Ned’s early years in the Thistle
I was asked to write a bit about the Thistle from when I joined in 1955 till the 70`s. I hope you enjoy it. Ned Carnegie
Picture: Thistle Juniors 1955. Left to right
Ned, Ginger Chalmers, Ian Hunter, Ian Auchterlonie, Alan Conela, ? ,
Donald Robbie, Frank Somerville, Norman Norrie, Crystal.
I`ve been in the Thistle club for 61 years (Born1941) and still ride the bike albeit a good bit slower! Some of my mates of over 50 years are still in the club. However there`s nothing like the feeling of winning a road race after a lone break or in a tight sprint finish!
The first proper bike I had was a Sun, black steel frame with chrome front forks, with drop handlebars and cantilever brakes. The wheels were 26” steel rims and gearing was a single chainring and a four speed Simplex gear.
I rode to places like Arbroath, St Andrews and Perth with some of my pals from school. At the age of 14 I decided to leave the Boy Scouts, where I was a patrol leader, and join a cycling club. A few of the older lads at the Morgan Academy were in the Dundee Thistle so I plumped to join them.
The Thistle Club had its own room, a large wooden building in Milton Street. This was near where I lived in Provost Road. Inside there was a toilet and a small cupboard which was used as the club tuck shop. The place was heated by gas radiators lining both walls.
Meetings were held on Thursday evening at 9pm. The Chairman, Secretary and treasurer sat at the top table facing the members who sat on long wooden benches with the junior section sat at the front. The meetings were quite formal with race and run reports, followed by SCU business and then any other general business. Runs for the coming week would be decided. These runs were published in the Saturday edition of The Courier. On Monday there was a full report of the weekend racing, sometimes even a half page with a photo of the winner. This was a feature of the Courier well into the ‘70s’.
In the winter the club opened on Tuesday and Thursday about 7pm for activities such as table tennis, darts Rollers and weightlifting. Once we even had a real boxing ring, ropes and everything as one of the members, Nobby Clinton, was also an amateur boxer.
There were some great characters in the club back then, guys like ‘Ulcer Wullie’, ‘Jack the House’, ‘Dave Dave’ and ‘Davy Husband’.
Bike shop owner Jack Nicholson (Nicholson's Cycles can still be found on Forfar Road) was a great servant to the club acting as Chairman, then treasurer. He also acted as a timekeeper and organised the Wednesday night training races.
In the club there was a sizeable group of 18 year lads called ‘The Shower’ as they were quite a wild bunch, into drinking and dancing in the Empress Ballroom down at the docks. They did a lot of cycling though and a fair bit of racing. Most of them however packed it in when in their twenties, some were called up into national Service, a few got married early (not always by choice).
Two members who did stay riding after successful racing careers were Jim Nixon and Geordie Penman. Jim won the Scottish Road Race Championship in 1954 and went on to ride as an independent semi-pro for Viking Cycles. Jim worked for Myles on the Hilltown, an electrical shop which also sold bikes. Their slogan was ‘Ride for miles on a Myles bike’.
Jim and Geordie taught me how to ride a bike properly and gave me a hard time on ‘Tully’ most Sundays.
There were only two other juniors in the club at that time, Ian Hunter and ‘Ginger’ Chalmers. Although not long after that Lionel Wylie joined (who is also still an active member) and the four of us would do long runs at the weekend.
Club Presentations and dinners.
The club had an annual presentation and dance usually held at various hotels in the area. These were always well attended by the members and their wives or girlfriends. The men were always smartly dressed in suits with collar and tie. The ladies with dresses, no trousers in those days! The Trophies were hotly contested as most of the members raced in those days.
The club also ran a Hogmanay Dance in the clubrooms. The first footing bottles were taken at the door as no drinking was allowed in the clubrooms. I remember on one occasion a couple were drunk and causing bother so both were thrown out into the snow by big jack Nicholson and his equally big brother Les.
There were quite a few clubs in the Dundee area at that time including the Dundee road Club, Forfarshire RC, the Western CC, the Charles Star, the Strathmore and the St. Christophers CC. There was also a ladies club called the Heatherbell. There was a fair bit of romance between the ‘Bell’ ladies and the lads from the local clubs, many proceeding down the aisle!
The clubs all met at Camperdown Gates on Sundays, sporting their individual club jerseys. Club runs then were all day affairs, leaving 9am / 10am and not returning home until 7pm or 8 pm.
The routes were usually the Moulin Moors, Sma’ Glen, Blair Lochs but occasionally we would do Callendar and Loch Earn, Lochearnhead and Loch Tay. Even longer was the Moors, Trinafour and Schiehallion (over 100 miles).
There were no café stops, it was always a ‘Biley up’. Sometimes even two in one day!
The ‘Biley ups’ had names such as the ‘Barrier’ which is just outside Dunkeld or the ‘Flowerpots’ near Ballinluig, the names coming from the shape of the woods across the river Tay.
Hostel weekenders were very popular on the annual holidays riding up to the west coast or down to the Lake District.
From March till October most Sundays were spent racing, mostly time trials over distances of 10 to one 100 miles and usually two 12hour events.
The Scottish Best All Rounder Competition was very popular then run over TTs of 50, 100 miles and 12 hours.
