On the Road Bike Read online

  Fifty-one years old, trim, fit, and dressed entirely in the trademark black and pink of Rapha’s exclusive range of clothing, he looked impressively athletic and perfectly aesthetic. His eyes twinkled with the madness of an obsessive.

  ‘I love cycling,’ he told me. ‘I just love everything about it.’

  It was months later that I first heard about the New Romantics’ Ride. There’d been talk, of course. Occasionally it would get an oblique mention, a hint or two, in some newspaper diary, or feature in the lifestyle column of an in-flight magazine. But I knew of no one who could verify its existence, let alone claim to have been invited to take part.

  I wondered what it could be.

  I had visions of a peloton of flamboyantly dressed middle-aged pop legends floating around on all manner of bikes. Penny farthings would certainly be involved, as would tricycles, tandems and choppers. Helmets would surely be eschewed in favour of fedoras, trilbies and Napoleonic headgear. Most riders would be wearing greatcoats that flowed out behind them, occasionally getting caught in their spokes. It would be a carefree, debonair pageant. It would be Romantic, with a capital R.

  But, did it actually exist? Or was it an urban myth to be filed alongside the secret underground tunnels that supposedly connect Buckingham Palace with the Edwardian brothels of Whitechapel? (Actually, I just made that last one up, but you can see how easily these things start.)

  So I went to the source. I managed to obtain an email address for Gary Kemp from the sponsors of the Hot Lap. I worded a request for an interview, and hit send.

  Barely ten minutes later, and to my wild surprise, I got a reply.

  Hi Ned,

  Yes, of course.

  I live in town, West End. I had a new baby this week so end of next week. We could have a spin round Regent’s Park. I usually have a gentle park ride with the lads on a Friday morning for an hour. And an interview after at mine if you like?

  G.

  This was the closest thing I had to proof of the existence of the New Romantics Ride. I read and reread the email, studying it closely for nuances. Who were the ‘lads’? What was meant by the conflicting terms ‘spin’ and ‘gentle ride’? What pace did they imply? Would I be able to keep up and, even if I did, would I be able to talk? After all, I had seen Kemp ride and had been soundly beaten by him.

  Consequently, it was with great trepidation that I set off one grey Friday morning for Regent’s Park. Even the clothing choice had been testing. In the end, I’d opted for the canary yellow polyester of the De Ver bike shop in Norbury (I would make Maurice Burton proud), believing that would offer the least chance of me wearing the same thing as any of the ‘lads’. I doubted very much whether they’d have been clothes shopping in south London.

  In that regard at least, I was quite right. Arriving at precisely the allotted hour and at the prescribed meeting point (which for reasons of confidentially, I hope you will understand, I cannot possibly commit to print), I noticed instantly that I was not the first. An impeccably clad man in his middle years already stood on the pavement, patiently holding his Condor bicycle, wearing a cap, and scrolling his iPhone as he waited.

  It wasn’t Kemp, I established, as I rode past him. I had been too shy to stop. This often happens to me, but normally at weddings. I fear most of all those painful reunions and cold introductions on the way into churches, and will go out of my way to postpone them until the last possible minute, even if that means driving past the churchyard half-a-dozen times with one eye on the dashboard clock, before finally parking up and entering the fray. This was no different.

  Out of sight now round a bend in the road, I executed an awkward U-turn, and approached again the man in the cap by the side of the road. This time, as I neared him, I saw he’d been joined by another, similar figure. They seemed to be making each other laugh. That was enough to put me off again, and I rode past for a second time, quite unable to pull over and introduce myself.

  Another U-turn, which I conducted in the full realisation that the Metropolitan Police would by now have picked up on my aberrant cycling behaviour through any one of the hundreds of CCTV cameras that bristle from lampposts all along Regent’s Park. This time I took a deep breath, and I came to a halt. By now a third man, also not Gary Kemp, had joined them. My arrival made it four.

  The first man noticed me, initially with blank suspicion, then with mild recognition.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, reasonably enough.

  I took my helmet off, and introduced myself. ‘I’m Ned.’

