One day last year Sarra Hoy wandered into the garage of her Cheshire home and found her husband lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. As the wife of the most successful British Olympic athlete in history, the 34-year-old lawyer knew better than to react with panic or horror. Instead, she greeted this domestic spectacle with the weary familiarity of a wife who has just come home to find her husband clutching a hammer and standing guiltily next to a broken washing machine.
‘I had been doing a turbo session in my garage,’ confesses Sir Chris, 40, relaxing in the cosy Merlin pub in Alderley Edge, not far from his home. ‘When my wife came in, I was just lying on the floor.’
The rain lashing against the window behind him adds sinister portent to his story, but he looks both amused and abashed at revealing the truth. ‘I had tried to do a similar effort to the old lactate sessions I used to do as an athlete and I pushed myself too hard. It was horrible. My wife just looked at me and said, “What have you done?” I said, “I can’t speak!”’
Since retiring from track cycling in 2013, after a career that yielded six Olympic gold medals, 11 track world titles and a knighthood, Hoy is finally able to associate cycling with pleasure again rather than pain. But he can’t resist the occasional foray back into the delicious darkness of a savage turbo session or heavy squat workout.
‘Those lactate sessions were the worst,’ he recalls. ‘I’d be in a lab on a turbo trainer and I’d do four 30-second efforts at 100% effort. It sounds so innocuous but the difference between 99% and 100% is huge. You can finish at 99% and you’ll be hurting but if you push a tiny bit more – and that’s the bit that makes the difference to your training – your legs just grind to a halt. It’s like your engine is seizing up. My coach would unclip my feet and pull my leg over the saddle so I could just slide off onto a mat and curl up in a ball.
‘The real problem is that the pain actually gets worse,’ he adds. ‘You have created massive acidosis in your muscles so there is a huge quantity of hydrogen ions and the pH in your blood changes. For 15 minutes you lie there thinking, “God, this is really bad. I’m going to die. It has never been this bad before.” And every time you think exactly the same thing. You have to lie to yourself by saying you’re not doing a second set. Then, without moving for 15 minutes, almost to the second, I would roll over and think, “OK, I think I can do a second set now.” During those sessions I have never felt more alive or so close to death.’
Old passions, new roads
Diabolical pain and exhilarating highs were the norm for Hoy during his gold-tinted career. The 6ft 1in, 92kg Scot could blast around a velodrome at 80kmh, crank out 2,500 watts of power, and unleash 700Nm of torque – higher than that of a Ferrari Enzo. Self-flagellating lactate sessions, track sprints and gym workouts (those 27-inch thighs could squat 240kg) were just part of his quotidian existence. No wonder, then, that after a lifetime dedicated to achieving perfection, retirement can pose a serious psychological challenge for many athletes. Bliss can bleed into boredom, and newfound freedom into fear.
‘It’s weird because you go from being the best in the world at something to not being the best in the world, and you often define yourself by what you are good at,’ Hoy says. ‘All of a sudden you are the guy who used to be good at this. And it’s not like being a tennis player or a golfer where you are still better than 99% of the population. If you stop cycling, you won’t be as quick. That takes time getting used to. Even being physically fit is something you take for granted as a professional athlete. I mean, you’re knackered all the time, you get out of bed exhausted, and you grumble because your back and knees and legs are always sore. But underneath it you’re incredibly fit, then that all goes away.’
Clearly in Hoy’s case, it didn’t disappear for long. After pictures from a recent shirtless photo shoot – revealing a rock-hewn physique and full xylophone of abdominal muscles – were released online, Mark Cavendish tweeted, ‘When I grow up, I want to be Chris Hoy.’
‘You have a period after retiring when you don’t even look at a bike, and don’t go to the gym,’ Hoy admits. ‘But it didn’t take me long before I wanted to get back – not because I wanted to be the best in the world, but just to feel fit again, and just because I missed riding my bike.’
Hoy still thrashes himself in the gym and on the bike but he no longer has anything to prove. ‘There are times when I do a hard ride of two to three hours in the hills or I can think, “I don’t fancy it today,” and just go for a gentle ride and stop off at a cafe. I enjoy going hard and getting my lungs and legs burning, but the difference now is that I can choose if I want to do it.’
