Cyclopedia (33 page)

MURPHY, Charles (b. New York, 1871, d. 1950)

Charles “Mile a Minute” Murphy was the first man in history to go faster than 60 mph using human muscle power. He covered a measured mile in 57.8 seconds at Maywood, Long Island, on June 30, 1899, and epitomized an era when cyclists were pushing the limits of human propulsion with whatever pacing assistance could be devised. A flamboyant track racer, Murphy would appear at events dressed in a racing suit based on the US flag, with a huge eagle on the chest. Murphy set his record behind a steam railway engine pulling a coach with a boarded enclosure at the back to shelter him; two and a half miles of planks were laid between the railway tracks to take the bike. Initially the engine could not go fast enough and, in spite of the adaptations to the coach, Murphy was constantly battered by turbulence during the minute he spent at 60 mph and weaved from side to side, almost losing control of his bike as the boards undulated due to the weight of the engine. He was splattered with dust, cinders, and burning rubber from under the carriage.

At the end of the mile, the train slowed down; Murphy couldn't. He slammed into the back of the coach and was dragged on board with his bike still attached to his feet. The sight terrified the several thousand onlookers including his wife and children.

Murphy went on to a successful professional career, claiming seven world records by 1895, and became a policeman when his racing days ended.

Born:
Ayrshire, Scotland, September 11, 1965

 

Major wins:
World pursuit champion 1993, 1995; world Hour Records 1993, 1994

 

Nickname:
the Flying Scotsman

 

Further reading/viewing:
Flying Scotsman
, Graeme Obree, Velo Press, 2005; DVD
Battle of the Bikes

 

In July 1993 a leading Italian journalist heard that a Scottish amateur on a homemade bike was making a largely self-financed attempt to break the fearsome HOUR RECORD held by the legendary Italian FRANCESCO MOSER. The nine-year-old record was considered definitive and cycling greats such as BERNARD HINAULT and GREG LEMOND felt it was too hard for them. The writer scoffed and said that if Graeme Obree beat Moser he would retire and return to his mamma's farm to eat pasta.

But in one of cycling's most improbable rises to fame, if not exactly fortune, Obree not only bettered Moser's distance on the velodrome at Hamar, Norway, but did so at his second attempt on the record within 48 hours. Conventional wisdom has it that it is impossible to recover from an effort such as this overnight, but Obree kept his legs from stiffening up by drinking copious amounts of water so he had to wake up to urinate. Each time he woke, he did stretching exercises to ease his muscles.

He followed that up with a world championship in the individual pursuit, beating the Olympic champion CHRIS BOARDMAN, and he added a second world title in 1995. He later wrote a detailed account of his severe depression and suicide attempts.

Obree is a policeman's son
from Ayrshire who was drawn to cycling partly to escape being bullied at school, and he has always had an unconventional approach to the sport. He turned up at his first race, a time trial, wearing Dr. Martens shoes and stopped before the finish because he assumed the race ended where it had began. By the early 1990s, his RIVALRY with Boardman had become intense, as much due to the contrast between the pair as what happened on the road. It was captured in a television documentary,
Battle of the Bikes
. Obree built his own bikes and lived off a diet of sliced white bread, marmelade, and cornflakes. At one point in his life, when his phone was cut off, he could only be reached by calling the pay phone on the street where he lived.

The key to Obree's success was his hunch that a radical “tucked-in” aerodynamic position would make him faster (see AERODYNAMICS). “I got the hacksaw out, turned the bars up, cut the extra off and that was me. I hadn't been riding much, but I did a personal best.” In 1989 he won 26 time trials and took the British hour record. Much of his training was done on an adapted home trainer with a leather belt—“like for round your waist”—to control resistance.

The machine he designed to beat Moser's hour record had an F-shaped frame like a MOULTON folding bike, a narrow bottom bracket to keep his feet close together, and high handlebars so that his arms could be bent up underneath his chest. To get the bike narrow, he incorporated a washing-machine bearing, not because it was all he could afford, but because it was the perfect size. Riding on the Bordeaux velodrome, Boardman bettered Obree's distance a week after the Scot beat Moser's distance, but Obree returned the following April to regain the record. Five months later, the quintuple Tour winner MIGUEL INDURAIN went even faster.

Obree's sporting success and easygoing manner hid the fact that he was mentally ill. His successes, he said, came from a terror of failing. He was driven, he said, by “a need to win to feel worthwhile enough to go about the daily business of life.” Obree made several attempts to kill himself before he was eventually diagnosed as manic depressive with a personality disorder. His record and world championship had been “a life shock” he said later, taking him from hunting for pennies down the back of his sofa to contracts worth thousands of dollars. “I was just swept along. Cycling was a party trick and I liked the reaction.”

