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@Geofro
I'm a bit late to this party, I stumbled across this thread while looking to see what was out there about John Austin. Its been great reading through the thread which has bought back lots of memories. I hope someone out there is still listening!
I rode at Paddington when I was at school and became a founding member of the Paddington Schoolboys Cycling Club, which was the forerunner of the Paddington Cycling Club.
I started cycling when I got my first 'racing bike', a Falcon bought from Grattans Catalogue. Two friends of mine from school got bikes at the same time and we quickly found our local bike shop, Stan Perry in Sudbury Town. Stan directed us to Frank (can't remember his second name) who ran Dragon Road Club in Wembley. I well remember the shock of my first club night, discovering my Falcon was a pile of crap!
The Dragons introduced us to club cycling and in time to the track at Paddington, which is how I met John and got involved in the club. This would have been around 1970.
At that time the local schools were run by the ILEA and they paid for John to teach cycling at the track. I think you could choose to do cycling instead of PE. Although we were out of the area (Alperton) I managed to swing it with with my PE teacher, so we'd ride down and join the sessions (Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I think), then as I got more involved started doing the Saturday morning training sessions and Sunday runs.
There was a core of schoolboys on those sessions, the ones I most recall being Barry Ford, Paul Robilliard, Tommy Cooper and Ray George. I met Carlo Bordi on the way to Stan Perry's one day and introduced him to the club. We both lived in Alperton so we were training partners for a while, before he started to leave me for dead! Other names that spring to mind are Bill Farrow and Steve Heffernan.
My two initial friends dropped out but another friend, Kim Williams got involved. He was phenomenally talented and fit as a flee and John was very interested in him, but because he was good at lots of other sports he didn't stay involved that long (although we stayed friends and started mountain biking together many years later).
I've got many fond memories of riding at the track, the Sunday runs, time trials, long weekends in Wales, the New Forest, Calshot and Hearne Hill tracks, other places I can barely remember.
But although I loved cycling, I wasn't that good or dedicated, so when I started work and started to meet girls my interest soon wained and my bike got put away in the shed. That would have been around 1974.
I stopped completely for many years but started mountain biking in the mid 90's and these days do a bit of both.
I restored my Geoff Butler road bike several years ago and last year re-kitted it out with period Campag gear so I could do the Eroica Britannia, which I've done for the last 2 years.
A few side notes:
@bigsteve - I came up with dozens of designs but in the end none of mine wasn't chosen... but I can't remember who's was.
@4candles - Love to hear if the idea of reforming the club or getting some shirts made up got of the ground?
@Lance - If theres another one of these taking place do let me know, would love to meet up with the gang again!
For a while I used to repair all the Tubs for John to supplement my paper round money, in the end I could do one in about 1o mins.
I think I might have some club newsletter from the very early days - they'd make very fun reading, next time I'm in the loft I'll see what I can find.
@Lance - Glad to hear John is alive and well. He was an inspiration in many ways and taught me a lot about self reliance, organisation, perseverance, enthusiasm, enjoyment of the countryside, etc. Above all he devoted a huge amount of his own time to a bunch of spotty kids and probably got very little thanks for it. Can't imaging there are many around like him now!
Geoff Bolam