23 May 2015: The Hour Race Report

4am: Awake after four hours' sleep. Not enough but that's it, lying awake, wired and fuzzy headed: my eyes feel as though there is sand in the sockets. There's still stuff to organise. I've got to tell Victoria Mary Elizabeth Morgan (compere for the event) that nobody is allowed on to the track during the ride or the record will be invalid, according to the rules I've just made up. I don't want to take any chances, though.
I feel sick and I want to eat and drink something to clean me out but nothing I can think of will do. My quads and hamstrings are so tight my knees hurt when I walk. Stairs are a problem. I have a headache. I'm coming down with the 'flu. My neck hurts and my mouth is hot. My throat has a lump in it. I'm not sure if it hurts. It's probably meningitis. Yeah, probably. No, it's cancer. I'm going to die at 55 of cancer like dad. If I can just get through today I'll go to the doctor and the awful process will begin; but I'm not going today. It won't affect my performance this afternoon. I won't let it.

I need to let Richard Pinches know more about the video recording for evidence. I've got an interview on the radio with Paul Ross in Caversham at 9.10am. Am I nervous about it? I can't tell. I've been a wreck for a week before it was scheduled. Anyway, all I have to do is wear a safari suit and Aviators, bring in the Chopper and tell him I'm fundraising for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. I've bought him a 1970s goodie bag containing Tizer, Angel Delight, Smash, Campari and Imperial Leather. It'll be a laugh.

Breakfast, standing up, fidgeting. More nausea and indigestion. I should probably just eat what I normally eat. I'm in the 1970s so Marmite on toast, jam on toast and coffee. No coffee though: my heart rate is already through the roof pacing around the kitchen. 

BBC Monitoring at Caversham has tougher security than a military base, including those metal shields that come up from under the road and would stop a train on its tracks. I say I have an interview with Paul Ross and the barrier descends. I drive in, park and ride the Chopper across the gravel into the reception whereupon I am received by a humourless guard. "We don't normally allow equipment", he says. "It's a Chopper", I say. He is unmoved and studies me with suspicion.

Paul Ross is brilliant: completely involved the 1970s madness. He laughs at the daft selection of things I've brought in, telling me an anecdote from his childhood about each thing. The first thing he says when we're on air is that I look like a cross between Roger Moore and something from Superfly.  I don't remember much else. I was laughing too much. During the interview, such as it was, I manage to name the charity, to mention the Fireflies but the rest of the time I just ramble on about Tizer, fish & chips and Ceefax. Paul Ross, Dan the assistant and I then take the bike outside where Paul rides it around the car park until his headphones fall off. A good time is had by all.

I leave the studio on an adrenalin high. and, as I drive the back roads home to Henley, it dawns on me that nothing now stands between me and the Hour. 

I try to think of ways to calm down. I've been in a state of almost permanent tension and agitation for over a week thinking about today. An average of about 5 hours' sleep a night. I wonder how long a nervous system can handle this. Will the week leading up to this have a significantly detrimental effect on my performance? I then begin to worry that I might collapse or that my heart might stop during the Hour due to chronic nervous exhaustion. I'm worrying about worrying. 

I realise that I haven't been drinking enough, my headache is not going away and I haven't been eating enough, probably. I guzzle two pints of water, two more jam sandwiches and a cup of tea. John arrives.

John Gelling has offered to drive both the Hour Mk1 yellow Chopper and the Ventoux Mk2 red Chopper to Palmer Park on the top of his 1970s Mercedes Limousine. We load them on to the roof and I drive my car ahead, constantly looking into my rear view mirror at the marvellous sight behind. We stop at the traffic lights in Henley and I watch the reaction of pedestrians to the team Chopper vehicle. It's pretty difficult to turn heads in Henley but that does it.

We arrive at Palmer Park in very good time. Rikki Pankhurst is already there. He is calm, as always, eccentric and utterly professional. Rikki treats his responsibility to customers, whether they are a pro-cycling team or a more than slightly deranged middle aged man on a Chopper, with equal thoroughness and gravity. He explains to me that everything he has organised is in place including the track officials and their pistol, the timing device for the front fork of the Chopper and the way he will inform me of progress during the ride. The latter is especially critical. There's no getting away from it, doing anything as hard as you can for an hour is going to result in some significant impairment to one's well being. As I made clear to BBC journalist Linda Serck the day before, in one sense of course, setting a Chopper Hour record is a joke; but I'm not mucking about. Ridiculous it may be but I've trained as hard as I can for this event. I want it to be tough to beat. After half an hour of cycling flat out, on any bike, my faculties are going to be limited so if I want to know how I'm doing, Rikki needs to be very clear about how he's going to tell me. He is. If he's ahead of the start line, I'm ahead of schedule. If he's behind it, I'm behind.

