Grandfather of cycling shows no sign of slowing

COLD, dark nights in the middle of February have been responsible for many things. In 1978, it was the oil rig Orion crashing ashore.

Ten years earlier, it was the inauguration of the Guernsey Velo Club, done in the living room of cycling enthusiast Nigel Archer.

Dave Moullin was elected the club's first president, Archer's hospitality no doubt did him no harm in receiving the inaugural chairmanship and the general secretary was one Allan Renyard who, a couple of months later, was also to win the first event, a five-mile time trial.

Forty years on, Renyard's still pedalling those wheels as if his life depended on it.

In reality, much of his adult life has depended on it. He has a fanaticism for his sport, one which he has also served with two stints as Velo Club president.

Even this year, he's back in authority as racing secretary, while at the same time discovering new ways to ride more quickly than ever before.

It's a tribute to the man's dedication and enthusiasm that he is getting better with age.

He puts that down to using a training method called powercranking.

'You learn to pedal a complete circle,' is his simple explanation of a method also successfully used by Ann Bowditch.

'You certainly improve your power and the manufacturers claim a two to three miles per hour improvement on them.

'It hurts though.

'It's generally accepted that two hours on a powercranked bike is similar to six on a normal bike. You don't race on them'.

Competitive cycling in Guernsey had died a death in 1964 with the folding of the Island of Guernsey CC.

On its return, the new Guernsey Velo Club committee vowed to stage regular road race and time-trials, besides grasstrack racing and cyclo-cross - an early form of duathlon, except off-road.

In the coming days Renyard will send out the season's fixture card to the much grown club's 150 or so members, but for the first ever event just three riders featured: Renyard, Philip Meinke and Colin Duport.

Renyard won, as he invariably did in those early days, recalls the current club president, Gary Wallbridge, who made his own racing debut a couple of months later.

'It was the fifth of May and my time for a five-mile trial was 15min. 50sec. They used to give handicap prizes for some obscure reason in those days and I won a set of toe clips.'

Wallbridge, whose late father Bill is among the club's eight presidents in four decades, easily recollects why he took it up and became 'the 13th or 14th member'.

'I used to wake up early on Sunday mornings and think what I could do. I was always up early.

'Then I was sitting next to Philip Meinke in a biology lesson and he suggested I take it up.

'The thing I remember most is that it always seemed to be cold, wet and windy.

'At the time I used to always note down what I did in the race and it always seemed to read ''very windy today?.'

Fellow Elizabeth College boys Richard Smith-Ainslie, Bob du Feu and Steve Guilbert also got the cycling bug.

'We used to think it was the best thing since sliced bread,' said Wallbridge.

'We couldn't get enough of it, but Allan won everything in those days.'