  ‘Yes.’ He seemed faintly amused and mildly curious. ‘Good to have you with us.’ But he didn’t offer his name in return.

  From the other two people who weren’t Gary Kemp, I felt more scrutiny. I judged that it would help allay their suspicions if I offered up my credentials for gate-crashing their party.

  ‘I was invited by Gary Kemp to join you.’ This much, of course, was true. But the moment I found myself actually saying it, the less plausible it sounded. In fact, as the words tumbled from my mouth, they sounded absurd. I might as well have strolled onto the set of Mamma Mia and claimed that I’d been sent there by Colin Montgomerie.

  But my reasoning seemed to appease them, even if, when I told them I was going to do an interview with him, it cast me out at an increased distance from their clique. I was now definitively, on the outside. ‘I don’t know where Gary is. He’s normally the first one here.’ The man with no name effected some introductions. ‘This is Lee.’ The second man-who-wasn’t-Kemp nodded at me. ‘And this is Nadav.’ I instantly knew that Nadav was not a name I would be able to remember.

  The bloke whose name I’d just been told was fiddling with his brake cables. He offered me a friendly enough ‘Hi’. And then he returned to his bike. Since the other two men had returned to the conversation that I had interrupted, I strolled over to him, already dreading the conversation I was about to begin about bikes.

  ‘Wow. What a great bike. What is it?’ Actually, it categorically was magnificent. It was a skinny steel beauty with a custom paint job to die for. Well, maybe not to die for, but definitely to pay lots of money for.

  ‘Oh this old boneshaker? It’s just a silly thing really. But I kind of like it.’ He had a strong, but very Anglo, South African accent. He went on to tell me the name of the exclusive Italian bike builder who had custom made it for him, but I was no longer taking it in. I was busily wondering who on earth this man might be in real life. He was tall and, like the rest of our tiny peloton, in his trim-if-grey mid-fifties. And, also in common with the others, well groomed and perfectly presented in ochre shades of retro woollen cycling garb, complete with kid skin gloves. I was, by now, violently self-conscious about my neon nylon top.

  ‘You should have been here last week. This thing was off the road and I had to use David Millar’s time-trial bike.’

  ‘I really don’t know where Gary’s got to.’ The first non-Kemp broke in. ‘I guess the baby?’

  We all agreed that the presence of a newborn might have detained him. It was clear that the other riders wanted to get going, Kemp or no Kemp. This presented me with a slight dilemma. Should I continue with the ride, uninvited though I was by the other remaining members, or gracefully bow out. I ploughed on.

  And into the heart of the New Romantic Ride.

  And now I know what they’re saying

  In the music of the parade

  We made our love on wasteland

  And through the barricades

  We set off in an anti-clockwise loop on the main road, circling Regent’s Park. By now there were five of us, as we had been joined at the last minute by Simon Mottram the founder and owner of Rapha, cycling’s most exclusive brand. I knew Simon a little (he was often to be seen at races), so was pleased he had arrived. But now our numbers were suddenly uneven. This made the politics of the peloton fraught with complication.

  The roads around the park are wide, unusually so and quiet for Central London. They can easily accommodate tw
o cyclists riding side by side. But not three. As a result, since our group now totalled five, one rider would always be supernumerary. Quite often, and quite understandably, this was me, riding out the back, alone with my thoughts.

  The pace was very gentle though, and the chatter ahead of me fluent and friendly. Old pals. Occasionally, shreds of sentences would catch in the wind and drift back through our little bunch to me at the rear.

  ‘. . . I’d never seen the place so deserted . . .’

  ‘. . . he’s had to sell up. I haven’t seen him since that thing he did at the White Cube . . .’

  ‘. . . couldn’t believe it when she showed up. Especially after what happened last year . . .’

  I was lulled into a false sense of familiarity. As if I too had been meeting up in the park with this bunch of friends for years. As if I had decades of shared history to paw over as we rode. I could get into this.

  The man they called Nadav (his name had suddenly come back to me. Or rather it hadn’t. But for the purposes of this narrative, let’s just say I had remembered it . . .) dropped back on his fancy Italian bike, and we found ourselves riding together.