Victoria has arrived. She is resplendent in a kind of ABBA Pans People Starship Trooper outfit. She is six and a half feet tall and silver, mainly. She takes the bull by the horns and starts setting up tables and telling everyone what they should be doing.

I am in safe hands both on and off the track.

Palmer Park Velo is just finishing. It's a fantastic cycling club for children at the velodrome. The coach asks me over and I stand astride the Chopper in my Roger Moore safari suit and Aviators and tell them a little bit about what I'm doing. As none of them were born in the same millennium as me, they have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Nonetheless, their parents seem amused and there are several grins and nods as they file out.  

Rich Key arrives. He's a founder of the Raleigh Chopper Owners' Club. Like Rikki, he has a passion for bikes that is immediately evident. He has come to verify the authenticity of the Mk1 Chopper and confirm it has not been modified from its original 1969 specification. Rich shows me a file full of Chopper technical documents. I thank him for coming and he goes to work.

I eat another Marmite sandwich for salt, half a jam sandwich for sugar and finish another two pints of water.

I begin to see more friendly faces arrive and get remarks about my silly outfit. I'm unable to engage in any light hearted communication. It's now less than an hour to go and my my heart is starting to race, my mouth dry, I constantly need a wee and my headache is banging. It's time to get on to the track and warm up, if only to be alone and have a think about what's going to happen here today, to me, in particular.

I have no doubt that I am going to push myself to my limit but I can't anticipate when and how my inevitable decline during the sixty minutes will occur. It won't be because of pain. As most rowers, cyclists, etc of any ability will tell you, pain is not particularly important when it comes to restricting performance. When your adrenalin is hitting the roof discomfort isn't really relevant. It's muscle failure or severe cramp: that sort of thing that messes you up. Just as I did on Mont Ventoux this time last year, I'm not going to hold anything back. This is going to be a definitive expression of something: but what? Of course this is about cancer and about my father and, even now, sixteen years on, anger at his tragically early death. But why this? 

I go and find a changing room to put my denim shorts and Fireflies jersey on. I wonder whether I should wear the Aviatiors. They might slip down my nose. They kept doing that on Ventoux. They didn't so much in the New Forest or the recent ten mile time trial, though. I decide to keep them on. Other than a change of shoes - I have my Gola trainers on, not Adidas trainers this time - I am in identical clothing to that worn on Ventoux. 

I walk out, across the track, get on the bike and start to warm up. There are quite a lot of people arriving now. I don't feel able to wave or talk to any of them at the moment. I can hear Rich Key over the PA explaining to the spectators that the Chopper is indeed unmodified and conforms to the 1969 Raleigh catalogue. My headache starts to ease as I pedal round the velodrome. Half an hour to go. Rikki, and his team are dreadfully busy but I don't have the capacity to take in what they're doing. They've got tables with stuff on and clipboards and stopwatches. I ride more.

Around the back straight opposite the grandstand there is a headwind. It's significant. The bike feels heavy as I squeeze the pedals a bit harder into it. Having prepared meticulously the Hour list of songs I want to hear as I'm going round, I'm annoyed that I can't hear the music except when I'm right in front of the grandstand. It means that particular method of knowing roughly how far I am through the sixty minutes will not be there. It's a shame as I was looking forward to The Who's Wont' Get Fooled Again to get me through the last 8 minutes 33 seconds. There's nothing I can do about it now. May be I'm going to be OK today but I still don't know. My legs feel very stiff and my right knee hurts all the time but it seems to ease a bit as I pedal. I wonder if I should stretch but decide I'll just ride. My quads and hamstrings are so tight that if I stretch I might pull something. I come back to the start line, go for another wee and then walk back out. A couple of people cheer "Come on Matt!" I punch the air ironically. This is England, not America. Rikki says it's two minutes to go. I get on my bike and wonder whether I should ride a lap before the start. I decide to stay and settle a bit. I'm told to position myself slightly in front of the line though I'm not sure why. It's something to do with the timing chip thing. I can't think about it now. I do what I'm told. "Where's the gun?" I ask. "Here" says Rikki. 

"BANG!" My left ear is ringing.

I start in third gear, the stiffest one, so the silly 140mm cranks make it very hard to get going. I follow the white line: the shortest distance around the track. I want to settle into a rhythm as quickly as I can. I want a completely consistent lap time all the way through; or at least until the last few minutes. But what lap time? I've discussed this with Rikki, obviously. I rode ten laps flat out at a training session a month or so before. I averaged 55 second laps and my fastest had been 52 seconds. I think I might be able to do 57 second laps for an hour but 55 second laps will be almost impossible. I want to try to get a nice round number and think perhaps 30km might be possible. To achieve it I'll have to ride 66 laps. That's an average of about 54 seconds per lap so not really an option. Despite telling the Henley Standard I'm happy with 17 miles, I want 18 as it seems more respectable somehow.

