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f1 · 2 years

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Magnussen says damage which triggered black-and-orange flag was nothing | RaceFans Round-up

In the round-up: Kevin Magnussen believes there was no need for the race director to force him to pit for repairs to his car during the Canadian Grand Prix. In brief Being forced to pit for damage unnecessary, says Magnussen Following minor contact with Lewis Hamilton in the opening laps of the Canadian Grand Prix, Magnussen was shown the black-and-orange flag, instructing him to pit to repair front wing damage. Having run in fifth place initially, he failed to return to the points-paying positions after the early pit stop. “We were forced to pit with the damage we had but it was nothing,” Magnussen said after the race. “The car was perfect to drive, there was no effect on the car. This is normal, you’ve got to be able to finish the race with some scratches on your car.” A Virtual Safety Car period soon after he pitted cemented his position at the back of the field. “We could’ve got back in, but we were forced to pit and then there was a Virtual Safety Car and then everyone else pitted,” he said. “It’s frustrating – it’s now four races or something where we haven’t scored points, so we want to get into the points again.” FREC driver escapes horror crash at Zandvoort Pietro Delli Guanti escaped injury after a horrifying crash during the Formula Regional European Championship race at Zandvoort on Sunday, in which his car was launched over a barrier. Delli Guanti tangled with Esteban Masson at Hugenholtzboch. His car cleared the tyre barrier at the inside of the corner and landed on the grass near a marshalling post. The race was swiftly red-flagged. Following the crash Delli Guanti was able to walk to the medical centre, where he was found to be in good condition. The stewards ruled the collision was a racing incident. “Car 55 [Delli Guanti] went wide at the exit of turn one and lost speed. Car nine [Masson] came alongside him and contact was made. “After hearing both parties and reviewing the onboard cameras, the stewards found that no driver was predominantly to blame. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.” Ricciardo wearing mask to ‘take extra precaution’ Daniel Ricciardo, one of few F1 drivers still wearing a mask in the paddock, said he is being extra-cautious after contracting Covid-19 and missing the second pre-season test this year, he had no current health concerns but was being extra careful. “I just don’t like people,” he joked, at first. “No, I’m alright. It’s more just honestly, a bit of jetlag and lack of sleep coming from Baku so naturally just feel a little bit low energy and probably just taking extra caution. But no, I’m fine. “I’ve seen some people wear it and then that makes me put it on because I’m also like, ‘are you wearing it because you’re not well?’ So I’m kind of taking precautions over people who are probably just taking precautions. But other than a little bit of sleep deprivation, I’m ok.” Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Happy birthday! Happy birthday to Julie, M744All and Erivaldo Moreira! On this day in motorsport On this day in 1987 Ayrton Senna put his Lotus on pole position at Detroit. Newsletter Get the best of our motorsport coverage after every F1 race in your inbox – sign up for the free RaceFans email Newsletter: via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net

#F1 #Magnussen says damage which triggered black-and-orange flag “was nothing” | RaceFans Round-up #Formula 1

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mobiletyreservicemelbournem · 3 years

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Afterpay tyres - Tyre shop open Sunday

Afterpay tyres - Tyre shop open Sunday

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Tyre repairs near me - Tyre service near me

#Tyre service near me

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lindoig8 · 3 years

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Sunday to Thursday, 8-12 August

Sunday

We packed up at leisure and got all set to go (the couple in the other car left fairly early) but before we left, we went for a walk back to the river where I had walked last night. Less birds today, but a bunch of young cattle were there. They were not at all perturbed to see us there and continued munching on the grass and leaves when we walked among them. Any other place we have been near cattle, they have skedaddled away as soon as we have got anywhere near them, but we were within a metre or two of several cows today without interrupting their breakfast. It was very peaceful.

The rest of the trip to Gemtree was uneventful. They have sealed at least another 20 kilometres of the road since we were here in May and have another 30 kilometres almost ready to seal – so we had a couple of long detours off the main road – but all on excellent gravel.

