rás

'DR. MABUSE'.

A teammate of mine, Stéphane Corlay, quit the sport after being associated with Bernard Sainz, aka 'Dr Mabuse' - an unlicensed sports doctor who had success in both cycling and horse racing!

According to various reports, 'Dr Mabuse' was linked with:

  • Frank Vandenbroucke
  • Philippe Gaumont
  • 31 other cyclists
  • 18 footballers

POT BELGE.

The French team I raced for was sponsored by BĂ©on Cycles. The BĂ©on brothers and a dozen or so other defendants from the Rennes area were prosecuted in what became known as the Pot Belge affair.

The Wikipedia page describes it as being variously constituted from:

  • cocaine
  • heroin
  • amphetamines
  • ..other analgesics!

Power

Peter Keen's Kingcycle Tests and his '4 levels'.

Some time in the early 90s, decent (but cheap) heart rate monitors appeared and everyone was into the 'four levels' set out by Chris Boardman's coach, Peter Keen.

Suddenly, guys were doing 'two hours at upper level two' and an easy spin to a cafe was being called a 'level one' ride.

A Polar heart rate watch on the handlebars was sign of taking it seriously, with the 'levels' calibrated by a Kingcycle Test...

Kingcycle Maximal Test

Popped at 455W after 10 mins of torture :-)

Starting at 220 Watts, ramping up at 25 W/min.

See details
Age (in 1995!)
25 years
FTP
318 Watts
Body Mass
64 Kg
Power/Weight
5.0 Watts

Racing with TdF pro.s!

Kelloggs Tour

Kellogg's Grand Prix of Glasgow

The best field I ever raced in...

See details
Tony the Tiger

Rest in peace

Sadly taken far too soon. Inspirations all.

Friends, teammates, heroes – cycling can be so cruel and we are all at risk out on the roads. They may no longer be with us, but the memories always endure.

Pete Longbottom

Pete Longbottom

Died Feb 1998 aged 38

Obituary
Jason MacIntyre

Jason MacIntyre

Died Jan 2008 aged 34

Obituary
James Nelson

James Nelson

Died Aug 2014 aged 32

Obituary
Alan Hewitt

Alan Hewitt

Died Nov 2014 aged 54

Obituary

U.C. Cesson Sévigné

A season spent racing in Brittany

At the end of the '93 season, I had a 7 week stint as a stagiaire with l'Union Cycliste de Cesson Sévigné. By the end of the following year I'd progressed enough to be able to spend the entire 1995 season with the team.

Glory

The indescribable feeling of a getting a Win!

This isn’t football with victory every other week. To get the better of 60, 80 or nearly 200 other guys is something really special.

It’s hard, and that's what makes it so special.

Stage winner

Tour of Speyside

Speyside podium

1994

4 stages

I attacked late..

..got the jump on the sprinters :-)

Overall winner

Tour of the Border

Easter 4 Day trophy

1993

4 stages

Didn't manage to win a stage

As ever, grim weather

5th in K.O.M.

FBD Milk Rás

Rás TT

1995

11 stages

Bagged KOM points on hilliest stage

Rained every day!

I couldn’t sprint for toffee and did better in longer races if they became a grind. The slower the race average speed, the better I’d generally do! I’d typically get top 10 in Scottish Grand Prix races and the SCU National Championships and twice got in the SCU squad for foreign stage races. I was doing some BCF Premier Calendar (previously Star Trophy) events from 1993, which was when the home pros joined the series. I was never able to be competitive at that level, but could usually get round mid-pack, making the top 40 from about 100 starters in the BCF National Championships

Tour of the Cotswolds, the Girvan, Tour of the Kingdom, Tom Simpson Memorial, Tour of the Peak were all fantastic events and I could never quite believe that I was racing against these guys that I’d been reading about week in, week out, who’d be regularly pictured in “the comic”. A big highlight for me was definitely racing the TV crit.s with the pros, with races in Aberdeen and Glasgow on a couple of occasions. Even though I was just hanging on and making up the numbers, just being a small part of that scene was mind-blowing for me, and the race atmosphere was fantastic. Great times.

Mike Firth - Results

  • 1988
  • no results
  • 1989
  • no results
  • 1990
  • 3rd Nova RR, Darley
  • 1991
  • Won Bishopwood RR, Selby
  • 1992
  • Won Strathkinness RR, St Andrews
  • Won Lomond Roads RR, Clydebank
  • Won Kircaldy & Dist. RR, Auchtermuchty
  • 8th Scottish RR Championship

  • 1993
  • 8th Tour of the Reservoir, Edmundbyers
  • Overall Winner - Tour of the Border 4 day, Ponteland
  • 3rd overall - Cox-Johnston 2 day, Dundee
  • 3rd overall - Gordon May 2 day, Aberdeen
  • Won Glasgow Ivy RR, Lennoxtown
  • (stagiaire with UCCS in Brittany for 7 weeks)
  • Bronze medal, Scottish Hill Climb Championship
  • 1994
  • Won Kennoway Road Club criterium, Glenrothes
  • Won Stage 1 Tour of Speyside, Aviemore
  • 6th Scottish RR Championship
  • Silver medal, Scottish 100km TTT Championship

  • 1995 - season with UCCS in Brittany
  • 8th CritĂ©rium du printemps, Bain-de-Bretagne
  • 5th King of the Mountains, FBD Milk Rás
  • 9th Scottish RR Championship
  • 8th Grand Prix Meillac, Combourg
  • 1996 to 2010
  • riding, but no racing
  • 2011 - riding with Ilkley CC
  • 2013 to 2018 - racing with Ilkley CC
  • no results of any note 🙂
  • 2019 to present - no racing! Just riding with Ilkley CC
 
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