Feature:MickWaite Interview


Page 38


It's a grey morning in January. Cold, damp and, worst of all for me, early.As I sit in my car, pulling on my coat, hat and scarf, ready to brave the winter air, all around me cyclists are going through their pre-race routines. The clip clop of cleats on concrete abounds as riders ready themselves for the battle ahead: eating, checking bikes and tyre pressures, eating, laying out kit in the boots of their cars, eating, getting spare wheels ready, eating and warming up on rollers. On a day such as today it's a real demonstration of commitment to the sport.And of course to eating.


I've come to the REME test track at Ludgershall inWiltshire, to meet a man who has spent the last 48 years tirelessly working in support of cycle racing.Aman whose commitment to the sport is unquestioned. I'm here to meetMickWaite, organiser of the Perfs Pedal Race and sponsor and team director of VC St Raphael.


Once sufficiently clad against the chill, I find Mick unloading his car of cycling paraphernalia.We shake hands and he tells me he'll be with me in a couple of minutes after he's made sure the rider he has brought to the race today, Simon Brooks, has everything he needs.


With Simon sorted and heading off to warm up,Mick switches his attention to me. Born in Southsea, Hamphire,Mick started riding at the age of 14 when he joined VC St Raphael. “They had to have a special meeting,”Mick says, “because really I was too young to join but they ended up letting me in.”


ButMick's riding days were to prove to be short lived.At the age of 17 he gave up because of work commitments. “I raced for three years, not very successfully. I was a bricklayer by trade and it was just that sort of industry where you had to work all week and sometimes weekends as well. I decided I'd rather get on with that because I was never going to make a career out of cycling.”


ButMick's love of cycling was undimmed


Perfect Dawn


The Cycling Post meetsMickWaite, the man behind the British road season opening Perfs Pedal Race.


and, still keen to be involved in the sport he turned his attention to promoting. The club had always had a strong emphasis on promoting races and events and soMick got involved and started to learn from others in the club. “I was only 17,” he says, “but I had others who were older than me to pick things up from.”


In July 1964Mick organised the first ever Perfs. “We held it on a Saturday afternoon in July because we thought riders would turn up even if they were riding Sunday but we didn't have many.”Asmall field it may have been, but it contained some riders of real quality. “We paid £3 [for first], £2 [second], £1 [third], and gave a bottle of St Raphael wine for the primes.About average for the time.”


TonyMills from Ryall/Raxar won the inaugural race which took place over two laps of the 25 mile Harting Hill circuit. The race finished at the top of Harting Hill itself, a long climb on the South Downs, providing a tough climax.


MickWaite. Photographed at Ludgershall January 2012. Photograph © The Cycling Post


The next year the race moved both date and route. Now scheduled for early season, the event relocated to the village of Hambledon where it was to stay for nearly 20 years. “That was really the best course,” saysMick. “It was the best for spectators and the best for excitement. It was a little three and a half mile circuit that finished just outside of Hambledon. There was a field of 40 riders in those days and it was always a bunch sprint. It was so exciting. It was a flat sprint so it was quick. Seriously quick.”


Eventually the race started to outgrow the village and it became an increasingly tough annual battle to convince the Parish Council to allow the event to take place. In 1979, in a bid to appease the council and residents, the finish was moved further around the circuit to the top ofWindmill Hill. That year's race brought the race's most famous winner when a young SeanYates, riding for theArcher RC/Cutty Sark team, won in a two man breakaway.


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