Total novice wins club 25 shock!

the ferry

Read a lovely story the other day:
Graham Webb (top cyclist from few years back) turns up at his local club as a shy 16yr old with heavy bike, cut off jeans and plimsoles. Enters the club 25 hardly knowing what he's doing and proceeds to beat the lot!

Q~Is this usual? Riders destined for greater things turn up at clubs and straightaway are head and shoulders above the rest of us?

BeaconRuth

the ferry wrote:

Graham Webb (top cyclist from few years back)............

You mean Graham Webb, 1967 World Amateur Road Race Champion? Yeah, I suppose you could call him a 'top cyclist'!

Maybe the answer to your question lies in another question: How often do we as a nation produce World Champion road cyclists?

Ruth

Anonymous

Not very often.
Rubbish coaches?

CM92S4E

You can't say we have rubbish coaches. They're obviously doing well on the track, as always, but have (until recently) always turned a bit of a blind eye to road racers.

drenkrom

Producing champions is in no way a result of good or bad coaches. It's a statistical thing. The more people do an activity, the higher the likelihood of the great talent doing that activity. The classic example is that there must have been many people as gifted for music as Mozart who simply never touched a musical instrument and were never immersed in the context where they'd discover that gift. There must've been many Brits capable of winning the Worlds, only very few of them ever raced bikes to discover their potential.

I'm sure we'd produce loads of great cyclists in Canada if they didn't all go and play hockey.

Graham Webb

the ferry wrote:

Read a lovely story the other day:
Graham Webb (top cyclist from few years back) turns up at his local club as a shy 16yr old with heavy bike, cut off jeans and plimsoles. Enters the club 25 hardly knowing what he's doing and proceeds to beat the lot!

Q~Is this usual? Riders destined for greater things turn up at clubs and straightaway are head and shoulders above the rest of us?

Ferry,

Is this the story? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Webb

Cycling coaches have very little to do in a riders success, if they (the coaches) don't have the raw material (born champions) to work with then they wont succeed no matter how hard they try.

Michuel

The clustering of a country's top riders together would indicate that the sports environment (competition, coaches, infrastructure, reward/risk conditions) asffect poerformance more than just genetic statistical chance.

For example Luxembourg's Andy, Frans Schlect, Kim Kirchen now, Coppi, Bartali in 45/50s, Simpson/Hoban/Denson in the 60's, Yates,Doyle in the 70's, Kelly, Roche, Earley in 80's, Boardma,Obree in 90's. And remember the year Graham Webb won Worlds Road Beryl Burton won Womens Road.

There are long-term trends also GB have been tops or near tops in pursuit since 50s. Coaching skill and other support mechanisms must play a large part in this.

the ferry

.....if that's you Mr. Webb it's an honour to have you reply to my post.
I actually read it in a book about British racing cycle history called 'This island race' which is an excellent book imo.
Hope you are keeping well - i wll mention this to fellow Ferryhill Wheeler Bryan Bliss who i know has met you several times.

The story is a good one, i mentioned it to a top kickboxer at work who said it never happens that way in martial arts.

Graham Webb

Michuel wrote:

The clustering of a country's top riders together would indicate that the sports environment (competition, coaches, infrastructure, reward/risk conditions) asffect poerformance more than just genetic statistical chance.

This 'clustering' is on the track where only about three countries take any real interest in, plus there are pleanty of medals up for grabs. You don't have to be good at maths to work out why so much has been done for the track riders and so little for the road race, there is only one gold on the road. I'm not blaming anyone for this, It's only logical, but if all the worlds best put their efforts into the track then those with natural talent would shine above the rest.

Burton & Webb (me) won gold without money or coaches, in fact the BCF road team manager said of me 'I don't want no trackie in my road team', I got in anyway, the rest is history.