Probably unwisely, I've told Rikki to use 55 second laps as the target but he also has a 57 second lap schedule so that if I really start to struggle we can move to plan B.

I finish lap one and, what? I'm behind schedule already? May be I've got it wrong and Rikki standing that side of the line means I'm ahead, not behind. In any event I'm annoyed. I push a bit harder and the bike feels as though it really can't go much faster. It's creaking and squeaking and the front wheel is doing its usual wobble. I've adopted my Chopper time trial position, holding the handlebars further down towards the stem. It makes the bike even more difficult to control but I can get a better, more streamlined position. The left crank arm is doing its reassuring click, hitting the kick stand every time it goes round. According to Rikki, I'd bent it during training. The bike is not designed for time trials or Hour records. The pedals have a fair bit of play on their axles and slide up and down them. More clicks. On a training ride the left pedal had popped completely off and I'd had to get a replacement: genuine, period correct, of course. Yes, I could have fitted longer crank arms and racing pedals and time trial bars but what would be the point? I'm riding a Raleigh Chopper. That's what I'm on.

Into the back straight and I decide not to fight the headwind too much as it will cost me dearly later in the Hour. I adopt a strategy of limiting the loss of speed by concentrating on rhythm and then pushing out of the turn into the home straight in front of the grandstand. People are shouting encouragement. I then realise that the reason I had been behind schedule on lap one was because I'd gone from a standing start. At the end of lap two I am already ahead of schedule. I've probably overreacted but it feels OK.

None of my training has involved the use of any data while riding. I haven't paid any attention to heart rates, cadence, or anything else. I haven't used anything that wouldn't have been around in the 1970s: no powdery sports drinks, energy bars or gels. Everything has been done on feel. I did the 70 mile Wiggle New Forest Sportive at an average speed of around 15.5 miles an hour and the Maidenhead & District Cycling Club 10 mile time trial at drift road at 19.1 miles an hour. This, the 10 laps at race pace with Rikki a few weeks earlier and the memory of how I felt when doing these things is my data. When I'm riding, it's all about tuning in to how I feel and trusting my instincts.

The laps go by and Rikki keeps me informed. "40 seconds up". "45 seconds up". I try to calculate what this means but I can't work it out. There's a lap counter that I can see every time I go round and I use it to work out roughly how much I've got left. I've done 10 laps so that's nearly 10 minutes, a sixth of the way round, isn't it? Because of my riding position I can't see my watch so I don't know how long I've been riding. I twist my wrist and look. Six minutes past? That can't be right. The bike wobbles as my grip is interrupted. I'm not looking at that again. My hands are going numb so I slide them down the bars very carefully to try to get some feeling back. It works momentarily. I'll do that again in a minute.

15 laps. I'm moving reasonably well and it seems to be a sustainable pace for an hour but Rikki is shouting numbers at me that mean I'm going increasingly ahead of schedule. I can't work out what this means: how many laps I'll do at this pace or my average speed. I continue to push myself slightly harder than I think I should. It seems I'm feeling more or less OK and I don't want to leave anything on the track. That's the biggest fear. I mustn't underachieve. I must do the best I can and that means doing something which, for me, is out of the ordinary.

30 laps. I'm sort of half way but I'm ahead of schedule so a bit less. Rikki remains calm and I'm even further ahead of schedule. The schedule has become meaningless. I'm doing something else now, although I'm not sure what. I know I'm moving faster on this bike that I did on the 10 mile TT. I can feel it. I can't quite believe that I'll manage another 30 minutes of this. My legs are burning now and my lungs feel at full stretch but I somehow feel that this is manageable and that with a massive effort, may be I can maintain this pace. I can hear the crowd in the grandstand now. My son Felix's voice is clear. "Come on, daddy!" he shouts. "Duck your head!" Extraordinary: he's only seven years' old and has an opinion on the effectiveness of my time trial position. 

The bike continues to complain, clicking, squeaking and the knobbly back tyre humming and bouncing with each push of the pedals. I have a little pep talk with it in my head. "Come on old thing. We can do this. If it's the last thing you ever do, get me through the next half an hour." Rikki has put my red Ventoux Chopper on the other side of the track in case this one breaks. I have no idea what the protocol would be if the Mk1 broke but as I ride past the Ventoux Chopper each time, it begins to look like the one I am on and I start to think it might be yellow. 