Contrary to popular perception, track cyclists regularly hit the road in training so Hoy is no newcomer to the joys of road cycling. ‘Mostly I would do recovery rides,’ he says. ‘It was more relaxing and if you did all your recovery on a stationary bike, as a track cyclist you would only ever associate your bike with pain. The other type of harder road ride was to improve my aerobic capacity. I’d occasionally do a big aerobic block, maybe 10 days in Mallorca. If you were first to the top of Sa Calobra, you would get bragging rights. In my early years, when I competed in the kilo, I’d do two-hour time-trials on camps in Australia. I was going at 25mph, which wasn’t bad for a fat sprinter.’
Brand Hoy
Since retiring, Hoy has galvanised himself against any sense of stagnation with a range of personal projects, including launching his own Hoy bike brand with Evans Cycles; the Hoy 100 sportive in the Pennines; and a clothing collaboration with Vulpine. He now has a young son, Callum, to look after, and has even tried his hand at
a new career in motorsport. Having won the LMP3 class of the European Le Mans Series last year with teammate Charlie Robertson, this June he competed in the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans race, describing the experience as ‘amazing’ after his team finished an impressive 17th.
‘You have to find out who you are – without getting too philosophical about it – and start deciding what you want to do with your life,’ Hoy says. ‘You are so used to focusing on doing one thing to the nth degree for so long, so it’s then: what do I do now?’
Hoy says his driving project is just a hobby that has grown legs – ‘I love track days, I love driving cars and I love speed,’ he explains – but his bike brand was something he’d been planning since his time as an athlete.
Following the Sa Calobra road bike, Shizuoka city bike and Fiorenzuola track bike, Hoy’s latest offering is the Alto Irpavi road bike, named after the outdoor track in La Paz, Bolivia, where he attempted the kilo world record in 2007. It’s the first Hoy bike to come equipped with disc brakes.
‘For me, as a 90-kilo rider, the difference with disc brakes is massive,’ he says. ‘On descents it gives me the confidence to carry some speed into corners whereas carbon rims and calliper brakes in the wet were just terrifying. The modulation of disc brakes is incredible so you can adapt your braking much more easily. Not long ago we all thought: what’s wrong with mechanical shifters? Now electric gears are normal. In a few years we will probably look back and think callipers seem archaic.’
Hoy is heavily involved in developing new products, visiting the bike-manufacturing facilities in Taiwan and personally testing his cycling clothing range. ‘There is nothing better than seeing someone out in your kit or on one of your bikes,’ he says. ‘I’ve had some real backhanded compliments on Twitter. One guy said, “I’ve never been a fan of Chris Hoy but I just bought one of his bikes because it’s really good.” There’s a compliment in there somewhere.’
Life on Tour
As a fan of cycling history and culture, Hoy relishes the drama of the Tour de France each summer, ogling new
kit and revelling in the daily soap opera. He’s proud to see what Team Sky have achieved and is frustrated by
the negativity buzzing around the team.
‘Team Sky have taken a lot of stick and you have got to question why. Sky publicly stated they wanted to do it clean, that there are ways of getting advantages without doing drugs. They’ve shown that you can do it drug-free but they face scrutiny whereas other teams employ people who have just come out of a doping ban, or give coaching positions to riders who were heavily involved in drugs in previous years.
‘Sky are improving the image of the sport and showing young riders: “Look, you can do it clean.” And that was always the thing that gave me hope. I remember seeing Jason Queally winning a gold medal [in the 2000 Sydney Olympics]. I thought, “My own teammate, who I know is clean, is Olympic champion. Maybe I can do that too.”’
Hoy believes he was privileged to have learned his trade within the clean culture of British Cycling, which meant he never had to endure the same pressures as former road cyclists. ‘I’ve become Olympic champion six times and I’ve never taken a performance-enhancing drug in my life, but I was lucky in that I never even had the choice. I never had pressure and I never had a person come to me saying, “You should do this.”
‘If you are a teenage kid and are thrown into a sport or an environment where it is the norm, who knows? People say they have great strength of character but you can only talk from your experiences.’
Hoy says the suspicion endured by Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome is disappointing, and quite understands their irritation. ‘That frustration – when riders snap, like when Brad was going through those daily accusations
[in 2012] – that frustration is not with the journalists but with the guys who have cheated in the past, the guys who have taken drugs and tarnished their sport.’