Graham Webb

the ferry wrote:

.....if that's you Mr. Webb it's an honour to have you reply to my post.
I actually read it in a book about British racing cycle history called 'This island race' which is an excellent book imo.
Hope you are keeping well - i wll mention this to fellow Ferryhill Wheeler Bryan Bliss who i know has met you several times.

Ferry, yes It's me, thank you for your words and I'm not doing too bad now after blowing my aorta up while out training two years ago! Two major ops later I'm still alive and kicking.

Give my regards to Bryan. Graham.

Michuel

Hi Graham

Thanks for replying and glad you're well after your past hospitalisations. I hope you can back to racing which you've done for so long unlike other riders who retire. There's been a constant stream of news about you for the last decade or so of your racing etc in partic from the London guys who go to the Gent 6.

As an outsider I remember the problems you had with British selectors in 60's and the immense trouble you went through in having to win selection races.

I was lucky in seeing you win on the Sunday in Heerland. I was walking to the finish on the autoroute lucking behind for the riders and you flashed past. Maybe a minute or so later the others came. But the Brits had good riders then - Peyter Buckley? A few years later Kuiper did "a Webb" on de Vlaemenck at Rennes. De Vlaemenck was so annoyed he threw his flowers away in disgust, he may net even have mouinted the podium.

The next day I saw Merckx, Motta, Janssen, Saez and the bunch in a rough sprint finish.

Thans for racing so hard.

peanut

Graham Webb wrote:

I'm not doing too bad now after blowing my aorta up while out training two years ago! Two major ops later I'm still alive and kicking.

.

Glad to hear it. Your survival was no doubt due to your strong heart. My Father survived the same recently and the Surgeon came round the ward after the 7 hour op to say how rare it was that anyone survived a burst aorta.

Have you written an autobiography ? if not you really should. Your story is a real inspiration . Maybe it would be filmed like Graham Obree

Graham Webb

peanut wrote:

Have you written an autobiography ? if not you really should. Your story is a real inspiration . Maybe it would be filmed like Graham Obree

Peanut,

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one to have survived this, here in Belgium at the University Hospital they know of no one that survived what I had, and I've found that I have given a lot of people more courage to face their misfortunes. I asked the surgeons if it was through cycling and they said 'no, it is only through your cycling that you've survived it all' (I'll try and past a bit on here that I wrote it has given so many hope).

Funny that you mentioned an autobiography, there is a campaign going on at the moment, trying to get me to write one, from total strangers that only know me in cyber space!

« Reply #11 on: December 14, 2006, 01:09:34 AM »

Well Roy this seems preordained forcing me to tell my little story. I am afraid, but not drunk, afraid that someone thinks that I am losing it, or them (marbles that is) and afraid that telling this is my purpose in life. Meaning that once told I am no longer needed.

First of all I am in no way religious and certainly don't believe in God or the church. Yet I have always had the feeling that something or someone has been watching over me. I should have been dead at least a dozen times from illness and accidents. My most amazing experience, and just one of many, as kid was falling off a very high fairground attraction onto a pile of broken wine bottles, from the gypsy winos. Though I fell from a great height I floated down and landed on my hands and knees in a mass of broken glass, I scrambled away without a single mark or scratch on my body!

I will have to keep this short; I had my latest ordeal in May 2005 was a split aorta while out training on my bike. Normally with this you just drop dead, I did and saw the white light. If by a million to one chance make it alive to the operating table you die during the operation. If you survive all this then you are likely to be a vegetable. Now as fate has it I survived but it all went wrong in April 2006 and they had to replace most of my aorta again and fit a titanium heart valve to replace my heart valve, they had destroyed my aorta valve during the first op! Before the operation they had packed me in ice and brought my body temperature down to some 12° C. After a seven hour op and long coma I awoke in the intensive care unit this time with severe pneumonia from the under cooling.