About 45 laps: I think Rikki just said 20 miles. What does that mean? I can't possibly be on target for 20 miles, can I? But what else can he mean? Shut up, focus and try to maintain this rhythm. I can't feel my hands now, except my little fingers that are gripping the slippery chrome desperately. I'm not following the white line as consistently because my hands don't work and I can't steer properly. I'm a bit less than three quarters of the way through and I've been sick in my mouth a few times. It's just happened again. It's all bile. My mouth is all stuck together with acid. The back of my neck, shoulders and triceps are screaming. My glutes and quads are no happier about any of this. My ankles don't seem to be there at all any more and I realise at some point I've unwittingly started to pedal with the arch of my foot, so my ankles are, mechanically, less important. Interesting how that happened without me knowing. My face is now stuck in a mouth-open grimace and my cheeks and lips are twitching. Even my face muscles are in distress. I press on. You can't move a bike with your face so it's not important.

About 55 laps: I see. This is how things will go wrong. I have refused to give in to the pain. Not one jot. But now the system is failing. I can't see the white line properly and it's not the sweat on the inside of my Aviators which, amazingly, have remained remarkably steady throughout the ride thus far. The line's a smudge but I'm able to follow it. My ears are funny. It sounds as though there's water going down a plug hole in my head. I can no longer understand what Rikki is saying. I can't really control my arms any more or, interestingly, much of my legs. I'm pushing from my hips, legs like two pistons. Everything is telling me to stop, now. I'm a thing that can't see or hear properly and that does "this" with its hip joints. I have to keep doing "this" but I don't know how long for. I can't see the lap counter properly any more. I won't give up. If you hurt me I'll push back harder. If I can keep doing this I'll have done it. I'll have beaten cancer. I'll have shown it that it shouldn't mess with me or my dad. I'll have shown cancer that I will never give in, whatever the cost. This is to the death now and I will not be beaten. I may be mostly deaf and blind, in excruciating pain and unable to coordinate myself properly but you, cancer, took away my father and now you're going to pay.
I'm aware that people are not just in the grandstand now. They've spread along barrier and they're making more noise. This is good. It helps. On the subject of noise, what's that clicking? It's really loud but I can't tell where it's from. It's the bike. I'm sure it is. The poor thing is broken. It's having a dying moment in the dying moments. Don't you dare fail me now. If I have to pick you up and run the last lap with you on my back, I will do it now. Don't you make me do it. I realise through the weird watery noises in my head that the clicking is people banging the track barriers in encouragement. Let's finish this.
66 laps: I think Rikki said 66 but I don't know. Can I have done 66 laps? Is this nearly over? Rikki said I have to finish the lap after the gun goes. I can't remember why but if Rikki says so, I'm going to do what I'm told. I am really in trouble now and I'm starting to twitch involuntarily: in my face and shoulders. The air rushing in and out of my chest feels like it's full of iron filings and tastes like blood. My legs have completely gone now. They're just a painful area below my hips. The pistons are still going and they're the only thing I can control. Push, push, push and don't let the rhythm change. The front wheel is wobbling and skipping about and for a moment I think I might not be able to control the bike at all. I must be sitting too far back. This model of Chopper was withdrawn for exactly this reason. I try to lean forward and my back howls at me. I'm using my lower back to control my little fingers, which are still the only parts of my hands I can feel properly. Everything in between feels like it might be on fire. 

I think Rikki said three minutes. That's another three laps or something. I have to do this for another three laps. I can feel a sort of panic. The crowd feels different as I go past. May be they can sense something. The only way I can finish this is to throw in everything now. Empty the tank: for dad, for everyone who's come to see including my mum and my sisters, all those who've donated and all those who are going through what my father endured. That's what this is about. I'm not hiding anything. This is me. This is all I can do. The lot. You can have it. The pistons are still firing and I can hardly believe it. How is this possible? I make a decision to try to accelerate. I don't know if I have. I will not know I am beaten.
"BANG!"
Got to finish the last lap. Round the bend on to the home straight and in. There's a flag at the finish. I free wheel around the bend and instead of things getting clearer I really can't see well enough to ride. I try to pedal but that doesn't help. I make the decision to get off but my hands won't work to pull the brakes. I roll to a stop and, as carefully a I can, collapse on to the floor. My head feels as though it's imploding and you should put your head down if you think you're going to faint.
Nobody comes for a while.
Rikki is here. "How far?" Rikki says he thinks my laps were just above a 51 second average and that it was close to 20 miles. I've ridden 70 laps. I am stunned. I spend a few more minutes trying to reassemble myself.
Bill Pollard is suddenly here or is it Eddy Merckx? He's my closest friend and knows exactly what has just happened here in every respect. I say something to him and cry a bit. As planned, we ride around the track, him in my Molteni kit on my Eddy Merckx bike and me on a Mk1 Raleigh Chopper. As we arrive at the grandstand, Felix and Didi, my children, are there. They run along side me and I stop. I manage to pick Didi up to cuddle her and Felix hugs my leg.
It's over.
I am home.