This Is Guernsey

By Rob Batiste

Allan Renyard still getting better in Andover last summer.(0533682)

IT HAS nearly cost him his life, but you can’t get the cycling out of Allan Renyard’s blood and nor would the Guernsey Velo Club ever want to.

As the club celebrates their 40th anniversary, old Al is the one remaining link not only with the launch in the spring of 1968 but also the club that preceded it.

Cycling would simply not be the same without him.

But, relax, even at 65 he’s not about to take his bike apart and hang up his clips.

In fact, he’s getting better and about to broaden his competitive horizons by tackling the UK veterans’ scene full on with up to a dozen UK time-trials this summer.

But he bridles at the description of fanatic. Not any longer, he says.

‘I certainly was a fanatical rider at one point, but not now.

‘I’m not as stubborn as I was. I won’t go out anymore in 50mph winds or when there is ice on the roads.’

Note that he doesn’t say anything about riding everywhere in heavy rain, light or dark.

His love for the sport stems right back to the late 1950s.

‘I was delivering papers in the Vale Road when I saw a group of riders coming over St Clair Hill. Immediately, I thought that looked good fun.’

That was 1958. In 1963 he left for London and in 1964 competitive cycling in Guernsey crashed.

The racing secretary of the Guernsey Cycling Club blew all the funds on prizes and it was forced into liquidation.

But Renyard’s transfer to London with the General Post Office saw his love for cycling cemented.

‘I had four years of racing over there. I did it all on a shoestring, while trying to be a husband and a father.

‘In fact, until recently I’ve always raced on a shoestring.’

But by the late sixties he was back in the island and was keen to get pedalling again and not only to get from A to B.

In 1968, he was one of six founding members of the Velo Club and he was to win their first event and many more in those early days to which he looks back with much fondness.

‘They were fun. Obviously, I was the only experienced rider at the time. I’d been racing in the UK and was winning the races by half a leg. I didn’t have to try very hard.’

But that dominance did not last too long and by 1970, Steve Guilbert took some catching and both he, Al Harvey, Hagan Ferbrache and Renyard were heading to Edinburgh as part of the first Guernsey team to attend a Commonwealth Games.

‘It was fantastic, absolutely fantastic,’ recalled Renyard.

‘If Guernsey sportsmen and women can get there [to the Commonwealths] to compete, I think it will have a positive affect on their life for years.

‘There we were rubbing shoulders with the likes of David Hemery and Precious McKenzie.

‘We knew we were on a hiding. We knew we’d get a good kicking and we did.’

The main road race was held over 31 laps of a tough circuit and in torrential rain.

‘I managed to stay with the main group for two laps. I was lapped on 15 and 22 and the rules of the event were that if you were lapped twice, you were out.’

Nevertheless, he fared better than Guilbert and Ferbrache, while poor Harvey did not even get to the start line having crashed in practice.

‘I think we’d overtrained. That was part of our problem.

‘At the time we were staging 100-mile races.

‘But there’s no incentive to go out and train for three or four hours at a time in Guernsey.’

Competition 40 years on is vastly different and so much more scientific, he says.

‘There have been massive changes in technology. When I started we were running on four and five Disraeli gears and now it’s up to 10. Everything clicks in from gear to gear. The gear changing now is marvellous and the brakes so much better.’

In addition, bikes are lighter and cheaper.

‘I’ve built three bikes in the last year. Each one has been a bit better and cheaper.’

The grandfather of local racing says it is now possible to build a very good time-trailing bike for £2,500; ‘something good enough for the Tour de France.

‘The frame I ride is identical to the bike that was first and second in last year’s Tour de France time-trial.’

Renyard is also cleverer with his training.

‘I now use a training system which is very effective.’

It’s called powercranks.

‘Basically, it is a different bike to those on which riders compete. You learn to pedal a complete circle. In doing so you improve your power.

‘Manufacturers claim a two to three miles per hour improvement on them. But it hurts.

‘It’s generally accepted that two hours on powercranks is similar to six on a normal bike. You don’t race on them.’

In the same way it has played a key part in the success of Ann Bowditch, it’s done the trick for the old guy who is revelling in his sudden improvement.

‘I’m delighted.

‘I’ve rewritten my PBs for five, 10, 15, 25 and 50-mile time-trials.

‘Last year in Andover, I did a 22-46 for 10 miles which equates to 26 and a third mph.

‘It motivates you if you are able to do well. Also, I’m quite competitive in my age-category in the UK. I think I can squeeze a top five place in the 65-9 age-group this year.’

Has he ever thought about packing it in?

‘Once or twice.

‘When Tom Simpson died in the Tour de France in 1967, that nearly finished me. He was a hero of mine. It hurt a lot of people.’

One of the ‘innumerable’ crashes also nearly put paid to his career.

‘I’ve had three nasties I suppose. The one in 74 I went over a large dog at L’Eree. I came down on my head and had major concussion. I had two weeks off work. It was frightening and I didn’t train again for eight years.’

But he has never missed a whole season.

A spill at the bottom of the ‘Terres’ in 2002 brought him a broken femur but no crash was more spectacular than the one he had at the 2006 Duo   Normand. This time he went through the back of a stationary car and suffered multiple abrasions and stitches. His bike was broken in half.

The crashes have taught him one thing.

‘I’ve learned to be alert at all times. You’ve got to be.’

Certainly racing in Guernsey has never been as problematical as it is now, with roads being closed for long periods and often so many at the same time.

This year the long-term closure of Les Sages has thrown a spanner in the club’s event schedule and it’s all a far cry from the days when they were able to spread themselves across the finish line in a mass sprint at the North Plantation.

And with traffic lights at Les Banques, another old event – the Liberation sprint event (1.5 miles) from Richmond Corner to the Royal – has fallen by the wayside.

It will take more than a few road closures, prangs and disgruntled car drivers, to stop this man. He’s still in love with his sport and after two stints as club president this year he’s turning his hand to the vital role of race secretary.

All’s well in the Velo Club, he reports.

‘We’re constantly picking up good riders.

‘For the size of the island we’ve got as big cycling club. I’ve just sent out 150 renewals. That’s fantastic.

‘The club is in better shape than ever. It’s strong.’

Much of that is down to you, mate.