We really like Gemtree and have booked in here for four nights: the last one of which is Wednesday when they put on the Camp Roast so we have booked in for that too. We got set up just a couple of sites east of where we were a couple of months ago.

We downloaded a heap of email as we passed Reception – the only place near here with a signal – so we looked at that over a cuppa and started on a shopping list. We are going in to Alice on Tuesday to do some shopping and so that Heather can have her hair cut and legs waxed. We probably won’t get another chance to do much shopping until we reach Kununurra in almost 2 weeks’ time and well over 1000 kilometres away. We will take the opportunity of filling up with fuel at about a dollar per litre cheaper than the last few (and probably next few) fills and we need to get our puncture fixed too.

I went for a walk in the bush around the camping area and saw quite a few birds, but none that we haven’t seen regularly around here before.

We caught up with Anne-Marie and family by phone over dinner and watched a fairly dark DVD - one of the ones we picked up in Boulia.

Monday

We did a load of washing straight after breakfast and ordered one of Gemtree’s sensational meat pies for lunch. I mentioned them when we were here before. They are great, but you have to claim them early because they are always sold out by mid-morning at the latest – so we ordered it early so they would hold it for our lunch.

Once the washing was on the line, we walked up to the shop and sat outside to pay some bills, answer some emails and do a few other tasks online. We ordered some hot chips to go with our pie and when they were delivered, we walked back to the van to enjoy a great early ‘pie and chips’ lunch. Of course, we could have stayed in the van and ordered our lunch if we had wanted – they provide free ‘room service’ by quadbike.

After lunch, I went back to the shop and spent another hour or two on my PC and was just walking back to the van as Heather was walking down to post some of her FB and blog material. While she did that, I drove out to the nearby dry riverbed to collect some firewood and then did a big clean and reorganisation of the inside of the car.

I then headed back towards the shop, only to find Heather on her way back – and Happy Hour almost imminent.

We lit a fire and spent an hour or two enjoying it before roasting a big piece of pork in our double sided frying pan – and Heather prepared some more bread to cook on the coals of our fire. In the interim, I had spied a few birds in the trees around us and added one species to our trip list and to the Gemtree bird-list I had created for them last time we were here. It really surprised me - it was a Grey Fantail and they are pretty common, so I was amazed that we had not seen any earlier in our trip.

Tuesday

It was a really big day today – nearly 14 hours on the go without pause. Of course, 3½ hours was just driving, not entirely without challenge, particularly the first and last half of the trips to and from Alice Springs. We just zapped in, did what we had to and came home again – but that was still over 300 kilometres.

We were on the road just after 9am and the most notable feature of the drive into Alice was the number of budgerigars we saw. I reckon at least one flock of them passed in front of us every hundred metres or so for the first 100 kilometres. The flocks ranged from the occasional 8 through the more common 40-50 to the not infrequent 2-400. I haven’t done the sums, but I reckon we saw tens of thousands of them within about an hour. On our way home again, however, most of the trip was in the dark so we only saw a few hundred close to Alice.

Heather had appointments for a leg wax and a haircut and I had to arrange to have the puncture in our car tyre fixed. It turned out to be a stick or something similar that had penetrated the crown of the tread and pulled out again but left us with a slow leak. Fortunately, even though we pulled into the tyre repair place 15 minutes before they closed for the day, they kept the place open and fixed the tyre for only $30. Due to a funny set of circumstances, the strange NT liquor licencing laws and because we were tied to a schedule, we had 2 trips to Coles for groceries, 2 trips to Liquorland for booze, 2 trips to the servo for fuel, 2 trips to (two different Milners) for alligator, camel and goat meat and fish – but only one trip to Bunnings. We seemed to be racing from one part of the Alice to another trying to beat a deadline almost all day.

We bought a pie for dinner at our last stop at the servo, but had purchased a huge inventory of food and drink to tide us over for the next 2 weeks and although we were back at the van at 8.15, it took us until almost 10pm to put the perishables away – all the rest had to wait until tomorrow!

Wednesday

It was a wild, wild night and I had to get up at 2am to wind the awning in – otherwise, we might well have finished the night in a tree several kilometres away. It certainly was wild. (And a week later, we are still being buffeted by unseasonal winds for at least some parts of every day.)

