Hastings & St .Leonards Cycling Club Archive

I don’t know how this event happened, or how cyclists became involved, as the itinerary produced by Union Sportive Argenteuillais, USA, doesn’t mention cycling. It seems like we were an add on, possibly something to do with John Davies. As I lived 20 miles away, I only saw anybody from the club at weekends. As i understand it this was a cultural exchange between Hastings and Argenteuil Paris. Everything paid for. There were teams of football, judo and I think athletics, plus us bikies. The coach picked me up in Rye, it was packed plus 5 bikes up the centre isle. The bikes were loaded onto the boat, hanging by their front wheels and craned into the hold. We had a smooth crossing, John Davies and his wife offered us cake, Lynn, Martin and myself had been warned about this, so didn’t partake. Those who did were quite happy and merry. John Davies and his wife had friends in Paris, so they went to visit them. We were put up by, CSM Puteux. M & Mme Segard, of that club and became our Director Sportives. We stayed in a sort of hotel, I think that it was a brothel, a lot of coming going all night, plain concrete staircase, made a lot of noise. In the bedroom there was a wash basin and Lynn And Martins first encounter with what they thought was a French foot bath (Bidet), they hadn’t seen one before, I had encountered Bidets in 1961 when I went and watched 3 stages of The Tour de France. As I was an electrician, the wiring shook me in the toilets, no door handle just a sliding bolt to close the door, only thing was, one wire went to the bolt and another wire to the fastening catch, slide the bolt and the light came on. It meant that the bolt and its fastening were very much LIVE.

A club rider took us to restaurants and cafes to get us feed and took us for rides about the area, the cafes were a bit crude, the toilets were holes in the floor with two footprints on where to place your feet. While we were riding around two things happened, one people would call out BAA BAA, it was Maurices beard, now there are a lot of bearded cyclists, then none. The other thing we kept getting, was there were a lot of mopeds about and as they passed, they would offer their back wheel to give us pace. Our club rider (I never found out his name) informed us that there was only one race that weekend and it was one of the selection races for the Tour de L’Avenir.

The race was in Puteux 80km, 4k lap, 20 laps. 1k up smooth tarmac, the finish would be at the top of this hill, with fast bends at the top with polished cobbles, 1k down rough cobbles at the bottom leading into a sharp narrow 90-degree bend and a very narrow-cobbled road, the rest was flat back to the start. At the signing on as in this country you hand over your licence, Maurice only had a CTC membership card, which he handed over, alongside the signing on official was a chap typing a stencil of the riders names, he printed out the start list of all the riders and was handing them out to the press and public. There were 115 riders, we were used to a maximum of 40. We were all called to the start in club and nation order, so when the race started we were near the front. The start was a rush up the hill and a mad rush down the hill to the narrow bend, it was so tight, the rider on my left lent on me, I lent on the rider to my right and round the bend we went, I never touched my brakes and of to the start of the next lap, after a few laps of this, I realised I was getting shoved back. So I put the pressure on up the hill to keep my place near the front. Maurice and Martin didn’t last long as they said the road was so rough it was shaking everything on their bikes loose, as to John tummy trouble so he said. Lynn dropped out about the time I crashed. On the fourteenth lap six riders made a gap, I went after them up the hill and on the fifteenth lap, over the top there was a bend, which I took much to fast, bang crash that was it, bent wheel when riders behind me rode over my back the wheel broken spokes and bent rim meant. End of race.

Now because we were racing, we missed our coach. M Segard our D.S. grabbed a motorcycle policeman, put me and my bike in his car. Police motorcycle up front, blue light flashing, M Sager car followed by Lynn, Martin and Maurice on their bikes took off, though red traffic lights, overtaking traffic to the Gare d Nore train station, bundling us onto the train, which left as we got on. On the trip to the port we passed our coach, and were able to wave to them. Meeting them to get on the boat together, our bikes were left behind in the rush. We got them back a week later.

Bob French