He says he would be delighted if Mark Cavendish goes on to take Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 stage wins at the Tour de France. ‘Everybody accepts Mark is the greatest sprinter of his generation. What he is now realising – and what happens when you get older – is that you can’t just step on the bike and win on an average day. He has to be at his best to beat the Kittels and whoever else, but when he’s at his best he can take anybody. If you saw Cav when he was 16 and somebody said he would one day be challenging Merckx’s record, you’d think they were crazy.’
Road to Rio
With the Rio 2016 Olympics around the corner, the British track cycling squad – minus Hoy for the first time since 1996 – finds itself in a delicate position. The team failed to win any golds at the 2015 World Championships in Paris, but when the Worlds came to London one year later, they topped the table with nine medals, including five golds.
Since then, British Cycling has had a bit of a rough ride, with accusations of bullying and the resignation of technical director Shane Sutton. At the time of our interview the GB Olympic track team had yet to be decided, so does Hoy believe British fans can anticipate another glorious medal haul?
‘I think the endurance team will be a force to be reckoned with – both the men’s and the women’s,’ he
says. ‘I think Laura Trott will be the one to beat in the omnium. Those riders have medal chances. In the sprint, Jason [Kenny] has been Olympic champion and can be again. And in the team sprint – with Callum Skinner or Matt Crampton – we will have a chance. It’s tough to comment on the women’s medals. Becky James has been world champion but was out injured for six months.’
Hoy says younger athletes often drop in to see him for informal advice and he has encouraging words for any athletes currently still struggling for form. ‘The men’s team sprint is no worse off than four years ago and we went
on to win gold,’ he says. ‘We went from having not won a single medal at the Worlds [in April 2012] to winning with a world record at the Olympic Games [in August 2012]. People forget that.’
Reminiscing about his time with British Cycling, Hoy is proud of the unique atmosphere created within the camp. ‘Me and Jason [Queally] would wake up at a World Championships, knowing we would be racing each other, and the conversation would go: “Did you sleep well?” “Yeah, really well. You?” “Oh yeah, great. How are the legs?” “Ah, really good.” Even though we both knew we were knackered, we’d be joking all the time. The team was very good at keeping the racing on the track and then when you crossed back over you were friends again.’
That’s not to say British cyclists wouldn’t resort to dirty tricks. ‘Jason had strong willpower and I was weak, so on training camps he used to hide biscuits and cakes at eye-height in cupboards, then open the packet so they would stare at me. We were teammates but also rivals and he knew if I had one biscuit I’d eat the whole packet.’
You sense it will be hard for Hoy to be a spectator this August. So many memories and mates will spring to mind. ‘I will miss it massively,’ he says. ‘That feeling before the start when you sense the energy in the crowd and there are five minutes to go, and the riders are all finishing their warm-up and the officials are getting ready…’
The rain is still battering against the pub window but for a moment you sense Hoy is back in the velodrome, smelling the pinewood of the track, awaiting the buzzer.
‘When winning riders cross the line you can see on their faces the realisation of what they have achieved. That’s one thing you can’t replace. You will never get that back. All I can do is watch videos of it or look at pictures or remember it. But some people never get that feeling. I was lucky to experience it again and again.’
Hoy retired a legend, an icon and an inspiration, but in the years to come, whether he’s racing cars, designing bikes or advising young British riders, you sense he has plenty more contributions to make.
‘I’ve had an amazing experience and it’s so cool to have achieved something you can still feel a part of,’ he reflects. ‘Until I’m an old man, until the day I die, I will be inherently linked with the Olympic Games and
I can always take pride in that. No matter what direction my life takes in the next 40 to 50 years, my name will be there next to a little date in the history books – and it will be there forever.’
Any young British cyclist heading to Rio could not wish for a more powerful image on which to ruminate.
It must be reassuring for Sir Chris Hoy to know that if he hadn’t won six Olympic gold medals and 11 world titles, resulting in a knighthood from Her Majesty, he could have enjoyed a successful alternative career as a salesman in a bike shop. ‘I went into a store in Kendal in the Lake District one weekend and I managed to sell one of my own bikes,’ chuckles Hoy, who launched his bike range last year through a partnership with Evans Cycles. The 38-year-old, who retired in 2013, is sitting in a quiet pub in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, with his famous 27in thighs – which could generate 2,483 watts of brute power – tucked neatly beneath a table. ‘I always try to visit as many stores as possible to meet the staff. One of them said, “There’s a guy upstairs looking at your bikes. He’s also looking at a Trek and something else.” So I said, “Right, come on, let’s go.”’
