THE SOUTH AFRICAN RYDER

I don’t even remember how Douglas Ryder and I met; all I do remember is that he was young when I met him. And I also remember he stayed with his father in Claremont.

It is quite funny how I got myself into these situations meeting the likes of Douglas and then going on to forge a relationship for many years to come, on and off the bike.

One day I went around to Douglas’ house, this would be my first ride with him. The house was dimly lit and quiet, now thinking back I got the feeling that it was some Zen temple and as I followed him to his bedroom, that’s where it ended. He seemed to be living out of a suitcase from a television clip on the life of Phil Anderson preparing to leave Colorado for the Tour de France. Needles to say the Douglas I know now, is meticulous and tidy.

The direction he chose to take me was to Blouberg Strand; I hated that place… hated racing there, hated training there and disliked the red necks that stayed and lived there.

It was a flat land along the West Coast of the Cape Peninsula where every other day you were met by block head winds. I was skinny and loved going up hill and as of yet had not mastered the wind. Whenever we race in this area I would just go straight out the back and inevitably I would be on my own for miles and miles, to strong for the riders coming up behind me and to weak to be with the front bunch…

And wind or Douglas Ryder I don’t know which was worse and to make matters even worse I am almost certain as memory recalls we had first gone over Constantia Neck and then Suikerbossie.By the time we got to Milnerton Douglas was ahead of me by about 500m. Demoralized and furious I tried as best as I could, he looked over his shoulder and waited for me only to repeat what had just happened.

The thing is these guys including Douglas whenever they trained with me always expected more from me, they would ride with riders better than me on training riders and it wouldn’t matter if these better riders got dropped but whenever it was me they didn’t think I should be dropped. I wonder why they always expected so much of me?

Of all the cyclist in the world that I have trained with and I have trained with many Douglas Ryder was the worst, he always dropped me when it was just the two of us and I got the impression he did it just to me.It was on this day that we ended up at the home of Moolman Welgemoed.Moolman was a shear animal on the bike, like Sean Yates, it was great to meet him and so I made another cycling buddy through Douglas.

As the years went by Douglas would win many races and eventually leave Cape Town to race in Johannesburg as it was said the racing is much faster and harder there as all the professional cycling teams were based there. Much later I would do the same.

One day I was walking by McDonalds with my daughter and I kept hearing someone whistle then calling my name, it wasn’t loud at all so I could not see anyone. Then there it was again, I looked left and this time I saw Douglas and his wife. They waved me over to join them at one of the tables and we got talking as we had not seen each other in quite some time. Later on we got into a debate over the fact that his wife and I thought that somehow being in Johannesburg numbed ones climbing edge. Johannesburg is very undulating and most races are held on flat roads or rolling hillocks, the speeds are in excess of 60-70km/ph and in the first 10kms there is just one single straight line, there is not even an arrow-head, when I raced in some of these races and at the half way mark was still with the top contenders I was shocked out of my socks sometimes, I had no idea I could go this fast on the flats.

Douglas disagreed with his wife and me completely so we agreed to disagree. It was such a pleasure to connect again. Douglas was now racing for the world famous Lotus IBM cycling squad who I would on many occasions ride with specifically Simon Kessler and Owen Hannie two very nice gentlemen.

The Lotus IBM Team

I ended up training with the team so much Owen gave me a jersey I was pleased to have as I was never going to buy myself one in the bicycle shops because it wasn’t the original team jersey.

One morning Owen, Douglas and I arrived at the team house in Sunning Hill. Alwyn Skeepers and Daniel Spence (I called him ‘Danny boy’) were watching some soap opera called The Bold and the Beautiful. We could not get them away from the show; apparently this was there daily mantra.

Eventually we were on our way to Pretoria, once in Pretoria we would sprint up a ‘mother’ of a climb free-wheel down and repeat the sprint for nearly an hour.

This would be one of the hardest training rides I would ever do. I had youthful looks but I certainly was no youth but these guys thought otherwise. By the time shadows begun to creep over the road we had already covered 120kms, we still had the better part of 45kms to ride home. It was hot and dry the way Johannesburg gets and each time Douglas would send Alwyn back to pace me back into the group as I dropped off a few times in the closing miles. Then they all just slowed down to a snail space, Danny boy was upset and said;

”How can you be dropped off this much, you were the one I wanted to be like when I was young” or something to that effect.

I also remember him telling the others one time …”wow, that guy could climb man, he could climb…”

Well to hear words like that coming from a superlative rider who has now become a profession brought warmth to my heart and now ageing legs. Just goes to show there are always those watching you and better to be an example than a rider who makes enemies. That would not be the last time we trained together and as always we would be racing together on week-ends.

So as Uncle Bob Hope always use to say; “thanks for the memories!”

Douglas Ryder and the boys it was kind of you to let me in.