  ‘Did you feel a bit strange riding a time-trial bike round the park last week in this group?’

  ‘Yah. It was a bit surreal. That’s for sure.’

  ‘And you said it was the same as David Millar’s Cervelo from the Tour?’ I asked, more as a matter of form, than from any genuine interest.

  ‘No. It was David Millar’s bike. He gave it to me’

  That shut me up. But, unfortunately, not for long enough.

  ‘I’ve just finished reading his book,’ I told him. It was true.

  ‘What did you think?’ asked Nadav, with a sideways glance.

  ‘I enjoyed it.’ I thought briefly about the book, Millar’s revelations and, at times, self-flagellation. The image of himself that he has embraced over recent years has an element of theatre about it. The cover photo illustrated this perfectly; moodily lit, dark and soulful, with a hint of menace. I thought it was a bit daft.

  ‘The picture didn’t look much like him, though.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a pause that was significant enough to signify something. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just not the David Millar I have known down through the years. It looks like someone else.’

  ‘I’m surprised you say that.’ Again that pause. ‘When I took the portrait, David loved it.’

  And with that, the portrait photographer injected a minute amount of pace. Just enough to gap us. Not for the first time, I was left alone with my thoughts.

  Without me noticing it, we were now six. We had been joined by another sprightly little chap, also of a certain age, riding a tiny powder blue chrome and steel touring bike with a hand-stitched leather saddle pouch. He rode with a very high cadence, right at the front of the group. Simon Mottram told me his name was Kadir (another name I was destined instantly to forget, even though for the purposes of the narrative . . . etc.), and that he makes these bikes himself. ‘You should go and talk to him. You’d have so much in common.’

  I looked at Simon sceptically.

  Building bikes, it seemed, was not all that Kadir did. He had spent the previous day at a photo shoot with Mark Cavendish, supplying odd items of cycling bric-a-brac and nostalgia for the set. His private collection of bicycling artefacts had furnished the photographer with retro props for Cavendish to variously hold, clasp, throw, sit on or slap to his head.

  The other surprising thing about Kadir was his speed. After about forty-five minutes of meandering round the park on the outside, the bunch instinctively headed through some gates and onto the internal ring road inside the park. Here the pace quickened. After one kilometre, there was a slight incline, and, wordlessly, everyone started to sprint. I had no idea what was happening.

  When, after about ten seconds, we crested the ‘summit’ (Kadir had comfortably beaten everybody), the pace slackened again, as everyone caught their breath. I dropped back to Simon Mottram.

  ‘What the hell was that all about?’

  ‘Where there’s a hill, there’s a race.’ He winked at me.

  A hill! It must have risen no more than about six feet over a hundred yards. Before I knew it, we had nearly completed a full circuit, and the race started to heat up again, as the ‘hill’ approached. This time I was better positioned for the sprint, finishing second, but still some way behind the pocket rocket that was Kadir. I couldn’t help it, a loud guffaw escaped me. Partly due to the effort involved in trying to catch the pint-sized cycling nostalgist. But equally, it was the absurdity, the pyrrhic nonsense of it all.

  And on lap three, I got him. He didn’t see it coming. I blind-sided him, and by the crest of the ascent, I blasted over the line at least three lengths to the good.

  Behind me, Simon Mottram had commentated on my win. ‘Kadir holding his line, but Boulting’s coming, Boulting’s closing all the time. Boulting takes the win!’ It is worth reminding you, as you read this, that we were all professional men in our forties and fifties.

  I eased off on the pedals, allowed myself to freewheel. As I rolled along, Kadir acknowledged my victory with a nod, Nadav patted me on the back, ‘Not-Kemp One’ offered his congratulations in the form of a broad grin, but ‘Not-Kemp Two’ rode past with a stony demeanour.

  Together, he and I rode in to the café towards which everyone seemed to be gravitating.

  ‘What is it you do, then?’ I asked him. I wanted to eradicate any chance of insulting his work before I knew what it was.