And so one lucky punter soon found himself face-to-face with the most successful British Olympian of all time. ‘I was keen not to give the hard sell but I just tried to explain what we had done with the bikes and the differences between the groupsets, materials and pricing. We got him set up on a turbo, changed his position a bit and sure enough… he bought the bike! It was brilliant.’
Standing 6ft 1in tall and constructed from 93kg of Scottish muscle, Hoy must have terrified his rivals, but in person his charm and humility make him anything but intimidating. ‘I don’t think he felt obliged to buy it,’ adds Hoy, as an afterthought. ‘He seemed genuinely impressed and later sent me a “thanks” on Twitter. It’s great to hear people enjoying their bikes. The other day I saw two Hoy bikes on the back of a motorhome on the M25. I wanted to give them a beep.’
Not that he expects to please everybody. ‘I met someone in a bike shop randomly just before we launched, showed him a picture of the bike on my phone, and he said, “Ah, I would have gone for yellow.”’ Hoy is chuckling again. ‘Even if he thought that, just be polite and say, “That’s nice!” But the colours have been very well received on Twitter, and people are normally very honest when they tweet. The styling was what I would look for myself: quite cool, understated, matt and gloss with muted colours and with a colour track band inspired by the velodrome to stand out a bit.’
God is in the detail
Hoy’s passion for his bikes and his evident eagerness for them to be enjoyed and admired are the central themes of his venture into bike building. Put simply, Sir Chris Hoy is congenitally incapable of doing anything unless he feels he can do it properly. As a young track cyclist at university he switched from a degree in maths and physics at St Andrews to one in applied sports science in Edinburgh because he knew it would improve his understanding of physiology and training and therefore he would excel. As a professional rider he embarked on a relentless quest for knowledge, serving as a guinea pig in wind tunnel and rig tests, visiting libraries to read sports science journals, and often writing his own training plans. He’s the same off his bike too. A coffee fiend, Hoy completed a barista course in order to perfect his double ristretto, and since retiring, not content to simply enjoy driving fast cars for the fun of it, he has been racing in the British GT Series in a bid to compete at a future edition of the Le Mans 24-hour race.
I’ve witnessed this precision and commitment first-hand. Having been invited to sample a gym session with him in Glasgow last year, Hoy was never going to simply smile for the cameras as I squatted beneath a barbell. Instead he patiently explained the nuances of post-exercise metabolism and fast-twitch muscle composition, and made minute adjustments to the position of my heels and knees, keen to ensure I came away with the correct knowledge.
He was equally thorough when I asked him for man-to-man advice on how a chap should shave his legs. (For the record, he told me: ‘Make sure you give your legs a good scrub with an exfoliator first, then trim your hairs with a clipper so they’re not too long, and use a good razor with some gel to make sure you avoid ingrown hairs or razor rash.’)
The result of Hoy’s meticulous devotion to whatever task is in hand is clearly evident in his bike range. He was heavily involved in the development process, refining the geometry, making component choices, test riding the bikes and visiting the manufacturing facility in Taiwan (where he endured an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale that had him fleeing his 15th-floor room sharpish).
‘I think from a cynical, purely financial point of view, I could have got a bike range with my name on it out in time for London [2012 Olympics] but there was no chance I’d have had the time to do it properly,’ he explains. ‘Maybe they would have sold well but it wouldn’t have been me. But since the Games and since I retired [in 2013] this is pretty much what I’ve been doing.’
Hoy Bikes
As if to emphasise his point, Hoy’s bikes are named after important personal memories or places. The Sa Calobra road bikes (£635-£1,150) commemorate the Mallorcan climb he tackled on winter training camps; the Shizuoka city bikes (£550-£900) are named in honour of the Japanese region that’s home to the famous keirin school; and the Fiorenzuola track bikes (£675-£1,300) are named after the Italian track where he won his first senior World Cup medal.
