W INTERVIEW
L
AN INTERVIEW WITH
CHRIS BOARDMAN
Wirral Life talks to Wirral’s most famous cycling son - Olympic
Gold Medallist Chris ‘The Professor’ Boardman MBE.
Britain’s most accomplished cyclist of the 1990s. He started the
Tour de France six times, winning the opening prologue time
trial three times and becoming only the second Brit ever to wear
the yellow jersey.
This is, after all, the man who more than anyone else sparked the
current boom in cycling in Britain, his achievements on the bike
are cited as an inspiration by Bradley Wiggins. At 23, the former
carpenter won Britain’s first cycling gold for 72 years at the 1992
Olympics in Barcelona, sending his profile stratospheric. It also
highlighted a phenomenal influence of technology on cycling
performance like never before. As we'll find out, his living
depended on 8 minutes a year and his involvement behind the
scenes in technological developments and training that ushered
in the era of marginal gains.
Nicknamed 'The Professor' after his fastidious reputation for
detail. For example - he used to tape up the window frames in
his Wirral home, ramp up the heater and turbo train for hours
on end to simulate racing in hotter climes.
The idea for brand Boardman Bikes came out of the blue, tell us
how it all began.
Even when I was still competing, I designed and commissioned
bikes parts and accessories for use as a pro, I just like making things.
So when I was approached by former triathlete Alan Ingarfield to
start a bike company, I loved the idea and we started to make it
real. We launched in 2007, just when the sport exploded and the
Tour de France came to London for the first time. We were the
first company to produce a full carbon fibre bike for a £1000, one
of those frames was used by Nicole Cooke to take Britain's first
Gold in the 2008 Olympics. With World and Olympic champions
riding our bikes, within 2 years, we were Britain's fastest growing
bike brand ever.
You have proved a master at recruiting the most innovative
minds in the business – never more so than when working with
British Cycling. Tell us about your appointment as ‘Head of
Stuff ’.
In 2004 whilst I was one of the senior managers at British Cycling,
I was asked by Sir Dave Brailsford to see if we could make
improvements to ‘all the other stuff ’ (that wasn’t the athlete),
clothing, bikes helmets, the lot, everything that wasn’t breathing.
I assembled a small group of geeks and we headed down to
Southampton Uni to use their wind tunnel. 4 years later, we’d
conducted just under 10,000 test and experiments and produced
1763 new pieces of equipment and clothing for an average
performance improvement of 7% across the squad. In 2008 we
became the most successful Olympic team of all time. Had the
cycling team been a country, we’d have finished top 10 in the nations
medal table. We later became known as the Secret Squirrel Club
and our 'seeing if we could improve all that stuff ' was massaged into
the well known business idiom ’the aggregation of marginal gains’
- the concept of improving lots of things by a tiny amount and then
amassing those benefits to see a significant change. I did another
4 years at the helm, for a similar amount of testing, outcome and
medal haul, then it was time to stop. It was an amazing time to be
involved but it was all consuming.
What was key to the Secret Squirrel Club's success?
Possibly the most valuable thing we did, is bring in people who
were experts in their field - aerodynamics, materials, engineering -
but had no idea about cycling. They weren’t constrained by history,
what cyclists are ’supposed to do’ they just looked that the demands
of each event and asked the best questions. All of the breakthrough
ideas came from people who knew nothing about the sport because
they didn’t know what you couldn’t do. It’s a lesson I took forward
into my business life. If you want to innovate, don’t ask an expert.
You started the Tour de France six times, winning the opening
prologue time trial three times and becoming only the second
Brit ever to wear the yellow jersey. You famously said your 'living
depended on eight minutes a year - that was my job'. Tell us
more...
I managed to make the Tour squad in my first year as a pro and
whilst everyone else trained for the three week race, I trained for
the 8 minutes it would take to compete the opening timed stage.
Specialisation wasn’t a thing then but by focusing my efforts, I
won the stage and took the race lead. My salary reflected this so
effectively, my annual pay packet became contingent on my ability
to keep winning that most prestigious prize for time trialists, the
opening round of the Tour de France. The Olympic experience had
taught me how to peak and ways to deal with pressure, this was an
event with very similar demands, so it was a good fit.
But it didn’t always go to plan?
I was all set to for a repeat performance in 1995, this time in St
Brieuc but on the day of the event, after half the field had ridden
the technical course, the heavens opened. I should have written it
off but pressure, stubbornness and frankly, greed led me to ignored
the obvious impossibility of it. Despite all the riders that had
finished in the rain being way off the times set by those who had
completed the course in the dry, I went out to win. I tackled most of
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