Unreliable Narrator 1 /4 Unreliable Narrator /4 May 2020 “The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere.” - Ray Bradbury Here we have the third in a loose trilogy of lockdown zines that commenced with Christina’s Nowhere Fan 5, was continued by Ian Millstead’s Griff 9 and concluded with this here volume. All three are much delayed and produced under pandemic lock- down, and well…feature stuff by me. So, if you ever fancy having a holiday from pubbing you ish, ask me to write something for you. Seriously though, I’ve never been a prolific writer but being di- THIS SPACE NOT IN USE agnosed with social anxiety and depression and ending up on anti-depressants killed my creative urges entirely. After a grim couple of years, I gave up work to finally return to study, had a lot of therapy, and with care and support from Christina, and my family and friends got a lot better. I’m still battered and bruised and suffer the occasional crippling bout of anxiety, but on the whole I’m able to lead a normal-ish life now, mostly. Even though I’ve kicked the meds I still struggle with creativity. Writing, playing music, doing art, has felt impossible for a long time. Everything I attempted that didn’t address my mental Written, edited and blurbed onto health struggle felt shallow - how could I write up fannish gos- the screen by Doug Bell. Available for The Usual at: sip when I struggled to keep myself together on a daily basis? On top of that it would have meant ignoring that Beat-like sensi- [email protected] bility of discussing my own life, warts and alI, that I so admire. Alternatively found in the so- I’ve begun committing my experiences to paper so many times called real world at: now, but my vocab seemed inadequate to express my experi- 4 West Rise, ences, and then doubt would inevitably creep in before I aban- Falmouth, doned the latest attempt. I’ve been stuck in this mental cul-de- Cornwall, TR11 4HJ, UK. sac so long now that the only way out was eventually to give up on the idea and just write something...anything, which is why you’ve got this patchy collection of randomness in your hand. So Rock over London! much for “I can always get a fanzine article out of this”. Rock on Chicago! Blockbuster Video, what a difference! Doug 2 This piece was started in 2019 and then given up on, having lost confidence about halfway through. Strava tells me the ride took place on February 14th 2019, covered 62kms and took just over 3 hours of cycling. I’ve quarantined myself from cycling throughout this lockdown, preferring indoor training. Even with the recent relaxation of rules, I intend persisting with my current training programme for the next couple of weeks as I’m keen to see what benefits it’ll bring when I get back on the road properly in early June. The Strange Case of Jonathan Tiernan-Locke Prologue The day is bright, dry, still and sharply cold. There’s a slight haze lifting off the sea, and despite its weak warmth, it’s a genuine pleasure to see the sun. Perfect winter cycling weather. My legs are freezing, the thin layer of thermal lycra not offering much protection. From experience I know they’ll soon warm up once the hard pedalling starts. My core body is better swathed in layer upon layer of thermal clothing garments. I press the touchscreen on my Garmin, clip in and push off, glancing down mo- mentarily to see that the device is recording my ride. I dawdle past the allotments, gaining a little speed down the short dip towards Swanpool. The little lake is calm this morning, the cold blue sky reflected on its surface, perfection broken only by the ripples caused by a lone pair of mallards. There’s a couple of early morning bathers drying off on the beach as I pass it. I shiver, look ahead, and the road climbs upward. – X – Climbs are where the cycling obsession started. The 1984 Tour De France, with Scotland’s Rob- ert Millar ending 4th place overall and winning the King of the Mountains outright. It was such a big event that it even made the back pages of the Daily Record, breaking the usual Rangers- Celtic dominance. I was swept up in all this excitement, even though I had no real understanding of road racing. The only coverage of Millar’s progress was a couple of minutes squeezed into ITV’s World of Sport. No internet, no Cycling News, no YouTube or live broadcasting of every no- table race on the calendar on the non-existent Eurosport. I feel so old. Still Channel 4 had just started and introduced lots of new exciting sport, including Sumo Wres- tling, American Football and Kabaddi alongside the nightly highlights programme from the Tour De France With its Pete Shelley theme tune, the dry wit of presenter Gary Imlach and the likea- ble combo of Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett commentating it proved a hit with both me and the UK cycling community. To this day some folk still ask if you watched the highlights on Channel 4, despite it changing to ITV over a decade ago. With the new programme I finally got to see Robert Millar in action, including him taking a stage win in the Pyrenees on the 1989 Tour for his then Z-Peugot team. It was a superb battling per- formance on the slopes of Superbagnères, fighting off attack after attack by favourite Pedro Delgado. The problem was, time was running out for my hero. Sporadic wins and high placings still happened into the early 1990s, but retirement came in 1995 with his last race entered and 3 won – that year’s British Nation- al Championship. Millar tried his hand at coaching briefly, before disappearing from public life. Even at the height of his sporting prowess Millar was reserved, introverted and could be seriously abrasive with jour- nalists. His sudden non- presence was completely in character but courted all sorts of speculation about sex-change operations in the tabloid press. Robert Millar completely van- Robert Millar in the polka-dot King of the Mountains leaders jersey ished, no cushy TV pundit life or weekly newspaper column. Just nothing. – X – Swanpool Hill rises from sea level to the outskirts of town. There’s a couple of sharp ramps that invite you to dance on the peddles Contador-style, before the road levels off after the golf course. The lesser gradi- ent over the last Km allowing your heart and lungs time to return to normal again. My Garmin beeps, 4 minutes 22 to the top, well off my personal best of 2 minutes 53. I’m fatter, out of shape and struggling with the after-effects of yet another winter cold though. I need to build up distance and stamina, reserv- ing hard efforts for struggling up the endless Cornish hills. Stage 1 – The Early Boring Flat Bits Once upon a time Bickland Road marked the furthest outer expanse of Falmouth. That period ended about a couple of years ago, with fields disappearing under small industrial parks and identikit homes. I turn off the road using a cycle path that splits one such housing estate in two. I pop out by the top of Bu- dock Hill, where the road plunges below me, speed increases rapidly, the wind penetrating my clothing layers. Suddenly I’m squirted back out of the village into the countryside on a stretch of road Strava local- ly calls Budock For Penjerrick. It’s a rolling series of lumps, otherwise unremarkable except for the two days in 2015 when I was the fastest cyclist who had covered the 1.1km. Last time I looked I was still linger- ing in the lower end of the top ten, the closest I’ve gotten to competing in a race. – X – I knew about road racing a lot earlier than Millar’s career, way back to my early primary school days, when we lived in a flat at 90A Cuicken Terrace, Penicuik. 90B was where the Gilchrists lived, Irene and Sandy. Sandy was a cyclist, one of the top amateurs in the UK. Irene used to babysit me and my brother on occasion and I was always astonished by the enormous range of 4 medals and cups displayed on their shelves and sideboards. That said I don’t really have many memories of Sandy as he was always away competing in something. At that age I didn’t know how someone could be a racing cyclist, or what the Milk Cup was…it was far outside my paro- chial Scottish frame of reference. It wasn’t until much later in life I discovered Sandy was both a Scottish Champion at several disciplines, and representing Scotland in the Commonwealth Games and the UK as part of their Time Trial Team. What I did know was that when he retired from racing he opened a shop in Leith where I got my first racing bike, a dark blue Raleigh 10-speed. Retirement didn’t mean I saw Sandy around more either as he was becoming a renowned mechanic working for both the Scotland and GB team at Commonwealth and Olympic Games. A lot of this I only discovered later in life after reading Richard Moore’s “In Search of Robert Millar” where my neighbour popped up a couple of times describing the early 80s Scottish racing scene.