The Thistle had a set of standards, Gold, Silver and bronze for the various distances. On the Thursday before the event you paid Two Shillings and if you got within the standard time you received a small trophy in the form of a shield at the club presentation. This was a good system to encourage riders to achieve something as most didn’t have a chance of winning the event. If you did not achieve the time then your ‘two bob’ was forfeited.
Back then most clubs promoted events so there was a race on every weekend and also evening 10s and 25 time trials.
The race Headquarters then was at the transport café on Snobs Brae near Longforgan by the name of ‘Mrs Forbes’. This was a large wooden shack with an area round the back where riders prepared their bikes and stripped for the event. There was a Belfort sink and cold water tap out the back which was used to clean up after the race.
After the event we would congregate in the café where the results wear read out over mugs of tea, no coffee back then, and home made cake all went down a treat. The noise in the place was incredible and the atmosphere had me hooked on this racing lark!
After the events which usually started around 7am or 6am if it was a National Championship or 100 miler, we would ride home for a descent breakfast then be out at the (Camperdown) Gates for an afternoon ride to the ‘Biley up’ at Loch Clunie.
Pranks were the order of the day. One time we took one of the young lads bike to bits and hung them up in a tree! On another occasion Li (Wylie) was climbing a tree so we lit a fire below!
On the way home there was a stop at the ‘Jollymount Café’ Birkie or a hot orange in Coupar Angus.
As hardly anyone had a car, we would ride to Edinburgh, Stirling or Aberdeen on Saturday and stay in the Youth Hostel. Sunday we’d ride to the race, then ride it, before the long pedal home.
When I started road racing I would get the train through to Edinburgh or Glasgow then ride to the outskirts and the race locations.
The bikes ridden in time trials were mostly ‘Flying Scots’ track frames with a fixed gear of 82” – 86” and only a front brake. Wheels were ‘Fiamme rims with ‘Airlight Hubs’ and 8oz D’Allesandro's tyres or tubulors. Dunlop made a very light 6oz tyre, and I borrowed a pair but punctured twice before the finish in a 25TT.
I had a track frame custom built by ‘D.W. Lindsay’ who were on Victoria Road. Lime green main tubes with black forks and rear stays. 8oz orange tubulars and shining chrome stem and handlebars. A beautiful bike on which I won my very first race up in Aberdeen on a cold wet March morning.
Winter bikes were always a fixed wheel with a gear of 66 – 69 inches. A carrier and sadllebag to carry the usual tin of soup and ‘Biley Up’ can. Everyone carried a yellow cape and puncture repair outfit and full size pump on the frame.
Road bikes were mainly ‘Flying Scots’ but I had a French made ‘Helyett Speciale’ as used by Jacques Anquetil my hero at the time. It was a lovely dark green colour with a picture of Jacques on the seat post. This bike had a 5 speed block 14 – 23 sprockets and 42 -52 chainrings. I had yellow bar tape and green brake cables, the same as the great man himself. Fiamme rims and q/r Campagnola hubs were my choice for wheels. Mafac brakes, Campag pedals (very expensive) and a leather Brooks saddle.
Like the cool riders from Glasgow, I used to drill out the rivets and replace them with larger copper ones, trim the leather from the nose and back of the saddle. This made for a really good looking bit of kit.
Needless to say my bedroom wall was covered in pictures of the great Jacques Anquetil!
Lights back then were very poor, the batteries did not last long and sometimes petered out before you got home. We called them ‘Bobby Dodgers’. Sometimes you would get stopped by the police for not having lights, and asked your name and address. One Sunday Li and I were stopped on the Kingsway, we were only young boys, and the cop asked where we had been. Li replied “Comrie and the Braes Mister”. The Cop said “None of you lip lad, you can both walk home”. When he disappeared we rode home on the pavement of Clepington Road.
Clothing back then was very limited, a hand knitted jersey in club colours was usually worn. In our case black with a white horizontal band. Jeans were the order of the day with leather cycling shoes with shoe plates screwed to the sole to engage with the pedals.
Later on pantaloons became popular with knee length socks in colourful patterns, this was a fashion thing from France. In the Summer shorts were worn made of corduroy as racing shorts were never worn on a club run.
My first racing jersey had a shirt type collar and pockets front and back. The racing jersey was grey with two maroon horizontal bands. This was the Spanish national jersey at the time. Socks were always white.
Racing shorts were woollen with a real chamois leather insert which we had to rub in lanolin cream to soften it up and prevent chafing!
There were plenty bike shops in Dundee including Nicholsons which was the most popular with the club men. It was a great meeting place on a Saturday. Jack Nicholsons used to let us by stuff on Hire Purchase. You got a wee blue card and paid a fixed amount each week. This earned him the nickname ‘Ticky Nicky’.
I bought a pair of brakes for £4 when I was a schoolboy, paying it up sixpence a week. My mum and dad found my blue card and I got a ticking off for buying something on ‘hire purchase’. ‘Save before you buy’ was the mantra of the time.
Other shops included Lindsays on Victoria Road, Charlie Gibbs on Victoria Street, and McRobbs on the Hawkhill who supplied ‘Milano’ frames to the road racing guys.
Ned still in the Thistle and riding his bike, although not this one!
