- 12 Nov 08, 11:49 AM
Would you be surprised to learn that Chris Hoy's bike broke two days before the start of Olympic competition in Beijing? Thought so. Chris Boardman made the revelation in his presentation to UK Sport's annual World Class Coaching conference this week.
The story's a remarkable tale of ingenuity, bush mechanics at its finest. As you know, it had a golden ending. Well, several. It goes a bit like this:
The big man's bike is making the kind of noise at the velodrome that makes everyone stop what they're doing and look. If it was your car, you'd be thinking "expensive". The problem's to do with the pedal crank, the engine house if you like, and it's not happy. A metal on metal grinding, rather than nicely lubricated efficiency.
Equipment guru Boardman was working with BBC Radio 5 Live at the time but didn't have accreditation to be with the British team. He thought he wouldn't be much use to them and, given there was great pressure on the number of accreditations each team was allowed, felt it better if his ticket went to someone else.
As it happened, the bike's builder, a Greek, wasn't in Beijing either. So Boardman gets a call from Dave Brailsford, GB's legendary performance director, and asked to (nervous swallow) "do what he can".
Boardman jumps into action, transforming his mobile telephone into a webcam and getting online. With the Greek bike builder, who is on an island somewhere, sat in front of a computer, Boardman is able to show him images of the problem areas. A diagnosis is quickly made and a solution found. Brailsford needs to get hold of some special glue that has to be heated to 70 Celsius before application.
Cue a desperate, but ultimately successful, search around the city for the said glue. Now there's just the matter of getting the temperature right without an accurate thermometer. Using a hairdryer, they heat it all up and, several singed fingers later, the repair's carried out: The rest is history.
Boardman's take from all of this? "Get accredited, 'cos you never know what may happen." God is in the details...
About this blog
Links to the blogs of all the contributors can be found below.
Subscribe to BBC Sport: Olympics blog
You can stay up to date with BBC Sport: Olympics blog via these feeds.
BBC Sport: Olympics blog Feed(RSS)
BBC Sport: Olympics blog Feed(ATOM)
If you aren't sure what RSS is you'll find our beginner's guide to RSS useful.
Olympics headlines
Visit the BBC Sport website
Visit the Olympics index
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
he won on a bike stuck together with glue... man mountain!
Complain about this comment
This is quality. After all the whingeing that Bernard Laporte did about us so unfairly winning all those gold medals because we spent more money on preparation than the French, it seems we can still win on a bike stuck together with glue.
Complain about this comment
Is someone pushing for Hoy to get SPOTY because of a dodgy bike?!
Complain about this comment
Don't they take spare bikes? I would expect that such a well-prepared and well-funded team would take at least 2 bikes for each competitor.
Complain about this comment
2012 with sellotape - bring it on!
Complain about this comment
The Blue Peter Olympics!!!!!!
All we need is a yogurt pot and some sticky back plastic, and away we go!
Complain about this comment
Next time by a back up!!!!
Complain about this comment
i have heard of the magic spounge, never the magic glue!
classic!!!
Complain about this comment
Next GB cycle team to be sponsored by SuperGlue
Complain about this comment
Well it's an amusing story although seeing that the Olympics are quite old now it's taken a while to come out and then in common with many BBC blogs seems to have been cobbled together in a hurry. The Beeb should know that it's our job as providers of random comments to apply the old superglue and hairdryer treatment and hope for the best.
Today's spin around the track: what does "Boardman's take from all of this" mean? Maybe the author was attempting the American colloquialism 'take on all this' that's to say 'opinion of' , which in the American tradition of making anything colloquial formally acceptable the time-pressed hacks of British journalism have turned into standard English, but then it seems to have collided with the more traditional 'take from all this' as in a lesson learnt? If that had happened on the track there would have been nasty skin burns all round. Tsk!
Complain about this comment
"mobile telephone?" You make it sound like it's something he keeps in the top drawer of the sideboard...
I think you will find 99.9% of the English speaking world call it a "mobile" or a "mobile phone".
Complain about this comment
I think Graham Obree (another Scot) made his bike from an old washing machine;
so I suppose he's just following up on a fine British tradition of ingenuity (in the face of adversity?).
Complain about this comment
so I suppose he's just following up on a fine British tradition of ingenuity (in the face of adversity?)
****************************
no, it's one of the other traits, p*** poor planning or lack of backing by the govt
Complain about this comment
"All we need is a yogurt pot and some sticky back plastic, and away we go!"
We all may laugh but that is what some of the Olympic venues will need if the recession bites deep.
Complain about this comment
Funny, Hoy never struck me before as being stuck up! Anyway, my last bike was glued together ------ I think it was called brazing.
Complain about this comment
It's a carbon bike. It's a mix of carbon fibres and glue anyway. What did you expect them to do with it? Weld it?
Complain about this comment
Have to agree with BVIshudd, Laporte whingeing about our superior funds, surely even the French had enough money to buy superglue !
Chris Hoy - what a legend !
Complain about this comment
I won a few races on a bike stuck together with glue in the 1980's, a Vitus 979! It's still in my shed, bless it.
he won on a bike stuck together with glue... man mountain!
Complain about this comment
Even if he carried two bikes, he'd want to have his favourite machine repaired for use. Sometimes a bike takes on more than just its physical identity..a soul, if you like.
for the record, Obree's bike just used the bearing from a washing machine because that allowed for a narrow bottom bracket. oh, and one of the crank arms was a scavenged piece of roadside metal, apaprently. there was also some reynolds tubing used on the bike.
When Obree tried to challenge Moser's hour record, he did not use this machine and instead used the one made specifically for the event by the man who made Boardman's own 'lotus' bike. unfortunately, he failed at the first attempt and then used his 'old faithful' bike to finally break the record the next day..
this all goes to show that the way one feels about a bike makes a difference to how one performs on it. i would think that Hoy would have moved heaven and earth before using a spare machine. then again, he might not have cared...
what does it matter though? things like this happen to riders at every big event. the Beeb are just trying to make it seem out of the ordinary when it really is not..
Complain about this comment
"Using a hairdryer, they heat it all up and, several singed fingers later, the repair's carried out: The rest is history."
In other words: they MacGyvered it.
Serious modification would've been to repair it so well that the bike was also capable of firing cabbages with an accurate range of 50 yards...
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS