Good as Gould (Tim)

British mountainbike racer Tim Gould is something of an unsung hero of the sport, and a rider who has suffered a whole lot along this way.

Here’s a story i wrote on Tim back in 1999

Without a doubt Tim Gould is one of the all time mountain biking greats, he’s also one of the longest serving. We caught up with the Matlock mountain monster as he started yet another chapter in his bulging case book.

It’s spring 1999, Britains best ever mountain biker, Tim Gould, is heading in to his second decade of fat tyred racing. But for the first time ever, even including his pioneering pre UCI Peugeot days, the Matlock ace is going to be riding without a professional trade team contract. That doesn’t mean to say that he’s having to do the job off his own back, or that he will be signing on every Thursday. No, he’s now part of the first ever totally funded British National Mountain Bike team. 

Ten years ago when Gould and his team mate Dave Baker were away plugging through the muddy forests of the Europe wearing dayglo head bands, and pulling up on U brakes, such a systematical thing would have been unthinkable. Back then the sport was seen as something of a fad by the cycling establishment, an oddity even. The UCI ( Union Cycliste International ) and the BCF refused to even recognise the sport, and club like organisations such as the MBC and NORBA had a free hand in the running, regulation, and development of mountain biking. 

Even so, back in these early days there were National Championships, a World Cup, and even World Championships, they just weren't recognised by the afore mentioned powers that  ( Say they ) be. 

Now a decade on and we have a full Olympic Sport, and a fully funded national team; “ It’s all down to the Olympics really. If mountain biking hadn’t of been in the last Olympic Games then the Sports Council wouldn’t have allocated it any money. “ So is it a good thing then, this Plan ? “ Oh yeah, it’s still fair a way off, but the concept is good. If it hadn’t of happened riders like myself and Nick Craig wouldn’t have been able to have carried on, there just aren’t the sponsors out there this year. On the road it’s just under 23 year olds who are entitled to help, but due to the fact that our World ranked riders are all older we were lucky. “ It’s crazy to think that Gould is still ranked inside the Worlds top thirty racers, and is struggling even more to find a sponsor now than he was way back in the infantile days of the eighties, when hardly anyone had even heard of the sport. Is it something of a slap in the face after all this time, and with all the hard earned cred he’s built up along the way ?  “ Nah, the whole bike industry, has taken a down turn, and that’s reflected in the sponsorship situation. I mean,  I could have been a tramp or something. And it’s not just cross country that's going through it, even the downhillers are suffering. And cross country racing, it just isn’t media and TV friendly, so sponsors are losing interest. They’re  ( The UCI ) trying to make the sport as spectator appealing as possible, but as a consequence the courses are getting shorter and shorter. It’s becoming hard to differentiate between mountain biking and cyclo cross. I know they’re trying, but at what cost to the sport ? A few true classic races maybe, a big loop, a place to place, something to inject a bit of interest in to it, I'm sure it wouldn’t do any harm. “ 

The “ Plan “ as the BCF National Team set up is affectionately known is proving to be something of a bad curry as far as anyone outside of the BCF’s offices are concerned. What, with all of this foreign bike business, and tales of unfair pressures being put on fully sponsored riders, is this causing unrest with the riders directly involved in the team; “ No, I think everyone's getting used to things. There are ten of us all together, and being all British it makes for a good atmosphere. It was always difficult with language and stuff with the French and Germans in the past, so it’s a lot easier on everyone. “ Rumors have it that the bikes haven’t even arrived yet, and that they’re lead lined. “ Ha, well, it’s not the lightest bike I’ve ever had. But I’ve definitely got one, and a road bike. They’re both in that green colour. The road bike’s nice, and er, I’m still getting used to the mountain bike..... It’s got Pace forks and Hope discs. “ The idea was to have uniform bikes, which could be serviced at World Cup races ( Pace do not yet offer such a service, ed ). 

Having ridden with major teams such as Peugeot and Schwinn in the past is the BCF team looking more like a poor relation, and is that likely to effect the riders performance ? “ It’s all swings and roundabouts. I mean we don’t have the team trucks and big back up for America, but it’s made up for in other ways. I mean, we’ve had training camps in Lanzarote, Teneriffe, and Benidorm. This is something quite new for most of us, and I know that I’m going in to the season better prepared than I ever have been, which says something for the plan. “

Old father time

“ They print the year that you were born on every World Cup start sheet. I have a look every single time, but there’s still Tinker ( Juarez ), Jan Oostergarde, and maybe even Hubert Palhuber,  who were born in the same first half of the swinging sixties as me. So I’m probably not quite the oldest swinger in town, yet. I prefer to think of myself as an elder statesman of the sport.”  Even so, there’s no arguing that Tim Gould has been around for a long time, right since the dawning of time in mountain bike terms; “ Er, day two actually ..” He corrects. 

