Our next history segment comes from 1965! The fifth Grafton to Inverell was one of only two to be won by an Inverell rider. His name was Leon Cook who rode for the Gilgai Cycle Club, a club whose home was a bitumen track in the village just south of Inverell. Cook had ridden the event in 1964 and his coach, Inverell saddler Bill Chivers, had devised a plan to give him the feel of the race but not to complete it. The following year Cook intensified his training, and Chivers would make him stop and change tubes or wheels, telling him he needed to be able to do it under pressure. On the day of the 1965 race, Cook and Queensland rider Robin Barron led for the last 70 kilometres, and at the 30 kilometres point on one of the slow drags, Barron dropped off. Cook recalls his lone ride up Wire Gully which is 20 kilometres from the finish “The top didn’t seem to be getting any closer and I thought, ghost, I have ridden all this way and I’m not going to make it”. Make it he did and was greeted by a huge crowd in Otho Street and when asked what he was thinking at the time he said “I looked up at the town clock just before the finish and it was getting close to four o’clock and I thought where did that time go”.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 23:00:50 +0000
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