  But ‘Not-Kemp Two’ simply didn’t answer. He just grinned cryptically. I didn’t know whether or not I should repeat the question (perhaps he hadn’t heard). And I didn’t know for how much longer I should hold my expression of curiosity, head half-cocked to one side. He remained silent. I eventually un-cocked my head.

  We stacked our bikes up at the café, shared a little idle chat about the Belgian Classics. I produced a copy of How I Won The Yellow Jumper from my rucksack. I had intended to give it to the former Spandau Ballet man. Instead I offered it to Nadav, as a certain type of peace offering, which to his great credit, he politely accepted.

  But that, in itself, provoked a flurry of awkwardness. He had no bag, and his beautifully tailored back pockets on his retro merino jersey wouldn’t stretch to holding the book. So the cursed thing just sat on the table in front of us, its jokey type-face and primary-coloured illustrations looking tawdry and unamusing. I wished fervently that I’d left it mouldering in the depths of my rucksack, nestling against a cereal bar.

  Then ‘Not-Kemp One’ looked at his watch, sighed and left.

  ‘Better go. Got a bloody radio show to present.’

  Of course he had a radio show to present. Didn’t we all?

  It had been that kind of day. But there had been no Gary Kemp.

  On returning home, I emailed Simon Mottram. Who were all those other people in the park, I wanted to know? His reply, and a little Wikipedia work threw up the following cast list for the New Romantic Ride:

  Bob Elms (Not-Kemp One). Wrote for the Face and NME in the 1980s. Dated Sade. Invented the name of the band Spandau Ballet. Has presented numerous TV shows, and now hosts a long-running show on BBC London.

  Lee Barrett (Not-Kemp Two). A major figure in the 1980s club scene. Discovered Sade, and went on to manage her. He asked her, ‘Can you sing?’ She failed the audition, but got the job anyway.

  Kadir Guirey. A leading light in the 1980s’ skateboarding scene, Guirey also appeared on Top of the Pops with a band called Funkapolitan. He was their lead singer. Now a leading collector of cycling memorabilia.

  Nadav Kander. A world-renowned photographer. He has exhibited in every major gallery from new York to London and in 2009 was named International Photographer of the Year.

  Then another email pinged into my Inbox. It was from Gary Kemp.

  Dear Ned,

  I am mortified and so sorry. My wife asked me to do the
school run today, and so I didn’t do the ride. I forgot it was with you. So sorry as you came such a long way. Can I come over to you? Let’s talk.

  Gary.

  ‘So sorry as you came such a long way’ could have been a Spandau Ballet lyric, I thought. I told him there really was no need to apologise, that Lewisham was not such a distance away, and that I’d enjoyed it, anyway. I recounted my points victory over Kadir.

  Kadir is fast! My God, you must be good!

  Could we meet next Friday, perhaps?

  Absolutely. In the diary now.

  G.

  Next Friday dawned. At 6.30 in the morning, I received an email. Again it was from Gary Kemp.

  Hi Ned,

  I’ve got a bloody Achilles injury that has flared up over night so cannot make it. Please let me know that you got this. We will get there.

  Best

  Gary

  The following week, I tried again to fix an appointment. I asked him if his Achilles was better.

  Hi Ned,

  Yes, feeling better but this Friday I have to take my son to his piano grades. When’s your deadline?

  Best

  Gary

  Since there wasn’t really a deadline, I gently let it go.

  In August, some five months later, we had another near miss. He and I were guests on separate episodes of the same cycling show on ITV. He was on a few weeks before me.

  One of the elements in the show was a 500-metre ‘roller’ challenge, riding a stationary bike very fast for a short burst. He, I noted with interest, had completed his distance in just over 26 seconds.

  My target was now set. When I took to the saddle in front of the cameras, my only concern was to get close to the time set by Gary Kemp. To my surprise and delight, I managed 25.72 seconds.

  The next day, after a long period of silence between us, I dropped him one last speculative line, could we finally meet? I wasn’t really expecting a reply. Especially since I’d been unable to resist letting him know about the 25.72 seconds.