We were up early to go fossicking for zircons. We arrived at the shop at 8am to be allocated our tools and to get segregated into the garneteers and zirconians – and there were just three couples in our contingent. It was only 17 kilometres to the zircon field and our guide gave us a demo of how to do it – and scored himself as much zircon in his few minutes of work as the rest of us combined all morning. The opposite of beginners’ luck!

It was really hard work in very hot conditions but we toiled away for a couple of hours or so before needing a break. We got a few small zircons and a lot of apetite – a softer, yellow form of stone that our guide reckons is rubbish. To us, they were all treasures and once we were back in the Gem Room, the assessment of our zircons was that at least 3 were cuttable (3-mm earing-type gems) and one was a possible 4-mm stone. We have a few other smaller ones and at least one bigger one that is not cuttable due to internal fracturing. We have no interest in cutting them – they are just tiny souvenirs for us. To us, the value of these keepsakes or mementos far exceeds any value they might have as jewellery.

The fossicking field is adjacent to a former mica mine and we walked over the levy to see the huge pit and resultant lake that sustains many thousands of birds. It was quite noisy inside the crater due to the huge flocks of birds whooshing past us every few seconds. The water obviously is the drawcard, but there must be plenty for them to eat too judging by the huge number of birds around.

After lunch, Heather cleaned all the windows in the van and hand-washed most of the curtains – that lightened the caravan by about 10 kilos of red dust! I collected some more firewood and cleaned a bit more crap out of the car. We also did a significant (major) reorganisation of car and van to give us more room and make some things more accessible – all of which occupied most of the afternoon.

Heather cut my hair during the afternoon and we both showered and changed before dinner because it was Camp Roast night and we had booked for that. It turned out to be a really great night. People sit 10-to-a-table (round tables) and we were just lucky to have a great bunch of dining companions. We probably contributed more to the conversation than at any social event I can recall, but it was a very comfortable, engaging and entertaining evening.

Thursday

It was noon by the time we got away. On our way out, we stopped in at the shop to have a chat with one of the owners. His partner had a serious heart attack the previous night and had had to go to Alice Springs by ambulance and then to Adelaide by Flying Doctor and we wanted to hear how he was going and to pass on our best to them. We have become quite friendly with them (and some of the other park managers along the track) and we sincerely hope Steve recovers quickly and well. (I also had to explain that I was going to email them an updated bird-list for the park after seeing the Grey Fantail a couple of days earlier.)

It was an uneventful drive today, 70 kilometres west to the Stuart Highway and 250 north to the site of the WWII Barrow Creek Staging Camp (about 40 clicks north of Barrow Creek). There were a few other campers there, but none near us so we set ourselves up, lit a roaring fire and enjoyed Happy Hour outside. I went looking for birds, but saw very few. We were both pretty zonked and I think we were in bed with the lights out by about 8 or 8.30pm.

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bigyack-com · 5 years

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‘Keep talking to me’: Hyderabad vet’s last phone call to sister - india news