So, I suppose this longevity makes him something of a Dali Lama figure within the sport. Way back when the Matlock mountain goat started out, which was more than a decade ago, the sport was totally raw and uncomplicated; “ It was a lot less serious back then, everyone just wanted to have a laugh. Myself and Dave Baker were something of an oddity back then, miss fits. The blokes we raced with on the road thought the whole thing was mad, and the mountain bikers didn’t know quite what to make of us and our roadie approach to it all. “ Even so, despite dragging around a cast iron Peugeot production bike, he took to things like a duck to orange sauce and won his first ever mountain bike race at Peebles in Scotland.

The rest as they say, is history. The skinny Northerner took the world by storm, winning race after race, and proving himself to be unbeatable when the going got tough and the trail went up. In 1990 the UCI finally recognised the sport, and awarded it official World Championship and World Cup status. Needless to say our man Gould went out, with UCI licence in hand, and won the very first ever official UCI World Cup race at Bessano Del Grappa in Italy; “ That has to be my best ever win, or at least my most satisfying for me. At last the sport was real, recognised, and I won the first ever official World Cup. “ Later that year he won the World Hill Climb Championships in Vail, which was officially a non championships event, and took the bronze medal behind Ned Overend and Thomas Frischknecht in the cross country title race.

The madness of King Tim

The following two seasons saw the Gould mountain express continuing at full steam. Then all of a sudden Tims whole life was turned upside down, literally over night; “ Basically I went mad. It just happened. I drew the joker in the pack. There absolutely was no sign of it. One night, in November 92, I started to get strange. My parents called out the doctor, and he sectioned me. “ For the following two years life must have been a living hell. This was a serious mental illness, and meant that for much of the time Tim was heavily sedated with drugs, and had to make regular visits to psychiatric hospitals. I can remember meeting him several times during this period, it wasn’t easy. What do you say ? But you didn’t really need to say anything. The guts that made him the greatest climber of all time made him face the illness full on. And courageously able to talk, even joke about it with people. Despite the joking, backbiting, and the demorolisation, that he must have suffered through being forced to perform at something way bellow his true potential, he simply carried on with the job, like the champion he is. 

I can’t think of many people who would have been able to take this torture for any length of time without just throwing in the towel and crumbling up; “ I love cycling, and I was a professional cyclist. It was all I wanted to do. I just had to keep doing it. That was what really got me through it all. I was always sure that I would get better, and I had to be sure. “  He even managed to finish second in the World Cup race at Mammoth Mountain, when fully sedated; “ I don’t reckon that’ll happen to anyone else again, what a thing eh .. “  All that was just five short years ago, but with his undoubted return to form the whole thing has been forgotten by most of us, but not by Tim; “ It really scares me, because the likelihood is that it will return, some day. “

When I were a lad

Things have changed in a big way for the sport over the last ten years. In fact it would be fair to say that it’s almost a completely different sport. Sure equipment and stuff has come on in leaps and bounds, and the whole game has become far more organised and slick, but that’s not all; “ Yeah, races start on time now, we have showers and stuff too. But there’s still a lot of room for improvement, like getting some decent prize money for races. “

Long gone are the days when riders did everything from dual slalom to cross country. Bula hats are a best forgotten thing of the past, dayglo is dead, and rigid forks are seen as collectors items. But what about the fun, what ever happened to that ? “ I still enjoy it. But the whole thing is so much more serious now. When we started it was all about fun. The lads nowadays are so serious about everything. They train like mad, and have absolutely no fun from it. At the moment diet seems to be the big thing; Lads of 16 or 17 see it as the key to everything, and are dieting like crazy. I can’t work it out, I mean, it’s just one small component in the make up of being successful. “ 

With the entire sport becoming more and more serious, and standards soaring with it, is it getting tougher and tougher to try and keep your pad at the top ? “ As you get older it is harder to get fit, but that’s just a biological thing. Even so I haven’t drastically had to change the way I prepare physically to be able to compete. As you get older you also get wiser, it sort of evens things out. The younger guys are going like crazy, over training, over racing, making bad tactical moves, but that wisdom only comes with years of experience. “

There’s life in the old dog yet

Just last season Tim landed only his second ever NORBA victory, at Park City, Utah; “ It was great for me. One of the highlights of my career. In nine seasons I’d only managed to win one NORBA race. It showed me that I wasn’t past it. “ Past it, it does seem as though he’s been around for ever. And at the spritely age of 35 surely the end is nigh; “ I dunno, I just love it. And as long as I can still perform well, and make a living from it, I’ll carry on. I’d really like to get to the Olympics next year. Then in 2001 the Worlds are in Vail, which is a great course for me. It’d be great to go out with a bang. Nick ( Craig ), Caroline ( Alexander ) and myself, were all joking about it the other week. I think you may see a kind of sect retirement after that race, I just hope I last that long.  “