Put Me Back On My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson [Paperback]

'The best cycling biography ever written' - Velo

The book the cycling world was waiting for. Described by Velo magazine as "the best cycling biography ever written" this is the definitive account of the life of Tom Simpson, Britain's greatest cyclist.

'The best cycling biography ever written' - Velo Tom Simpson was an Olympic medallist, world champion and the first Briton to wear the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France. He died a tragic early death on the barren moonscape of the Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour. Almost 35 years on, hundreds of fans still make the pilgrimage to the windswept memorial which marks the spot where he died. A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, and was accused of fixing races, yet the dapper "Major Tom" inspired awe and affection for the obsessive will to win which was ultimately to cost him his life. Put me Back on my Bike revisits the places and people associated with Simpson to produce the definitive story of Britain's greatest ever cyclist. (20021018)

The book the cycling world has been waiting for. A definitive account of the life of Britain’s greatest cyclist - Tom Simpson. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

William Fotheringham is 36 years old. He was born in Somerset and after leaving school went to Cambridge University to study Languages. He has raced bikes for over twenty years but so far has resisted the temptation to take drugs. (20021018)

CHAPTER ONE
‘Something to Aim At ’
It is not the average Sunday afternoon at the movies.For
one thing,there is something unusual about the audience at
the Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith on a dark day in
January 2001 I ’m perhaps the youngest of the two hundred
of us.We ’re nearly all men,mostly aged over 50, thin and
with a healthy glow,the same men you will see in the lanes
of the Home Counties on Saturday mornings pedalling
immaculate bikes to garden centre cafe ´s to drink tea and

gossip.Veteran cyclists.
What we have come to see is not the normal Sunday
afternoon matinee either.Something to Aim At has never
gone on general release,and its name would mean nothing
to normal members of the public or to cinema critics.It is
unpolished,amateurish in places.That reflects both its
budget,and the fact that it is as much a 75 minute labour of
love as a piece of cinema.It is part enthusiast ’s film, part
work of art.It tells the story of Tom Simpson,Britain ’s
greatest ever cyclist,and was made by a lifelong fan of
Simpson ’s named Ray Pascoe.In 1967, when his hero died
on Mont Ventoux in the 13 stage of the Tour de France,
Pascoe set out with his camera and tape recorder,seeking
out old newsreel footage,interviewing Simpson ’s associates
and family.
The film ’s name comes from an anecdote told by
Simpson’s mechanic.Simpson was out to win that Tour de
France and before it started,he went into the Mercedes
showroom in Ghent,where he lived.He put down a deposit
on the best car they had,the one on the turntable going
round in the window.He knew the thought of the car and
the cash he needed for it would stay in the back of his mind
and motivate him.As he said:‘It gives you something to
aim at.’
Pascoe is a balding,earnest-looking ,an,a former racing
cyclist who saw Simpson race,loved his style,his aggres-
sion,his charisma.He can remember first meeting Simpson
in 1961 when he was an awestruck young cyclist racing in
Ghent,staying where all the British cyclists stayed,in
Simpson ’s friend Albert Beurick ’s guest house.They met a
few times over the next few years,exchanged a few words
now and then.That was enough to feed Pascoe ’s passion.
A film enthusiast and technician,Pascoe has gone
through 30 years of emotional effort,a bank loan, five-
figures ’worth of his own money,and countless unpaid
hours in making his two films about Simpson:Tribute to
Tom Simpson ,in 1972 and Something to Aim At ,completed
in 1995 He has tracked down Simpson’s mentors,Simp-
son ’s widow,Helen,his club mates and his teammates.In
the film,they talk of the man ’s drive,ambition,and talent.
And Pascoe has unearthed archive footage which takes most
of the audience back to their adolescence,and which can
cause a shiver down the spine.
The great cycling stars of the past exist as two-dimensional
figures,seen in black and white photographs,known for a
string of racing results and little else.Pascoe ’s film changes

that.We can see Simpson in colour.We can see the fluidity
of his pedalling style.We can listen to Simpson ’s voice as
he tells a joke about the Duke of Norfolk and a racehorse to
the BBC interviewer Eamonn Andrews.We can admire his
polite response as Andrews asks questions which display a
wince-making ignorance of cycling.
Simpson ’s voice,his accent a mix of Nottinghamshire
and lilting Durham,bridges the 33 years since he died and
connects directly with my experience of cycling.His voice
has been turned slightly flat and nasal by the tone of
Flanders:the same has happened to all the English cyclists I
have ever known who have been based in Belgium.
Pascoe found both the home where Simpson was brought
up in the Nottinghamshire mining village of Harworth and
the house which he built in his adopted city of Ghent yet
barely lived in.Early in his research,Pascoe interviewed
Simpson ’s parents,who have long since died,and most
touching of all,he was loaned some home movies of
Simpson and his two daughters.Here is Tom skiing,with
one child falling over in the snow as they all build a
snow man;here he is on the beach in Corsica,lifting his
daughters one by one over a stream so that they don ’t get
their feet wet.The cycling idol as Mr Everyman.After
Pascoe sent a copy of the film Something to Aim At to
Simpson ’s daughter Jane,who was four when her father
died,she wrote to him:‘I had never heard my daddy ’s voice
before.’
Most of us have never heard Simpson ’s voice either,or
seen the way he pedalled and how his expressive face
worked,and this only makes his death all the crueller as it is
played out for us in the grainy black and white television
footage of the fatal day in the 1967 Tour.As he zigzags
painfully up the mountain,the camera pans ahead to the
leaders he is chasing:they are only a few hundred metres
away fro him.It might as well be 100 miles.Like a ship
foundering in a storm,his torso rolls slowly from side to

side with each turn of the pedals as he struggles up the
mountain.The gasping mouth never closes:he has the look
of a man drowning.The end is sudden,a brutal transforma-
tion from struggling man to inert body on a bike,held up,
lowered gently down,his chest pumped vigorously by the
desperate doctor. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.