The scene changes drastically as you drive off the Hyderabad-Bangalore highway at the Chatanpally crossing. The wide road leads to a narrow path, concrete gives way to mud, and bright lights switch to total darkness. On this zigzagged path, an underpass opens out on to the service road on the other side. Inside this underpass is one of the quietest, darkest, and remotest patches of land on the 285-km route connecting two state capitals. It’s so cut off from the buzz of speeding cars above that it’s unlikely anyone would have noticed someone being set on fire inside it — especially in the middle of the night. And no one did on the intervening night of November 27 and 28.At 5am on November 28, a milkman from Chatanpally village took the underpass on his way to the other side and saw something burning. He dismissed it as a fire lit by someone to keep warm. On his way back, at 7am, the fire was still on. Curious, he went to inspect it and saw a human hand sticking out of the fire. He called up the police on his mobile phone. By then, officers at the Shadnagar police station were already looking for a missing person for a few hours.A 26-year-old veterinary doctor in a southern suburb of Hyderabad left her house at 5.30pm the previous day. The last time her family heard from her was at 9. 22pm when she called her sister from a toll plaza on the Bangalore-Hyderabad highway, and told her that she was feeling scared. She said her scooter had a puncture and a bunch of men had offered to help, but she was feeling uncomfortable around them. “Keep talking to me,” she told her sister a few minutes before disconnecting the call. When her sister rang her back on her mobile phone at 9. 45pm, she found it switched off. Her sister rushed to file a complaint at the nearest police station at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport police station, but she was told by the officers on duty that the toll plaza didn’t fall in their jurisdiction. The family claims they were told that she may have just “eloped with a boyfriend” and also asked whether she had any “lovers or affairs”.At 3.10am, the family finally managed to register a missing-person complaint at Shadnagar police station. These were crucial hours as the police would discover later: between 9.45 and 10.30pm, the woman was gang-raped and murdered a few metres off the Nehru-ORR toll plaza. The crimes were allegedly plotted hours previously. At 6pm, when the 26-year-old drove to the toll plaza from her house, 10km away, to park her scooter and hail a shared taxi farther into the city, a common practice for residents in the suburb, she didn’t notice four young men sitting in a circle and sharing a bottle of whiskey. As the police later pieced together, the four men, Mohammed Arif (26), Jolly Shiva (20), Jollu Naveen (20) and Chenna Keshavalu (21), worked as drivers and cleaners of a lorry that plied between Bangalore and Hyderabad carrying construction material, mainly iron nails and bricks. Somewhere on the route, the police said, they stopped at a scrap shop, sold off a pack of iron nails, and bought four bottles of liquor. They were making their way through the first bottle when they noticed the young woman park her scooter and get into a taxi headed towards Gachibowli, 20km away, where she had an appointment with a dermatologist. One of them punctured her scooter’s tyre shortly after she left. Then they resumed the drinking, and waited for her to return. At 9. 20pm, when she came back and discovered the flat tyre, the leader of the group, Arif, approached her and offered help. Arif walked with her to the toll booth and asked the operator to point them in the direction of a bike repair shop, as the operator, Shonu, told the police. He gave them directions to a repair shop a short distance away, but on the side road leading off the highway. As the vet dragged the scooter with the group of men off the highway, Arif suggested that one of his men proceed to the repair shop while the others wait with her near toll plaza. The remaining three men persuaded her to walk into a dark compound housing an abandoned worker’s room surrounded by overgrown bushes to the left of the plaza. This is when she panicked and called up her sister, but between the time she hung up and her sister called her back, the fourth man had returned, and one of them had seized her mobile phone and turned it off. Then the group was taking turns to rape her, after forcing her to consume some liquor, according to the police report. “They forcibly committed gang rape against her will and consent, robbed her of her belongings, and murdered her by smothering,” said the remand report of the Shadnagar police. By 11pm, the four men allegedly tossed her dead body into their lorry and planned its disposal. While two of them, with Arif at the wheel, drove the lorry towards Bangalore, the other two followed them on the vet’s scooter. They then decided to burn the body.“Shiva and Naveen went to a petrol bunk to purchase petrol but the worker there refused to give petrol,” the report said. It was he who later gave the investigating officers their first breakthrough. On November 29, a worker at an Essar petrol bunk near Nandigama village, called the Shadnagar police after watching the news, and told them that on the midnight of 27/28 November, two men aged around 20 came in on a red Hero Maestro scooter and asked for petrol to be filled in a plastic bottle. “They went to another bunk and purchased petrol to set fire to the body. On the way, near Ashiyana Hotel, they found a bridge and decided to dispose of the body under the bridge,” the report added. “Chenna Keshavulu turned the lorry towards Hyderabad and they took the dead body under the bridge. Arif poured petrol on the body, Naveen poured diesel, and Shiva lit the fire with a match box. Sim card, handbag of the deceased were thrown in the flames … Arif and Keshavulu left the spot in lorry, Shiva and Naveen followed on the scooty. On the way, near Kothur bus stop, Shiva and Naveen parked the scooty and boarded the lorry.” They removed the number plate of the scooter before leaving it behind. Then they went to their villages, changed their clothes, and went to bed. At 7am on November 28, the police station in Shadnagar received information about the burning body. A police team