Because of all the water on my lungs they had to shove a tube down my nose into my lungs and suck all the water out, this several times a day. Sucking the water out also sucked all the air out of my lungs, it was like being strangled to death. Because I fought against this 'murder attempt' they had to tie me down, hand and foot. I was fighting for my life! Now at the height of my struggle, just a inch from death, I opened my eyes and lying next to me was a Pixie. It, in the form of a 12 year old child with no fixed gender, was lying perfectly still next to me with it's hands on it's chest apparently sleeping. I closed my eyes and thought "if you can lye perfectly still at a time like this, then so can I". 'It' saved my life. A sort of calmness came over me and I took another look, but it had gone. Now I don't think that I was supposed to see what I did see, I think I caught it napping on the job. I hope it doesn't get the sack! If it does I hope they send a replacement.

I have told this story to a perfect stranger in America that I met on eBay. Now it turned out that this guy, Michael Bauman, is a lifetime professor of theology at university in the states. He said that I had seen something that not many people have ever seen, that is my own guardian angel. Now I am honoured but can't recommend getting into the state I was in just to see your guardian angel.

The morel is, they do exist, they are not angels or ghosts but they are real and they watch over us. Have I survived for good or bad reasons? Only time will tell, sorry but instant death would have been a blessing. I just wonder what life has in store for me next time!

Graham.

Hope this helps, it has helped so many this year.

Graham Webb

Michuel,

Thanks for the great posting! How memory can play tricks on us, at Heerlen I won by three seconds. I stood on the pedals with two miles to go and no one else could follow. De Vlaeminck and J.P. Monsere were 7th and 10th, it was Monsere that did a 'Webb' at Leicester in 1970, he witnessed my 'take off' first hand at Heerlen and emulated it. De Vlaeminck is a pain, he still goes on about that day in 1967. The last time he started I said "you wasn't good enough" he turned his back on me nd refused to talk anymore. I nearly split myself laughing. In the 80's he put on a TT for charity, inviting all the greats of the earth, I won beating him by 15 secs, he nearly went mad as he had never stopped training! As I say a real pain and getting worse in old age.

I still see Merckx, Motta and Jan Janssen.

Regards, Graham.

peanut

that is the most amazing story Graham.!
Thank you for sharing it with us.

I too have once seen that white light. All my senses shut down I couldn't hear or feel anything and wasn't aware of my physical body just my mind . Last to go was my peripheral sight which narrowed down until all I could see was this bright white pin prick of light in a sea of blackness

I became acutly aware that I had a choice to either let go and embrace the light or fight it and moments later I was back in my body.
I was so scared I had to spend the night with neighbours and I was in a sort of limbo for 2 weeks after that until one day I started to hear birdsong and came back to full conciousness.?

Like you I have survived the most amazing accidents and events where I should have perished and have always been acutely aware that something is `watching over me' ?guiding me
I can't explain it but I feel I am `destined ' to do something worthwhile with my life but I have wasted it so far. I hope whatever it is it happens soon before I'm too old to achieve it.

nwallace

drenkrom wrote:

I'm sure we'd produce loads of great cyclists in Canada if they didn't all go and play hockey.

I got trapped in a monlogueous discussion with a colleague (I asked about the article about the NHS Tayside prediction on the cost of diabetes per annum in 10 years time (£500 million) in the paper) Apparently in Finland their approach to obesity has been to ban the school bus, make school a lock in (i.e. you can only eat what is there at lunch, break) and provided cross country skis.

This clearly has nothing to do with reducing Obesity, Diabetes, Heart Disease and Stroke (The big 3 killers) and everything to do with getting one over Norway at the Olympic games.

Captain Fagor

Until reading this thread, I have to admit I was ignorant of Graham Webb and his achievements. My excuse is that I only started following cycling in about 1983 / 1984 due to Robert Millar.

However, Graham - if you were to write an autobiography, I would certainly buy it. Given the incredible life experiences and your ability to describe them, I'm sure it would be a good read!

Yours in admiration.