Hoy was keen for his bikes to offer a smooth, fast and solid ride. ‘I wanted every bike to be fit for purpose for me because I knew that if it could withstand my torque and power, the average person in the street wouldn’t have to worry about flex,’ he says. ‘The bikes are very strong and stiff so there’s minimal loss of energy through the bottom bracket, but they are not harsh to ride because we designed them to absorb road vibrations.’
This focus led Hoy to choose aluminium frames over carbon. ‘We didn’t want to do carbon for carbon’s sake and I would always choose aluminium over carbon bikes in the lower price end as you get a better ride and a better frame. People think that because riders at the Tour de France use carbon, they must too. Carbon is lighter when you use high-modulus stuff but I didn’t want low-modulus carbon. If we do carbon in the future it will be high-end.’
The Sa Calobra road bike is available in four versions (.001 to .004), ranging from a Shimano Sora groupset with Alex wheels to Ultegra brakes and gears with Mavic Aksium wheels. ‘The money we saved on the frame meant we could put extra money into componentry, so the overall package is a better bike for your money. They’re all mid-range and the .004 is as good as any bike I was given by British Cycling in terms of fit, response and weight.’
WE SAW THE STRESS TESTS WHERE THE BIKE GETS BOLTED IN AND FORCE IS APPLIED AND WE WERE TOLD OUR BIKE HAD A VERY STIFF FRAMEHoy was deeply impressed by his trip to the bike manufacturing facility in Taichung, Taiwan. Before entering the factory, the knight of the realm was forced to put on a hair net and shoe covers and was blasted with air to remove contaminants – a strange but ultimately reassuring process. ‘Twenty years ago, “Made in Taiwan” was almost a euphemism for “cheap and nasty” but they have the best factories in the world for bike manufacturing. The brands we saw in there would make your eyes widen,’ he says. ‘We spoke to the staff and the dexterity with which they laced spokes and hubs was very impressive. We saw the stress tests where the bike gets bolted in and force is applied and we were told our bike had a very stiff frame. I loved the days when Colnago and Pinarello were hand-built in Italy but the fact is everybody goes to Taiwan because they’re the best.’
It was important to Hoy that his bikes could be tailored for a better fit, with Evans stocking a range of interchangeable Hoy-brand components. ‘The number of times I have seen people with their set-up all wrong, like people on time-trial bikes with their saddle at 45 degrees because their position is so uncomfortable,’ he says. ‘I know the importance of fit from an aerodynamic, performance point of view but it’s also about comfort. You can go into a store and if you want a longer stem, narrower bars or shorter cranks, we can change it. You don’t have to buy a frame then pay £70 for a new stem.’
Three lefts make a right
Throughout the process, Hoy collaborated with Evans’s own-brand bikes product manager James Olsen, who previously designed the Genesis bikes for Madison. ‘I learned so much from him,’ admits Hoy. ‘We had many similar ideas but also disagreed sometimes, which created debate and got us to a better position.’
Olsen is proud of the final products. ‘We were aiming for a bike that has a good stiffness-to-weight ratio without an overly rigid feel,’ he says. ‘Weight is often a real sales feature but stiffness-to-weight is harder to quantify. The Sa Calobra may not be the lightest but it’s very effective when you’re climbing due to the power transfer. I’m also proud of the way it corners – we did testing at the Kent Cyclopark, which has a really fast left-hander and Chris is quite good at left-hand corners! So I learned a lot by following Chris’s lines and we made subtle changes, which improved how it corners on less-smooth UK roads.’
Olsen reveals that they scaled the tube dimensions between the XL and XXS frames, using top and down tubes of different diameters, to ensure the optimal balance between power and weight for riders of all sizes. ‘It means we have a bike range that a tall, strong rider can sprint on, but which is not overly stiff or heavy for a smaller rider.’ Testing the bikes together also helped them develop the best adjustable fit. ‘Sir Chris and I ride the same frame size but with different set-ups – I can hardly get on the drops of his bike as I have a more relaxed fit. Getting the bike to work for both of us proved we’d got the fit range just right.’
Hoy is equally excited by his city, track and kids’ bikes. The Shizuoka city bike has hydraulic disc brakes for safety and clearance for mudguards. ‘They’re faster than the usual heavy hybrids, almost like a road bike in terms of weight and responsiveness, but you can wear normal clothing because you’re not stretched out,’ says Hoy.