arrived shortly with the father of the missing doctor who took one look at the remains and identified his daughter.SHOCK, ANGERBased on information from the CCTV cameras on the highway and leads from the toll-booth operator, the scooter repair mechanic, the petrol pump workers and the owner of the lorry fleet, the police arrested the four suspects from the neighbouring Narayanpet district hours after the discovery of the dead body. They are currently in a 14-day police remand in Cherlapalli jail just outside Hyderabad.As news travelled, people across India reacted in outrage to the brutal rape and murder of the 26-year-old veterinarian. Many were reminded of the Delhi gang rape in 2012, when a 24-year-old physiotherapy student was raped and murdered in a moving bus by a group of six men, a crime that drove a nationwide movement for women’s rights and a revision of rape laws. In common with the 2012 case, this too was tangled up in gender and class battles; while the victim was a middle-class professional from the city, the perpetrators are blue-collar workers from villages. Protests took place widely, from outside the police station and jail, where the suspects were produced to campuses and streets, from Hyderabad’s Charminar to Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. Near the toll booth where the veterinarian was raped and murdered, 26-year-old protestor Swati Devarakonda, a software developer, said, “ When they said on TV that it was just a few metres away from the toll booth, I couldn’t believe, given that it is busy round-the-clock. Which is why I came to see for myself. She was the same age as me and must have had similar dreams and ambitions. I carry a pepper spray but if four men attack one girl, how can anybody defend themselves? . We should make an example of culprits.”“If our women and children are not safe, what is the use of police and government. Like in Arab countries, publicly behead culprits. This has nothing to do with religion. We should not allow anybody to divide us. If the police, courts can’t handle the culprits, hand them to the public, we will take care,” said Maqdoom Pasha, a fruit seller, who had come to the spot with his wife. Many politicians and ministers in Telangana have visited and consoled the victim’s family. In a series of tweets, KT Rama Rao, minister in state cabinet and son of chief minister K Chandrashekara Rao, pleaded with the Prime Minister: “Hon’ble PM @narenramodi ji, 7 years after Nirbhaya’s ghastly rape and murder, the convicts are not hung…”On Sunday, KCR said that fast track court would ensure speedy justice in the case and that the government would extend all assistance required to the victim’s family. “Everybody comes and tell us justice will be done. What is the use? Will our smiling daughter comeback? After Nirbhaya case too, nothing has changed. That is the tragedy of the country,” said the deceased’s uncle at her building complex. ‘HOW CAN MY SON DO THIS?’Nearly 150km away, in Narayanpet district, the villages are eerily quiet. All four suspects in the case belong to this district. Three of them, Naveen, Shiva and Keshavulu, are from the Gudigandla village, and the main suspect, Arif, from Jakulaire village. Although the district is close and well connected to the IT hubs of Hyderabad, most people in the villages either work in the farms or pick up odd jobs around the city. The three suspects from Gudigandla are school drop-outs who, when they weren’t picked up from the village by lorry drivers, spent their time loafing or sleeping, according to their families and neighbours. “For last six months, he hadn’t worked. He had left for the lorry cleaning job three days ago,” said Lakshmi, mother of Jolly Naveen. Since her husband died in 2006, she works in other people’s farms. She did not have the time to track her son’s habits and movements. “I have my job. I have my daughter,” she said. “When he left he didn’t say where he was going. His work was loading and unloading boxes. He made ~5,000 a month from it. When he came back, he used to be grimy from head to toe. When he came early morning on Thursday, he followed his routine -- had a bath, had food, and slept. Some time later, he got a call from his cousin Chenna Keshavulu and left for his house. He didn’t come back,” she said. Naveen was arrested from the house of Chenna Keshavulu, where the police was waiting for him. Lakshmi found out why he had not returned after watching the news on television and from neighbours. She has been angry ever since. “He is my only son, so I naturally love him, but if they did what is being alleged, then they all deserve to be hanged.”At the house of Jollu Shiva, his father, Jollu Rajaih, says he wasn’t even around when his son left or when he came back, because he was away at a distant farm where he lives and works. He has been to the police station since, he says, but he wasn’t allowed to talk to his son. “I wanted to ask him how and why all of this happened. He never drank, he never spoke to any girl in the village, never troubled anyone,” said Rajaih. The father said he will follow his principles, though. “He is young but he is responsible for his actions. I have a daughter. I won’t stand for any of this if its true.”Across the road from Shiva’s house, Keshavulu’s mother, also a farm worker, refuses to believe her son is capable of rape and murder. “No way he would have done anything. Perhaps he tagged along, stood and watched,” she said. For years, she says, his son has suffered from a kidney defect whose treatment, including monthly dialysis, swallows up most of the family’s earnings. “We took very good care of our son, we pampered him. When will they release him? My husband is very angry, he wants to drink himself to death. I don’t have the will to live,” she said.A short drive from Gandigudla is Jakulaire, Arif’s village, where his parents, too, are dealing with shock. “When he came back that morning, he didn’t eat, he even refused water. He said while he was driving the lorry one girl drove in the opposite direction on her scooter and he hit her by mistake, and she died. This is all I know,” said his mother, Moole Bi. She received information about his alleged actions since, but she would rather not believe it. “How can my son do this?” Source link Read the full article

