Book review: Flying Scotsman, by Graeme Obree

Graeme Obree is a legend in the cycling world and well-known everywhere else as the man who beat the world hour record on a bike made out of washing machine parts. However, few people knew the full story of his life until he sat down and wrote this remarkable autobiography, Flying Scotsman (affiliate links: UK, US).

Graeme looking uncharacteristically happy

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A brief overview

First of all, let me say that this book is incredibly well written.  You could be easily forgiven for believing that it was ghost written by a talented writer and that Graeme had waxed a considerable portion of his advance on hiring in significant literary assistance.

However, it was in fact written by Graeme himself, during his convalescence from a serious manic depressive episode in which he attempted suicide no less than five different ways in one evening (you’ll have to read the book to get the details on that one).

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The introductory stuff

OK, back up.  What’s it all about?

Graeme Obree was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire (England), just down the road from me.  However, his parents were Scottish and so they soon moved back up to Ayrshire, not far from Glasgow.

Graeme’s father was a policeman and for some reason the people in that part of Scotland hated police with a passion.  Consequently, Graeme’s early life was characterised by severe physical, mental and even sexual abuse from the locals.

Graeme and his older brother took to cycling to get away from the locality and they soon joined a cycling club, which took them into touring and then racing.  Graeme discovered he had a talent for suffering and it wasn’t long before he was winning significant races.

Unfortunately, as Graeme and his brother left school in the early 1980′s, their lives got worse and not better.  The Thatcher government was doing strange things with monetary policy and unemployment was skyrocketing.  Unable to find work, they set up a cycle shop, which soon foundered, leaving them with nothing.  Also, Graeme’s past began haunting him and he frequently slid into deep depression, which alcohol did nothing to help.

Despite these set-backs, Graeme still competed at time-trialling and became the world individual pursuit champion twice, beating more well-known Brit Chris Boardman in the process.

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Graeme takes the world hour record

Although Graeme was a great time trialler in the UK, it was his amazing performance in taking the world hour record from Francesco Moser that ensured his name was written firmly in the record books.  In July 1993, Graeme took his remarkable homemade bicycle to Oslo to attempt to cycle further than anyone else had ever done on a track in one hour.

Graeme actually took two bikes with him to Oslo.  His old, homemade bike and a newer one, built as a replica by the same engineer who built Chris Boardman’s Lotus bike.  He rode the replica for his planned attempt on the record but failed.  Angry and exhausted but still determined to succeed, he told the press he would repeat the ride the following day on his homemade bike.

First thing the next morning, with the previous day’s efforts still weighing heavily upon him, Graeme rocked up to the track, 10 minutes before he was due to ride, and blew everyone away.  He rode himself to complete exhaustion, in agony from halfway through.  He said afterwards that his feet, ankles, hands, face, scalp and “sitting parts” were completely numb and that his leg muscles were simply on fire.  However, he rode an official distance of 51.596km, up on Moser’s record of 51.151km.  He was the world hour record holder.

Reading this account made me wonder how Graeme found the strength to achieve this feat and why he drove himself so hard.  Graeme touches on some of the issues in his book but ultimately, as he told Michael Hutchinson in an interview, he had arrived at a place where he would rather have died than failed.

I do not think that this is typical athletic psychology but then Graeme was not a typical athlete…

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Who would enjoy this book?

You’ll love this book if you want to hear the story of an underdog who fought against the system, had to build his own equipment to compete, was defeated and still got up and won in the end, despite abuse, a crashing economy and huge bureaucratic prejudice.

It’s practically Rocky on a bicycle.