That was one element of the cycling life that I didn’t know how to give up. I was just a white guy in his twenties, a bit skinnier than average, and I’d be safe in the next place, probably.īut I wanted coffee. Joe Public could pick Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish out of a line-up, but the rest of us are unrecognisable. Remove the Lycras, helmet and sunglasses, and a cyclist looks like anyone else. I told myself that it was very bad luck that the first place I’d walked into had contained someone who recognised me. Apparently I was always going to be Ben Goddard, doper, has-been, disgrace. My unfortunate little EPO habit had been exposed, and any self-respecting cycling fan would be perfectly entitled to give me the sort of look that I’d got from this girl.Īnd apparently I wasn’t going to escape the cycling scene, however far I thought I was running away from it. I’d dropped off the list, not just of great British hopes, but of ordinary decent people you’d want to pass the time of day with. There was a five-page feature on great British hopes, and I was great British hope number seven. I was pretty sure that it was Cycling Monthly, which was unfortunate if I was right. She met my eye, wearing a cold, blank expression that I supposed I’d have to get used to, exchanged a glance with her friend, and then looked down at a magazine on the table. There are still pictures floating around: seven year old Ben Goddard, with brave gap-toothed grin and gleaming wheelchair, next to Ben now – or, at least, Ben last month.Īnd the girl in the wheelchair in the café in this run-down seaside town was impressed by none of it. I used to do a lot of that, having been a disabled kid myself once. If I hadn’t gone onto autopilot and behaved as if I was doing some charity event for disabled kids. I mean, I was regretting plastering on my shit-eating wheelchair-user-greeting grin, but that was only because I knew I’d been recognised. Not that this occurred to me at the time. If you’re thinking that I’m the one who comes off looking like a dick, I couldn’t disagree with you.
The first thing I saw was the wheelchair.
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