Graeme Obree EXCLUSIVE
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Graeme Obree EXCLUSIVE magine the fastest cyclist in the world, the world champion, the holder of the Hour record. Where do they come from, Ihow did they become what they are, what GRAEME OBREE did they have to sacrifice, what do they look like? The person you’re imagining is not Graeme Obree. Born in 1965 in Warwickshire, to Scottish parents, Obree moved north of the border as a child and has always considered himself Scottish. The son of a police officer, it wasn’t easy growing up as in a small town, and his early life was marked by bullying, debilitating depression and social anxiety. From a young age, riding bikes with his brother offered an escape from his troubles, and after entering his first 10-mile race he soon established himself as a successful amateur time- triallist. Throughout the early 90s, he rivalled the English champion Chris Boardman. However, unlike ‘DO IT the better-funded Boardman, he BECAUSE struggled to make ends meet YOUAn improbable champion, LOVE Obree battled the UCI, lack of funds and his own nature to claim a string of titles. Returning for one last record attempt, we speak to him about a life lived in search of something more WORDS JOSEPH DELVES IT’ 32 ■ BikesEtc April 2016 April 2016 BikesEtc ■ 33 Graeme Obree EXCLUSIVE through racing alone and in 1992, when the bicycle shop he owned went bust, he found himself in debt, on the dole and needing to support a young child. With the employment office trying to push him into a career in computing or secretarial work, he decided to throw everything at claiming one of the greatest feats in cycling: the Hour record, held by the Italian Francesco Moser since 1984. With the support of his wife Anne, he came up with a plan. He would design a bike and attempt the record within eight months, just before his rival Boardman was due to take a shot. The gangly steel bike he built from odds and ends, including high-speed bearings from a washing machine, was revolutionary. Its radical ‘tucked’ position greatly reduced drag, allowing Obree to slip through the air at incredible speed. Although confident in the bike and his abilities, unknown to the outside world, Obree continued to suffer from severe depression. As such his Obree’s workshop, where he builds his record-breaking bikes, is his own home motivation to claim the Hour came from a far darker place than the usual sources of athletic inspiration. ‘It progressed from a position of discontentment,’ Obree reveals. ‘I needed more and more fulfilment from the outside. Having performed at a British level, I wanted to go further. I wanted to be at the highest level possible and you have to convince yourself that you will make yourself that good. I wasn’t content not to. Beating Moser’s record seemed the only way I could find a degree of contentment, or so I thought at the time. That record meant so much to me, my entire sense of self-worth became tied up with it.’ Becoming a world-beater With no indoor tracks in the UK, the attempt would take place at the Vikingskipet velodrome in Norway on 16th July 1993. With the keen eyes of the press watching, Obree started strongly but as the laps rolled round it became clear he was struggling. He was unable to bridge the gap, and when the 60 minutes were up, he was nearly a kilometre short. ‘As I walked off that track, the weight of the failure I felt was staggering,’ says Obree. ‘It was such a superhuman effort and I’d fallen a few hundred metres short. I couldn’t get that back. As I walked towards the cameras, people were congratulating me and trying to hand me flowers. But I didn’t want them. I felt this leaden mass of failure, worse than any pain you can imagine. Basically, emotionally to survive as a human being… I just thought no, I’ve got to go again.’ With the timekeepers from the UCI booked on flights home the next day, it was agreed that Obree could go a second time provided he began by 9am. The effort required to attempt the hour is immense. Eddy Merckx, widely regarded as the greatest cyclist in history, said he couldn’t walk for four days after ‘I had to break he tried. Obree would have less than 24 hours to recover before his next shot. ‘That walk from the track, feeling that way, that’s this record. the point I became a proper world-beating athlete,’ Obree says. ‘I felt as if I was accessing this life-saving energy, because I had to break this record. To fail To fail felt life- felt life-threatening. Emotionally, attempting the Hour and falling just short was like trying to jump The Beastie’s fibre-glass fairing the Grand Canyon and coming up a metre short. That is designed for maximum threatening’ last metre really matters, and that’s how much that aerodynamic efficiency half-lap mattered to me. I was either going to beat April 2016 BikesEtc ■ 35 Graeme Obree EXCLUSIVE Obree races towards the Hour record on his home-built bike in 1993 A young Obree wearing the the record or die. I wasn’t going to give up. I’d pedal World Champion’s Jersey at the necessary rate come hell or high water. What changed at the deepest level was the will in me.’ Waking throughout the night to stretch his depleted muscles, Obree arrives at the velodrome five minutes before the scheduled start time. He barely makes eye contact with anyone. He sets off at 9am exactly. One hour and 51.596 kilometres later, he’s broken Moser’s nine-year-old record. ‘I felt as if I broke the Hour by running into a burning building a lap at a time,’ he reveals. Celebrations break out in the velodrome. However, while initially relieved, Obree experiences little catharsis from his achievement. Instead, in its place is the feeling that he’s survived a near catastrophe. ‘I was so emotionally drained when I finished, I just felt, thank goodness that’s done. I had my back against the wall. I was like a kitten that had fought off a pack of foxes. I could only think, I’ve survived. It very quickly became a case of, well, that kept me going for so long but what now?’ Within a week Boardman would take the title from Obree on a carbon-fibre bike designed by sports car-manufacturer Lotus that had cost several hundreds of thousands of pounds to develop. The Flying Scotsman While short-lived, Obree’s brief custody of the record left him solvent, and with serious offers of sponsorship for the first time. The next few years would be a whirlwind of achievement. In September 1993, he saw off Boardman in the individual pursuit to win gold at the World Track Championship, setting a new world record in the process. The following year, he regained his Hour title before once again winning at the World Championships in 1995. However, despite these achievements, success in Obree’s life. While the film was well received, it Around this time Obree also began a new stage didn’t bring him unqualified happiness. The stress didn’t make enough at the box office to significantly in his career, working as a public speaker, giving of public scrutiny and run-ins with the UCI over his alter his financial situation and he struggled with the motivational talks to young adults. ‘I felt so innovative bicycle designs led to bouts of drinking attention it brought. Coming out as gay after years of ‘I’d been speaking in schools, and the kids were and depression, even while he was riding at a world- denial then led to a period of self-enforced seclusion. really enthused by this mad story about a man who beating level. The death of his brother in a car crash When he went public in 2011, the news made the built a bike out of bits of washing machine,’ laughs emotionally in 1994 only exacerbated his depression. front page of The Scottish Sun. Obree. ‘But these kids weren’t even born in 1993 His short lived pro-career with French outfit Le Living reclusively in a council flat in Saltcoats when I broke the record. I wanted to have something Groupement started badly when the Gallic riders on Scotland’s wild western coast, it was towards the current. I wanted to show them that there’s still drained, gave him the cold shoulder, and came to an end when end of this process of intense introspection that he space for individuality.’ he made it clear that he wouldn’t co-operate with finally allowed himself to reflect positively upon his Well aware of his tendency towards obsessive and the team’s programme of ‘medical backup’. Despite own achievements for the first time. destructive behaviour, Obree nevertheless believed like a kitten retaining prodigious form over the following years, a ‘It wasn’t until 2008 that I came to appreciate himself to be in a good enough place to attempt a lack of support and ongoing mental health problems, what I’d done,’ Obree tells BikesEtc. ‘I was watching fresh challenge. The human-powered vehicle (HPV) including suicide attempts and spells in institutions, Nicole Cooke at the Olympics, and I know her and land-speed record is a niche pursuit by any standard that’s fought led to Obree disappearing from the world stage.