For a while I've been thinking of doing a series on some my favorite management inspiration figures - my heroes of management, if you will. Well this first post isn't about management, rather its about my other passion - biking.
Last week I got a ticket for the Seattle pre-screening of The Flying Scotsman, the story of Graeme Obree. The guys at my local bike store, BikeSport, respect my bicycle - a 1998 model Corratec TrialBow (though they mistook it for the Team Racing model like the one in the picture
with Jan Ostegaard), either way a collectors item. The movie distributor had arranged to provide tickets to local bike shops and they decided I'd be one of the guys who might like to attend. They didn't realize that I might very well have known Obree...
Graeme Obree is 18 months older than me. He grew up about 10 miles south of where I grew up. I never met him nor did I ever race against him - I didn't race bikes until I lived in Singapore - but I knew people who did meet and race Obree. Most of all I remember the sinking feeling on couple of evening training rides in summer as a teenager when that "fast guy from Irvine" would come past me and my body had nothing to offer in response.
In 1993, with no real sponsorship, riding a home made bike, no team doctor, no nutritionist, no professional coach, the relatively unknown rank amateur Obree shocked the cycling world by breaking the Hour Record that had stood for 9 years and had been set at altitude in Mexico by Francesco Moser. For effect, Obree did this during the Tour De France and stole all the headlines in the French papers the next day. He went on to win the World Championship 4000m Pursuit that same year, breaking the World Record in the process. Later the UCI banned his riding position and disqualified him from the 1994 World Championships. Obree's hour record had fallen to Chris Boardman. He went off home to Ayrshire, lick his wounds and came back to break the Hour Record again and in 1995 to win the World Championship again this time using a new riding position. Once, again the UCI banned it and reset the rules for the Hour Record, effectively erasing Obree's achievements from the record books.
Obree briefly signed to a French professional team and was quickly fired. He disappeared from International cycling. He suffered from manic depression and attempted suicide. He was found at a remote farm house in Ayrshire dangling from a rope in 1998.
In recent years, at the age of 38 in 2004, Obree (seen left pictured on his home club web site, Fullarton Wheelers - observe the superior aerodynamic position) tried again to retake UCI Hour Record then held by Chris Boardman. He abandoned when he wasn't going fast enough averaging only 47km per hour. At the age of 40, he finished 2nd in the Scottish 10 mile time trail championship and rode in the British national championship.
History hadn't been favorable to Obree. Journalists unaware of his lifelong struggle with depression had written him off as a loser. At best a terrible underachiever. With his talent he was expected to have won a lot of professional titles including 1 day classic races. None of that came to him. He was never rich. What the movie does, is set the record straight. Obree was a winner. He achieved more than most people could ever dream of, and he overcame his illness to be the best in the World. [When I searched with Google looking for many of the articles that were critical of Obree, they've been obliterated by positive stories generated by the movie's release in Britain and Europe and reviews of Obree's autobiography. The movie's producers have achieved their goal and fixed the historical record.] His achievement is all the more significant when you read how hard it was for Miguel Indurain - known as 'The Extra Terrestrial' because of his huge lung capacity - to beat Obree's 2nd One Hour mark. American readers might like to reflect that Lance Armstrong is the only significant Tour De France champion who has never taken the Hour Record. He hasn't even attempted it. That Obree managed his achievements with no funding and no professional help, on a home made bike, is amazing. In an era when it is likely that most professional cyclists were taking drugs, Obree was simply too poor to be cheating.
The movie doesn't get deeply in to the politics of cycling, nor does it offer us cog heads a lot of the fine detail. Obree's training methods are not explored. Details such as his low riding cadence and his huge gearing are never discussed. The movie fails to show just how scientifically he approached his training or his diet. But it achieves its goal of defining him as a winner and a hero.
If there is a management failing in the Obree story, it is the notion that his homemade bicycle was a liability and prevented him from receiving serious sponsorship after his first World record. His innovation of using sealed bearings became common place within a few years. The idea that the parts came from a used washing machine need not have been a liability. It should have been seen as an opportunity. Also as an expatriot Scot I'm left wondering what would have happened if Obree had been prepared to quit Scotland and his home town in Ayrshire after he first came to international aclaim. If he'd had an American equipment sponsor and lived in American with American health care could the story after 1993 been very different? We'll never know! Unlike me, Graeme still lives in Ayrshire and there is a lot to be valued in that.
If you are a cog head like me - go see the movie. You'll love it! If you like underdog movies - the home farm boy from Iowa who throws a no-hitter in his first Major League game - then you'll enjoy it too. If you're a Jonny Lee Miller fan, go see it. Miller is great casting as Obree! If you suffer from depression or bipolar disorder and need some inspiration, then you have to see this movie. Most of all, if you are a regular reader of Agile Management and you'd like to hear people who talk like me, see the geography and architecture of my youth, and understand the West of Scotland Presbyterian culture that molded me then you can't afford to miss it!
The Flying Scotsman - in theaters from May 4th in the USA. Technorati tag: Graeme+Obree, Flying+Scotsman