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dundeethistlecycleclubblog · 7 years

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Ned’s early years in the Thistle

I was asked to write a bit about the Thistle from when I joined in 1955 till the 70`s. I hope you enjoy it. Ned Carnegie

Picture: Thistle Juniors 1955. Left to right Ned, Ginger Chalmers, Ian Hunter, Ian Auchterlonie, Alan Conela, ? , Donald Robbie, Frank Somerville, Norman Norrie, Crystal.

I`ve been in the Thistle club for 61 years (Born1941) and still ride the bike albeit a good bit slower! Some of my mates of over 50 years are still in the club. However there`s nothing like the feeling of winning a road race after a lone break or in a tight sprint finish!

1955 – my early years.

The first proper bike I had was a Sun, black steel frame with chrome front forks, with drop handlebars and cantilever brakes. The wheels were 26” steel rims and gearing was a single chainring and a four speed Simplex gear.

I rode to places like Arbroath, St Andrews and Perth with some of my pals from school. At the age of 14 I decided to leave the Boy Scouts, where I was a patrol leader, and join a cycling club. A few of the older lads at the Morgan Academy were in the Dundee Thistle so I plumped to join them.

Club meetings.

The Thistle Club had its own room, a large wooden building in Milton Street. This was near where I lived in Provost Road. Inside there was a toilet and a small cupboard which was used as the club tuck shop. The place was heated by gas radiators lining both walls.

Meetings were held on Thursday evening at 9pm. The Chairman, Secretary and treasurer sat at the top table facing the members who sat on long wooden benches with the junior section sat at the front. The meetings were quite formal with race and run reports, followed by SCU business and then any other general business. Runs for the coming week would be decided. These runs were published in the Saturday edition of The Courier. On Monday there was a full report of the weekend racing, sometimes even a half page with a photo of the winner. This was a feature of the Courier well into the ‘70s’.

In the winter the club opened on Tuesday and Thursday about 7pm for activities such as table tennis, darts Rollers and weightlifting. Once we even had a real boxing ring, ropes and everything as one of the members, Nobby Clinton, was also an amateur boxer.

There were some great characters in the club back then, guys like ‘Ulcer Wullie’, ‘Jack the House’, ‘Dave Dave’ and ‘Davy Husband’. Bike shop owner Jack Nicholson (Nicholson's Cycles can still be found on Forfar Road) was a great servant to the club acting as Chairman, then treasurer. He also acted as a timekeeper and organised the Wednesday night training races.