The kids’ Cammo road bike, the BMX-style Napier, the six-speed, go-anywhere Bonaly and the single-speed Meadowbank are all top-end products. ‘I didn’t want to do kids’ bikes unless they were the best,’ reveals Hoy. ‘We wanted them to be comfortable and they are half a kilo lighter than other kids’ bikes. We lowered the bottom bracket and shortened the cranks to lower their centre of gravity for stability. And we used short-reach brake levers so kids can pull them with their weak little fingers and feel confident handling them.’
WE HAD A BUDGET AND WE BUILT THE BEST POSSIBLE BIKESThe whole Hoy Bikes design process fulfilled a lifelong ambition for Sir Chris. When he was a boy he worked in a second-hand bike shop in Edinburgh called Recycling, scrubbing the rust off decrepit bikes with steel wool and masking scratches with tubes of T-Cut. The money he earned enabled him to construct his dream bikes, the images of which were sketched all over his school jotters. Rather romantically, he also scribbled poems about them. ‘As a kid, you had a weekend job to save your pennies, then you would have a budget with which to go and buy a bike. So I would look at the classifieds and get a second-hand frame, buy the components and piece together the best bike for the money. It is the same with this: we had a budget and we built the best possible bikes.’
In the velodrome
Hoy’s success on the track was always testament to his hard work, commitment and vision as well as to his talent. Obsessed with bikes ever since he saw the BMX chase scene in E.T., the young Hoy competed on cinder tracks at Lochend and Danderhall in Edinburgh, enjoyed mountain-biking in the Pentland Hills, and competed in road and track events for the Dunedin Cycling Club. As he progressed into the senior British track scene – before Lottery funding arrived in 1997 – Hoy had to devise his own training regimes. His early methods were so primitive he would sometimes ride with his brakes full on to boost his leg strength. Later in his career he would enjoy cutting-edge sports science and slick gadgetry, but Hoy earned his privileges the hard way.
His career-long thirst for knowledge was born out of necessity. ‘In the early years we had no support and coaching, just my team-mates Craig MacLean or Jason Queally saying, “You jumped too early, try this,” or, “You were ragged towards the end, focus on that.” I had to find out about physiology, mechanics and psychology through my degree and by reading scientific papers about muscle power at the library. But it really helped because even later in my career I could challenge my coaches and they could challenge me.’
HOY’S NAME IS PRINTED IN JAPANESE ON THE TOP TUBE – OR SO HE THINKS. ‘IT MIGHT JUST SAY “GULLIBLE SCOTSMAN”If the British cycling scene has changed a huge amount in the elite sphere, there has been almost as much of a revolution at grassroots level. ‘I do still pinch myself when I see so many riders everywhere,’ admits Hoy. As if to prove the point, a gardener had earlier spotted Hoy and began discussing his love of bikes, in between trimming a hedge. This wasn’t always the case, even for the sport’s big stars. ‘Twenty years ago people might know Chris Boardman, that’s it. Now most people could easily name six cyclists.’ Today Hoy has also brought along a bespoke steel keirin bike built for him by Scottish bike-maker Shand. Hoy developed the geometry, Shand worked its magic, and the bike was completed with a Dura-Ace chainset, a Thomson stem and Nitto bars and post. Hoy’s name is printed in Japanese on the top tube – or so he thinks. ‘It might just say “Gullible Scotsman”,’ he laughs.
As we chat, Hoy makes regular admiring glances at the bike propped up in the pub, alongside his impressively pimped-up Sa Calobra. ‘Seeing that bike was genuinely my first “wow” for a long while,’ he says, clearly besotted. ‘I loved the design process because it got me back in love with bikes again. For a while, a bike became a tool to do my job on the track. It wasn’t a bike, it was just a series of components that were constantly replaced. Now I have that bond again. I remember as a kid stripping down a bike, leaving it spotless and then sitting on my bed looking at it. I have the same feeling now with my own bikes.’
Hoy takes another proud peek at his bikes. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? That you become so attached to a lump of metal. But I love it.’
Find out more about Hoy bikes at hoybikes.com and follow Sir Chris on Twitter at @ChrisHoy