It's Millar Time

I've always owned a bike, but I still don't consider my self a "cyclist". I mainly ride a bike to get to work, and use it at weekends and holiday times as a great way of keeping fit without having to put in hours of work in a gym. To be honest I can't think of anything I'd like less in terms of exercise than going to a gym, all that protein and creatine (whatever that is) and whatever other paraphenalia that goes with the territory. No, I chose to face my mid-life crisis by revisiting the humble bicycle.

Now, I've always bought magazines. I've played guitar since I was 14 years old and couldn't read enough about the things so I bought into the whole monthly magazine idea and continued buying and reading until I had a family and found I didn't have the time for idly reading and re-reading this months Guitarist, Guitar, Acoustic Guitar etc, etc ad infinitum...

Naturally therefore I started buying cycling magazines. It wasn't such a bad idea at first, I needed a few pointers to get me on my way, but I wasn't about to fall into the Cycling Porn+ / Comic trap though. I very quickly realised that a whole wing of the publishing industry existed to feed the MAMIL in me with a diet of sportives, fitness, and lots and lots of...stuff to spend your disposable income on. One thing I did notice however were the still frequent mentions, often in almost revered tones, of Robert Millar. I now know what an understatement that last sentence was. I've never raced bikes, ever, but I felt compelled to go and find out a little bit more about this name that I remember from back in the day. While I was off touring in an 80's pop/ rock band, Robert Millar was performing feats of unbelievable athleticism in the French mountains, hell he even sported a pop stars' hairdo! I remember seeing the odd snippet of TdF coverage on World of Sport or whatever the Saturday afternoon sports show was called back in the Eddy Merckx era, but Robert Millar was nothing more than an interesting footnote whenever I saw television news, and let's face it pro bike racing until only recently has always been that way in the football obsessed UK.

 I watched some footage of Robert Millar in the 1983 Tour de France leaving Jiminez in his wake on the Peyresourde on the way to his first stage win, and was completely filled with the emotions and feeling I normally associate with hearing a piece of music that moves me. Thus enthused I then read Richard Moore's book In Search Of Robert Millar and became enthralled (and not a little obsessed for a while) with the Robert Millar story, going out on the bike and visiting local places mentioned in the book, riding the same roads Millar trained on...yes total nutjob stuff.

Some mornings I used to sit in the Strathbungo cafe called Cookie gazing out across Nithsdale Rd trying to get my head around the astonishing - to me - fact that the person who achieved this amazing feat of althleticism in the Tour de France lived right across the road in 73 Nithsdale Drive. Hell I even tried to get the then owner, himself a bicycle enthusiast, to invite Richard Moore to do a book reading/ Q&A one evening. How appropriate I thought to have an event such as that right across the road from the Millar family home. Unfortunately it didn't get past the "oh that's a great idea" stage so for a while all thoughts of a Robert Millar tribute were put on the back burner.

So where is this going you ask? Simply this, there are little blue plaques dotted all around our city celebrating the famous former occupants of residences such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Alexander "Greek" Thomson, but interestingly, in this supposed second golden age of cycling, there is nothing to celebrate the brilliance of until recently our highest placed finisher in the Tour de France and perhaps more significantly to the cognoscenti, the first and so far only UK winner of the King of the Mountains polka dot jersey, maillot a pois rouge. I am certain that in any other European country Robert Millar would be a proper hero and celebrated in his home town, not so here in cycling friendly Glasgow.

And so the bottom line is this; I would like to see Glasgow City Council acknowledge this true cycling great, still a legend among road cyclists all around the world, by erecting a small blue (or pois rouges) plaque to our very own King of the Mountains outside 73 Nithsdale Drive, hell I'd even be happy for them to pay for it out of the cycling budget!

73 Nithsdale Drive on an autumnal August afternoon, sans KOM acknowledgement!