Feet On The Pedals

By Richard Burt

Hill climbing on two wheels powered only by a human body pushed to its limits - a sport which for people like Richard Burt becomes over time an obsession in which personal effort and achievement are measured  by times, gradients and distances, An essential read for anyone who wants to understand what motivates hill climbers to achieve feats of suffering and sheer endurance saner mortals wouldn't even contemplate.

Including talks with Illi Gardner, Geoff Ware, Bhima Bowden, and Geoff Pickin

• Language: English
• Publisher: APS Books
• Release date: Apr 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224096190

Book preview

Shakespeare was way ahead of his time. Before bikes were even invented he said something like,  ‘All of hill climbing is a stage and men and women mere actors upon it’.

Richard Burt

1.

When I was young I always wanted someone to appreciate my achievements. Now I’m older I know that riding a bike is fundamentally a conversation with myself. So few others even know or care.

I’ve got two Age Group Winner’s medals from National Hill Climbs sitting on the bookcase, but I don’t show them to anyone, they are just for me. The result of five years of arguing with my body on a bike going uphill - why on earth would you do that?

The 2017 National Championship was staged at Hedley-on-the-Hill in Northumberland. I began hill climbing that same year and put my application in for The National without any real hope of being accepted. When I got the email to tell me I had been given a start I re-read it; and suddenly found myself blinking back tears. To have been given a start amongst Britain’s top hill climbers was just overwhelming. I thought of them as an unattainable elite. I’ve since learned they don’t behave like that, but then it felt like stepping up onto the clouds.

Except the only fluffiness was in my head.  Booking in to the Premier Inn near Newcastle Airport on the last Saturday in October was not glamorous. My room was purple, clean and functional. The bar was empty. The entire building smelled musty and underused. I propped my bike in the corner of the room, still imagining I was part of some epic cycling circus, feeling nervous about tomorrow’s climb.

Breakfast was lonely. The only other people in the large diner were round and middle aged, tucking into Full English from the hot trays with gusto. I tried conversation but it didn’t go anywhere and was soon broken off.

Pulling in to race headquarters, the branded Cycling Time Trials equipment van loomed ahead. This was definitely a step up for me. Inside the brick and wood pavilion coffee and bacon sandwiches were already being served. There was a large screen for real time results, another first.  I sat down with a coffee feeling very small and unsettled, lifting various items in and out of my bag, wondering what to put on to keep warm and still look cool. I chose a woollen hat, enough said. Spoke to a few older people and found them friendly.

Back outside it was biting cold. Propped next to a sleek black estate car Dan Evans looked every bit the rock star of the opera: the pinball wizard of hill climbing. A woman standing next to him wearing a Cycling Time Trials neck scarf was, I presumed, making the presentations. Turned out to be Jess Evans. No idea why she wasn’t racing that day but hey, what did I know?

Jess Evans: the look (courtesy of Gareth Quinn)

En route to the start I chatted with a fifteen-year-old boy also doing his first National. He told me proudly about his kit and bike sponsors, and I wished him well. I was third away behind the usual host club starter and another no-hoper.

As the final seconds counted down I suffered an adrenalin rush and decided I was going to smash it. Within 300m I was treacle dancing on the pedals, quads burning, lungs in meltdown and a hell of a long way to go. Come on old man. I picked that one out from the bells and horns and shouts of encouragement. It really hurt. My body really hurt. I kept pushing through and managed a slight recovery over the last few hundred. Horrible experience. Finished right down the bottom, but I loved it - promised myself I would not finish last again, but hey-ho. Only by six seconds the following year. Getting closer.

I have always been swept away by the passion of competition.

I cried when our First XI football team reached the semi-finals of the National Schoolboys Cup. I fainted across the finish line of a Scouts 880 yards race (that I didn’t win). I nearly killed myself boy racing on the roads when I was nineteen – put it down to misguided youth and not being prepared to back down or give way. Much the same mindset that today sucks young people under different circumstances into violence and crime. Thank goodness I never lived in that kind of environment, but I think the psychology is the same. For me, there was always hope and ambition, even if my dreams turned out to be not entirely realistic.

As a child you discover a world through radio and television that you think your parents don’t know about.  My imagination ran riot on Listen with Mother, Popeye and Tom and Jerry. They helped me grow up. They glistened with humour, compassion, violence, anger, love, determination and more.

Today, despite my age, I find myself entranced by Channel 4’s ‘Tin Man’.

The stainless steel cuboid colossus is pure creative genius. I cheer when he comes on. The soundtrack is an earworm: mesmeric. My wife, Lorely, just rolls her eyes. She’s very good at that. She gets lots of practice.

So just what is it that makes me never tire of these animated shorts? It’s because every time I see them I live inside the Tin Man, do what he does; feel what he feels.

If you’ve never watched the Tin Man yourself, here’s how.

He stands on the corner of the street, towering over terraced houses. Children are playing football. He takes the pass, traps the ball under his cuboid foot. Controls it. Releases his pass to a boy with curly hair who flicks it up, does a few keepy-uppies then chips perfectly to a girl perched on the tin man’s shoulder. This girl catches the ball cleanly raising cheers from children all around. Cue next programme.

In a different version the Tin Man recklessly smashes the ball through a sitting room window and they all joyously leg it down the street.

In another he is keeping pace with wheelchair road racers, sparks showering off his feet as they strike the tarmac. His head begins to rock backwards; he is tiring and falls away to the side of the TV screen as the soundtrack winds down. The wheelchair racers push on into the distance.  

My favourite sees him in Derbyshire, striding up towards the Hope Valley skyline