CF

Graham Webb

CF,

Thank you for your kind words. :oops:

I feel a bit compelled to publish my life as I get so many requests along those lines. I love writing and have done so most of my life, I've always had this urge to put everthing down on paper, not with the intention of publishing, but as a record of my life for my kids and grand kids. It would be a big job to sort it all out and get it into some kind of order, i'll think about it.

CF, I don't know how old you are but don't feel uncomfortable about not knowing my name, when I was young I too knew nothing about cycling or past cycling champions.

Graham.

bluntandy

I can't say i've had a near death experience or looked at the white light and decided to come back but, last summer my guardian angel gave me a quick wink.
i suppose i should mention that i'm not religious or partiularly spiritual (that's how all these tale start isn't it) anyway.
Last summer i was heading out for a midweek ride (i live in london) which involves half an hour of dodging through traffic to get to a decent ride. As i was about 10 minutes from my house a guy on another bike pulled in front of me. I took perticular notice of him as he was riding a high end mid nineties mountain bike which is pretty rare. He was cruising along at a decent speed and i thought it would be rude to race past him and get front so i sat 2m behind his wheel for about 2 minutes.
i suppose i should mention that i race triathlons because i was trialing my new piece of kit. A seat mounted bottle holder, which i hoped would help me carry extra fluid on the long bike leg.
No sooner had i started following him i hit a tiny bump in the road and i jettisoned my bottle. A bit annoyed that my new toy was rubbish i pulled over , was overtaken by a lorry and i walked back and picked up the bottle.
By the time i turned round i could see that the lorry had stopped and so had the rest of the traffic.
I put the bottle back and carried on down the road. Behind the lorry was the guy i had been following on the ground, concious and obviously in a great deal of pain and bleeding very heavily with two broken legs.
Within seconds two undercover policemen (who were metres away at the time of the crash) came up and started to administer first aid, the ambulance arrived in what seemed like seconds and i left so as not to hinder there efforts.
later when i spoke to a policewoman on the scene she had heard that the cyclist had not died at that time but was very seriously hurt.

My wife believes that my guardian angel popped that bottle out and saved my life. It could just be a coincidence and i was very fortunate. Or perhaps if i had been behind the other rider the lorry would have given us more space and we would both be ok.
I don't know but i'd like to think that i've been a good person and that someone is watching over me.

Graham Webb

BLUNTANDY,

Thanks for telling your story. At first I didn't like coming out with my story as I knew many would sneer at it, but I found that it helped some people and many came out with similar experiences that they otherwise didn't dare tell until they had read my story. I don't care anymore about those that sneer, if I can help one person in a thousand, then it's worth being sneered at.

The white light has no meaning and I guess everyone sees it before they snuff it, I know I've seen it before now. I think that it is the last drop of oxygen left in the brain, like a pilot light on a boiler. But once the main tank is empty then the pilot light goes out too!

After all the reactions that I have read I don't believe in 'coincidence' or 'luck' anymore. Some say "what about those that get killed, where was their guardian angel?". The truth is I don't think that everyone has one, maybe they don't deserve one. I just don't know the answer.

BTW, since my accident I have done some reasearch to try and find out what I had seen, and I only use the name 'guardian angel' for want of a better word. It is a phenomenon from all times and cultures, thus bearing different names.

oldskoolkool

I personally think great riders are born and not bred,they are born with greater physical abilities than the rest of us and thats why with training they are able to go on and conquer the world.
My personal hero Greg Lemond was world class from a young age,able to keep up with senior pro riders at a young age,winning the world junior road race etc.he had good results as a young pro and came 3rd in his first tour whereas there are other tour "champions" who have poor results when first competing in the tour then miraculously dominate a few years later,now call me cynical but with doping and drug use being seen as common you have to question have they just trained harder or benefitted from drug use.
The greats are great from a young age Mercx,Hinault,Lemond which must be down to their greater natural ability.
I think the afformentioned Graham Webb is an example of great natural ability leading onto greater things and that early time trial as an inexperienced 16yr old showed his talent.