In the club there was a sizeable group of 18 year lads called ‘The Shower’ as they were quite a wild bunch, into drinking and dancing in the Empress Ballroom down at the docks. They did a lot of cycling though and a fair bit of racing. Most of them however packed it in when in their twenties, some were called up into national Service, a few got married early (not always by choice).

Two members who did stay riding after successful racing careers were Jim Nixon and Geordie Penman. Jim won the Scottish Road Race Championship in 1954 and went on to ride as an independent semi-pro for Viking Cycles. Jim worked for Myles on the Hilltown, an electrical shop which also sold bikes. Their slogan was ‘Ride for miles on a Myles bike’.

Jim and Geordie taught me how to ride a bike properly and gave me a hard time on ‘Tully’ most Sundays.

There were only two other juniors in the club at that time, Ian Hunter and ‘Ginger’ Chalmers. Although not long after that Lionel Wylie joined (who is also still an active member) and the four of us would do long runs at the weekend.

Club Presentations and dinners.

The club had an annual presentation and dance usually held at various hotels in the area. These were always well attended by the members and their wives or girlfriends. The men were always smartly dressed in suits with collar and tie. The ladies with dresses, no trousers in those days! The Trophies were hotly contested as most of the members raced in those days.

The club also ran a Hogmanay Dance in the clubrooms. The first footing bottles were taken at the door as no drinking was allowed in the clubrooms. I remember on one occasion a couple were drunk and causing bother so both were thrown out into the snow by big jack Nicholson and his equally big brother Les.

Club Runs.

There were quite a few clubs in the Dundee area at that time including the Dundee road Club, Forfarshire RC, the Western CC, the Charles Star, the Strathmore and the St. Christophers CC. There was also a ladies club called the Heatherbell. There was a fair bit of romance between the ‘Bell’ ladies and the lads from the local clubs, many proceeding down the aisle!

The clubs all met at Camperdown Gates on Sundays, sporting their individual club jerseys. Club runs then were all day affairs, leaving 9am / 10am and not returning home until 7pm or 8 pm. The routes were usually the Moulin Moors, Sma’ Glen, Blair Lochs but occasionally we would do Callendar and Loch Earn, Lochearnhead and Loch Tay. Even longer was the Moors, Trinafour and Schiehallion (over 100 miles).

There were no café stops, it was always a ‘Biley up’. Sometimes even two in one day!

The ‘Biley ups’ had names such as the ‘Barrier’ which is just outside Dunkeld or the ‘Flowerpots’ near Ballinluig, the names coming from the shape of the woods across the river Tay.

Hostel weekenders were very popular on the annual holidays riding up to the west coast or down to the Lake District.

Racing Season.

From March till October most Sundays were spent racing, mostly time trials over distances of 10 to one 100 miles and usually two 12hour events.

The Scottish Best All Rounder Competition was very popular then run over TTs of 50, 100 miles and 12 hours.

The Thistle had a set of standards, Gold, Silver and bronze for the various distances. On the Thursday before the event you paid Two Shillings and if you got within the standard time you received a small trophy in the form of a shield at the club presentation. This was a good system to encourage riders to achieve something as most didn’t have a chance of winning the event. If you did not achieve the time then your ‘two bob’ was forfeited.

Back then most clubs promoted events so there was a race on every weekend and also evening 10s and 25 time trials.

The race Headquarters then was at the transport café on Snobs Brae near Longforgan by the name of ‘Mrs Forbes’. This was a large wooden shack with an area round the back where riders prepared their bikes and stripped for the event. There was a Belfort sink and cold water tap out the back which was used to clean up after the race.

After the event we would congregate in the café where the results wear read out over mugs of tea, no coffee back then, and home made cake all went down a treat. The noise in the place was incredible and the atmosphere had me hooked on this racing lark!

After the events which usually started around 7am or 6am if it was a National Championship or 100 miler, we would ride home for a descent breakfast then be out at the (Camperdown) Gates for an afternoon ride to the ‘Biley up’ at Loch Clunie.

Pranks were the order of the day. One time we took one of the young lads bike to bits and hung them up in a tree! On another occasion Li (Wylie) was climbing a tree so we lit a fire below!

