A positive cycling story
Taken from the Blazing Saddles Column in the Tayside Courier Weekend Supplement 20.10.12
Scot Tares looks towards a bright future for young cyclists.
“After being encouraged by the team, pressured to perform and pushed to my physical limits I crossed a line I promised myself and others I would not: I doped. It was a decision I deeply regret. It caused me sleepless nights, took the fun out of cycling and racing, and tainted the success I achieved at the time. This was not how I wanted to live or race.” – Michael Barry, a former team-mate of Armstrong’s
For several years now I have coached children in cycling and last week I had the pleasure to be involved in coaching a group of 20 kids at the outdoor cycle track at Caird Park in Dundee. The vast majority had never ridden on a brakeless, fixed wheel bike before, but within the first few hours we had them racing each other around the track.
The enthusiasm from each of them was infectious and as they sprinted for the line it was hard not to cheer out loud; I felt the same excitement watching them race as I had when I watched the track racing at the Olympics. As one rider crossed the line in his race heat, he pulled his foot out from the pedal and only just managed to keep his bike upright as he careered off the track onto the grass centre.
It was spectacular and my heart was in my mouth as I ran over to check he was okay. Shaken, but unhurt, his first words to me were, “Did I win?”; I was happy to be able to tell him he had.
Later that evening, as I read through pages of online articles relating to systematic doping in professional cycling ranks perpetrated by many, including Lance Armstrong, I reflected on that young rider’s winning mentality at the track in Dundee. It takes that kind of attitude to get to the top in sport and those who want to get there are faced with many difficult sacrifices and choices. However, the people and support systems in place to help inform these decisions must be supportive of the rider and place their very best interests at the heart of everything they do.
It was sad, but not surprising, to read how many people in a position of trust: managers, coaches, doctors, riders and those in governance of the sport failed in that very fundamental aspect of protecting those in their charge; the winning mentality for them had crossed a dangerous line as they actively promoted a “win at all costs” culture that had banned performance enhancing drugs at its core.
It is very easy to vilify the riders and the choices they made, but peer pressure can be powerful and dreams of success even stronger. Many ex-professionals who chose not to “dope” still look back with bitterness at how they felt chastised and pressured to leave the sport they loved because they were not willing to conform to the illegal practices going on in their sport.
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Despite calls from some quarters to move on and forget what has happened in the past, it is vital that answers are sought to the question of how systematic doping ever became part of professional sport; failure to do so will leave those that have crossed the line to bury their heads deeper in the sand and the future of professional cycling will be very bleak as a result.
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For each of those riders at the track in Dundee and every other young cyclist that dreams of one day of making it to the top of their sport, their path will be difficult and it will take guts and determination to negotiate the obstacles in the way, but these obstacles are not insurmountable and are in fact part of what makes that effort worthwhile. However, never again should a young rider be put in a position where their success is measured at the expense of their integrity and to win they must sacrifice their own health and morals.
Scot Tares
Where to ride: a two Glen Route near Bridge of Earn
| Where to ride: Glenfoot/ Glenfarg CircularA circular road ride with some challenging climbs | |
| Location: | OS Landranger Map 58 NO 160159 |
| Distance/ climbing: | 13 miles/ 863ft |
| Details: | Starting at the Baiglie Inn at Aberargie this route can be ridden in either direction. If riding it clockwise, ride along the A913, before turning right at Glen foot . Continue on past Glen Tarkie, before joining the A91. At Gateside turn right on the A912 and descending back to Aberargie |
Copyright DC Thompson 2012


There is nothing more infuriating than a squeak or a creaking sound on your bike and that was exactly what I had; as I rode I recalled the old VW car advert where the driver of the car was mystified as to where a squeak was coming from only to find out after stopping at a garage that it was the squeak of his sleeping passenger’s earing. I’m old enough now to have removed all the earrings that I once had in my youth, but thankfully not old enough for the intermittent creak to be coming from my knees; no, this creak was definitely coming from the bike. Like the driver in the advert, I was mystified, as when I stopped and pushed and pulled, turned and spun various moving parts of the bike, it sounded as smooth and sweet as a well maintained bike should, but as soon as my backside was on the saddle and the pedals were turning the noise returned.
It’s getting to that time of the year, which seems to come around all too soon, when the darkness of the night encroaches ever closer into our valuable time for riding our bikes and many turn towards their indoor trainer to keep some semblance of fitness through the winter months. Fortunately, the advance of bike-light technology means that the darkness no longer forces you to lock your trusty steed in the shed to hibernate until spring.
The great Irish cyclist, Sean Kelly, once intimated that the only way to tell whether the weather was suitable for riding in was to go out and ride in it and then decide if it was too cold or wet on your return. This philosophical approach to cycling went through my head as I cycled through the rain, timing my pedal cadence to the drip of water from the tip of my cycle helmet; one drip to four turns of the pedal. I concentrated on this, mainly to distract me from the continuous spray flicked up by my front wheel; my water-proof overshoes had all but surrendered their defence of the water that was now seeping into my already freezing cold feet. My red raw knees looked like a couple ripe beef tomatoes, ready to split from their skin and my white fingers ached as if they had been shut in a door. Such were the pleasures I had cycling one summer’s evening, but strangely I was enjoying myself.
Throughout the 2012 Olympics I had my copy of “Theme for Velodrome” by the Chemical Brothers blasting through the speakers in my kitchen, its Kraftwerk-inspired beats just the latest in a long line of music inspired by the humble bicycle. It’s hard to think of any other human invention that has inspired, or been the theme of, so much musical creation; in San Francisco there is even an annual bicycle music festival. My first exposure to two-wheeled musicality was “Bicycle Race” by Queen and still, many years later, when I hear a bike bell being rung the song starts playing over in my head. I also recall Mick Talbot from the Style Council appearing on Top of the Pops in 1984 sporting a Raleigh Campagnolo cycling jersey, bringing mods and bikes together when Wiggins was only four years old.

However, I fear that Dave Stibbles would have had his head in his hands if he could have seen me atop Ben Vrackie one winter’s evening during the heavy snows of 2010. If I had been walking I would have been fully prepared, but here I was with a group of riders from Pitlochry, mountain biking through the darkness up the hillside to Loch a Choire in little more than mountain bike ¾ length shorts and a cycling top. I had a pack with the basic gear, but the forecast was for snow and when it started it was horizontal, but we carried on, shouldering our bikes across the top of Meall h-Aodainn Moire, now walking in ankle deep snow. Our headlamps caught the snow as it blew into our faces and gave the impression of travelling through space at warp drive. We reached the top and jumped back on the bikes and the descent to Killiecrankie was fast and stunning as we fought to keep the bikes upright in the rutted and snow filled track. The ride back to Pitlochry along the River Garry was fast and furious as we whooped through the narrow tracks at the river’s edge, finally emerging at Faskally and then into the centre of Pitlochry. As we rode through Pitlochry laughing, we felt alive; the contrast of lights in houses as people sat in front of televisions to the experience we had just battled through gave us huge grins and made us feel that we’d made the most of an otherwise quiet winter’s evening. The spirit of adventure sparked all those years ago by Dave Stibbles and the Duke of Edinburgh Award was still beating strong.