In Search of Robert Millar: Unravelling the Mystery Surrounding Britain’s Most Successful Tour de France Cyclist. Richard Moore
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victims and stragglers. Though it was early in the stage there was another rider in the broom wagon, with a functioning bike. McGahan asked if he could borrow it, then followed roads that he didn’t know until, quite by chance, he came to a junction on the race course some ten miles from the finish. A plan was instantly hatched in his 18-year-old brain. ‘I hid behind a wall,’ he recalls. ‘I must have been there three quarters of an hour. The leading group came past and I thought, “I’ll let them go.” It would have been too obvious. Then the next group came along, and I jumped out and joined them. But because I was so fresh I decided they were going too slow for me, so I jumped up to the next group. I really just wanted to stay in the race. But at the finish the guy in the broom wagon reported me. I remember this guy, in front of everyone, shouting, “Stand up, Jamie McGahan! You took a short-cut!” I was really, really embarrassed.’
Like Millar, McGahan realized in 1977 that he wanted to turn professional. But, again like Millar, he learned that in his path would be various obstacles, some real, others existing in the minds and attitudes of others. ‘I was aware straightaway what Robert’s ambition was. It was mine, too: we wanted to be pros. But people told us, “The best thing you can do, son, is go and get a job.” That was definitely the prevailing attitude in Scotland.’ There had been an indication from Millar earlier in the season that he would not only resist but rail against prevailing attitudes, and that he would repeatedly place himself in opposition to the authorities, no matter the consequences. A bizarre example of this is a Millar story that has passed into Scottish cycling folklore, concerning an extraordinary ‘double disqualification’ during one weekend in 1977.
It was a weekend when Millar contested two one-day events, both in the vicinity of Glasgow. On the Saturday, in a circuit race in Bellahouston Park, Millar was in the lead group, but he could only watch as one of his fellow competitors – most likely Tom Brodie – sprinted clear to win the race, crossing the line with arms held aloft in the traditional celebration, just like the professional stars did when they won big races on the continent. Unfortunately, this being amateur racing, there was a rule against taking your hands from the bars when it was deemed by the commissaire (race referee) to be dangerous. The rule wasn’t always applied, but on this occasion it was, and Brodie was disqualified.
The next day, in a race on the outskirts of Glasgow, Millar found himself in the lead group as they hurtled towards the finish, and this time he won the sprint and unashamedly raised both hands in the air to celebrate the ‘win’. The commissaire, Jock Shaw, was aghast. ‘There was a substantial bunch of riders and Millar shot out of it with two hundred metres to go,’ says Shaw. ‘Then he sticks both his hands in the air, the day after his pal has been disqualified for doing so. I said, “What did you do that for? I’ve no choice but to disqualify you.” And he just shrugged. “My pal did it yesterday. I was checking you knew the rules.”’ What he really wanted to do, suggests Shaw, was to catch him out. Perhaps another motivation was to give him a stick with which to beat the commissaire who’d disqualified Brodie the previous day. The race was of secondary importance. ‘He was neither up nor down about being disqualified,’ suggests Shaw. ‘He didn’t seem to care.’
This couldn’t-care-less attitude is seen time and again with Millar; it was either this or its polar opposite, righteous indignation, that he tended to display towards officials. But the question is, was there any basis, beyond his innate rebelliousness, for Millar to be suspicious of the motives and actions of others, in particular fellow riders or race officials? Later in his career there was spectacularly so. But later in that same year, 1977, there was an incident that he consciously committed to memory, in the same way, perhaps, that Lance Armstrong would later claim to ‘store on the hard drive’ any perceived wrongs by perceived enemies.
One of Millar’s final events of the 1977 season was the Tour of the Peak, a prestigious 90-mile road race in the Peak District. Millar made it into the race-winning break, but, as they raced into a driving headwind, he suffered a puncture. He made a quick stop and was handed the spare bike from the service car while the mechanics repaired his machine. He chased and re-captured the break; but a little later, on the approach to a climb, the service car drove alongside Millar to offer him his own bike back. Gerry McDaid, a Scottish official on duty at the Tour of the Peak, observed this and was horrified to see Millar accept the invitation to stop and swap bikes. In fact, McDaid suspected that the mechanics, knowing that a steep climb was approaching, might have been toying with the unknown and inexperienced young Millar. Having lost his momentum at such a critical point, Millar never regained contact with the break. McDaid reproached him at the finish: ‘You made a big mistake there, Robert.’
‘I know,’ Millar replied. ‘It’s in my little black book. I’ll not do it again.’
The Smaller They Are, the Harder They Fight
I realized that only Arthur Campbell and Billy Bilsland knew anything about where I wanted to go as a bike rider; everyone else was of the ‘You’ll never do that’ school of thought. It was as if they believed you had to be born in Europe to be a pro bike rider.
Cycling is a summer sport, but to racing cyclists it can seem that winter is the more important period. It is during the winter months that dreams are dreamt and goals are set. Rather than being a period of hibernation, it is a time of transition, when the hard work is done, long miles are accumulated, and real improvement, even transformation – from bad to mediocre, average to respectable, good to great – can seem possible. It is also the time of year that separates those who are serious about their dreams and goals from those who are not. The Christmas Day test is a useful barometer. Top cyclists say that they train on 25 December not because it will necessarily do them good, but because they know that some of their rivals will not. Similar tests of dedication, or character, can apply to days of torrential rain and interminable cold, and in the most extreme cases, when the roads are blocked with snow. At the highest level, it is all about attitude and the scoring of psychological points, even, or possibly especially, for your own benefit. And it is an area in which Robert Millar excelled.
It was over the winter of 1977/78 that he seems to have set a goal he knew would gain him a foothold on the ladder that would lead, eventually, to a professional career. He realized that the foundations, psychological as well as physical, needed to be laid during the cold months. Naturally, he trained on Christmas Day, riding the seventy-mile ‘Three Lochs’ circuit in the company of Jamie McGahan. For good measure, they did the same on New Year’s Day.
Willie Gibb remembers Millar telling him, in the middle of that winter, his main goal for the following season. It was out of character for him to talk about his ambitions, which is one reason why Gibb can recall this statement of intent. A second reason was its sheer audacity: Millar told Gibb that he would win the British road race championship. ‘It was bizarre, and I thought he was just being daft,’ says Gibb. ‘He wasn’t even the best in our little group in Glasgow. I couldn’t comprehend it. I thought he was talking nonsense because I would never even have dreamt of saying something like that. I think I put the top guys on a pedestal – not consciously, but I assumed they were better than me and I couldn’t beat them. But Robert had this attitude, I think, of believing that if he wasn’t strong enough now, he’d become strong enough. And that was obviously what he was determined to do that winter.’
There is a third reason why Millar’s winter prediction remains lodged so firmly in Gibb’s memory. To the astonishment of Gibb and everyone else – everyone except Millar, that is – he fulfilled it.
For the season-opening Girvan stage race over Easter weekend in 1978, Millar was selected to represent the Scottish ‘A’ team, alongside Sandy Gilchrist and Jamie McGahan. It was a race run off in, according to Cycling, ‘the worst conditions ever for Girvan’ – which was saying something. It was freezing cold, and it snowed, making one climb impassable, which instead of shortening the race added five more miles to the course, taking the distance for the stage up to a hundred miles and reducing the main bunch of riders to just