On the way home there was a stop at the ‘Jollymount Café’ Birkie or a hot orange in Coupar Angus.

Getting to races.

As hardly anyone had a car, we would ride to Edinburgh, Stirling or Aberdeen on Saturday and stay in the Youth Hostel. Sunday we’d ride to the race, then ride it, before the long pedal home.

When I started road racing I would get the train through to Edinburgh or Glasgow then ride to the outskirts and the race locations.

My Bikes.

The bikes ridden in time trials were mostly ‘Flying Scots’ track frames with a fixed gear of 82” – 86” and only a front brake. Wheels were ‘Fiamme rims with ‘Airlight Hubs’ and 8oz D’Allesandro's tyres or tubulors. Dunlop made a very light 6oz tyre, and I borrowed a pair but punctured twice before the finish in a 25TT.

I had a track frame custom built by ‘D.W. Lindsay’ who were on Victoria Road. Lime green main tubes with black forks and rear stays. 8oz orange tubulars and shining chrome stem and handlebars. A beautiful bike on which I won my very first race up in Aberdeen on a cold wet March morning.

Winter bikes were always a fixed wheel with a gear of 66 – 69 inches. A carrier and sadllebag to carry the usual tin of soup and ‘Biley Up’ can. Everyone carried a yellow cape and puncture repair outfit and full size pump on the frame.

Road bikes were mainly ‘Flying Scots’ but I had a French made ‘Helyett Speciale’ as used by Jacques Anquetil my hero at the time. It was a lovely dark green colour with a picture of Jacques on the seat post. This bike had a 5 speed block 14 – 23 sprockets and 42 -52 chainrings. I had yellow bar tape and green brake cables, the same as the great man himself. Fiamme rims and q/r Campagnola hubs were my choice for wheels. Mafac brakes, Campag pedals (very expensive) and a leather Brooks saddle.

Like the cool riders from Glasgow, I used to drill out the rivets and replace them with larger copper ones, trim the leather from the nose and back of the saddle. This made for a really good looking bit of kit.

Needless to say my bedroom wall was covered in pictures of the great Jacques Anquetil!

The lack of lights.

Lights back then were very poor, the batteries did not last long and sometimes petered out before you got home. We called them ‘Bobby Dodgers’. Sometimes you would get stopped by the police for not having lights, and asked your name and address. One Sunday Li and I were stopped on the Kingsway, we were only young boys, and the cop asked where we had been. Li replied “Comrie and the Braes Mister”. The Cop said “None of you lip lad, you can both walk home”. When he disappeared we rode home on the pavement of Clepington Road.

Clothing.

Clothing back then was very limited, a hand knitted jersey in club colours was usually worn. In our case black with a white horizontal band. Jeans were the order of the day with leather cycling shoes with shoe plates screwed to the sole to engage with the pedals.

Later on pantaloons became popular with knee length socks in colourful patterns, this was a fashion thing from France. In the Summer shorts were worn made of corduroy as racing shorts were never worn on a club run.

My first racing jersey had a shirt type collar and pockets front and back. The racing jersey was grey with two maroon horizontal bands. This was the Spanish national jersey at the time. Socks were always white.

Racing shorts were woollen with a real chamois leather insert which we had to rub in lanolin cream to soften it up and prevent chafing!

Bike Shops.

There were plenty bike shops in Dundee including Nicholsons which was the most popular with the club men. It was a great meeting place on a Saturday. Jack Nicholsons used to let us by stuff on Hire Purchase. You got a wee blue card and paid a fixed amount each week. This earned him the nickname ‘Ticky Nicky’.

I bought a pair of brakes for £4 when I was a schoolboy, paying it up sixpence a week. My mum and dad found my blue card and I got a ticking off for buying something on ‘hire purchase’. ‘Save before you buy’ was the mantra of the time.

Other shops included Lindsays on Victoria Road, Charlie Gibbs on Victoria Street, and McRobbs on the Hawkhill who supplied ‘Milano’ frames to the road racing guys.

Ned still in the Thistle and riding his bike, although not this one!

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