The radical position adopted by Obree challenged conventional thinking, which was that the diamond frame adopted in the late 19th century was the most efficient form for cyclists: other cyclists tried the tuck, including Moser, who made a comeback in order to prove that only the position had enabled Obree to beat his distance. The cycling authorities felt that too much attention was being paid to aerodynamics and banned the tuck a few minutes before Obree defended his pursuit title in 1994.

After being prevented from riding that year, Obree responded by creating a new position nicknamed “Superman,” in which his arms pointed straight forward, and he used it to win the 1995 world pursuit title. Superman was used by the Italian team to dominate the 1996 Olympic Games track events, while Boardman set a definitive Hour Record using it later that year. The position was ruled illegal at the end of 1996, and Obree retired from cycling, although he returned in 2006 to take the team prize in the Scottish 10-mile time trial championship. A FILM entitled the
Flying Scotsman
was made of his life story starring Johnny Lee Miller. In February 2011 Obree again made headlines with his revelation that he is homosexual, which made him the first high-profile male cyclist to come out.

OCHOWICZ, Jim
(b. Milwaukee,

Wisconsin, 1951)

 

A mainstay of US road racing for 30 years, and a legendary team manager, Ochowicz began his cycling career as a track racer, competing in the team pursuit at the 1972 and 1976 summer Olympics. He was one of the founders of the 7-Eleven cycling team in 1981 and managed the squad when it successfully transferred to European racing in 1985, becoming the first US team to start the Tour the following year. The squad included stars of US cycling such as Davis Phinney and Andy Hampsten, who gave the United States their first victory in the 1988 Giro d'Italia. In 1990, Ochowicz's team led the TOUR DE FRANCE for nine stages with the Canadian STEVE BAUER. When 7-Eleven ceased sponsorship at the end of 1990, Ochowicz obtained backing from the Motorola corporation. The team initially relied on the Australian veteran Phil Anderson and was then built around a rising star: Lance Armstrong. Motorola ceased sponsorship at the end of 1996, and Ochowicz became a stockbroker working with Thomas Weisl, owner of the US Postal Service team. He maintained his links with professional cycling by managing the US national team at the world road race championships and served as president of US Cycling from 2002 to 2006. In 2007 he began working with the Swiss squad BMC, the connection being that Ochowicz helped secure sponsorship for the team's precursor Phonak with the iShares company, only for the deal to fall through when Phonak leader Floyd Landis tested positive. Ochowicz helped guide BMC to ProTour status in 2010. He is married to the former track cyclist and Olympic speed skater Sheila Young.

OLYMPIC GAMES
Cycling was included in the Olympics when they were founded in 1896 by Baron de Coubertin and has been in every Games since, apart from 1904 when there were no official events. For 100 years, however, the Olympics carried less weight in the cycling world than the TOUR DE FRANCE or road-race WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. The professional elite were unable to compete so the Games were seen as, at best, a stepping stone to a pro career. As a result, prior to 1996, very few of cycling's top names figured in the results: for example, the only “amateur” Games medalist to win a Tour de France is Joop Zoetemelk of Holland.

The program has undergone numerous changes. Women's cycling was a disgracefully late inclusion in the Games, given that women were brought into the world road-race championships in 1958. It was another 26 years before the Games recognized women's cyclists, with Connie Carpenter winning the inaugural road race in Los Angeles. In track racing, the women's sprint did not figure until 1988, and the pursuit in 1992, and women remained hard done by well into the 21st century, with only one event for female sprinters compared to three for the men.

The most significant recent change occurred in 1996 in Atlanta, when “open” cycling events were held, with the best professionals permitted to compete. That was achieved by removing the distinction between the amateur and pro sides of the sport; in that year, the road time trial was also introduced, and MIGUEL INDURAIN's victory symbolized the arrival at the Games of the biggest names in cycling. In the same year, the MOUNTAIN-BIKE cross-country was brought in.

BMX was made an Olympic sport in 2008, but this happened amid huge controversy, as the kilometer time trial—an event dating back to the 1896 Games—was dropped in spite of intense opposition. More hot debate looked to be in store running up to 2012, as radical alterations were made to the track program to achieve parity for men and women Olympians.

Three events with longstanding traditions, the pursuit, points race, and Madison, were removed. They were replaced by a new event, the omnium, a six-event “pentathlon” style event combining a kilometer time trial, 250 m flying start time trial, points, scratch, “devil take the hindmost,” and pursuit. The women sprinters were set to gain two events, the team sprint and KEIRIN, gaining parity with their male counterparts.

 

(SEE
TRACK RACING
FOR MORE ON THESE DISCIPLINES.)