The Two Kellys
This is the story of the first time I met Sean Kelly… and the second time I met Sean Kelly.
I used to do a podcast called This Week in Cycling History with a Scottish man named John Galloway. He was one half of the Velocast, a now defunct cycling podcast which rather blazed a trail I think, when it came to monetising podcasts. Every week I’d pick two or three events from various points throughout cycling history, I’d write a little intro about each one and then we’d ‘bump our gums’ as John used to say (or ‘talk shite’ as he described it when the mic was off).
“This Week in Cycling History Bernard Hinault won Paris-Roubaix for the first and only time…”
“This Week in Cycling History Stephen Roche won the Worlds in Villach to become just the second rider ever to complete the triple crown of cycling”
We had a running joke most weeks where John would roll his eyes and make fun of me because somehow I’d managed to shoehorn in an Irish angle into the week’s proceedings. More often than not, the Irish bit would have involved something to do with Sean Kelly. (I am full-naming Sean Kelly primarily to keep him distinct from myself, but also because he just has one of those names that sounds correct to full name).
We both had (and have) a massive admiration for Sean Kelly and what he’d achieved. How could you not? He was a mythical figure and we spent an inordinate amount of time mythologising him.
About a decade after we started that podcast I ended up working at GCN and because we now had the rights to show all the live racing, and because Sean Kelly was a commentator on the big races, we were now colleagues. I worked with Sean Kelly. Unbelievable!
I was able to say that but the reality wasn’t really the case. I had a little bit of involvement in the live coverage sometimes but it was usually through Dan Lloyd or through one of the show producers. The riff raff like me were kept at arms length from the actual talent.
That was to change when GCN asked me to take on the Etape du Tour and do a documentary about it, a ‘fat to fit’ type thing. One of the experts that was roped in to help me along the way was Sean Kelly himself. So on one of the rest days during the 2022 Giro d’Italia, Sean Kelly kindly interrupted his day off from commentating to spend the day with me instead. I would finally get to meet the legend himself.
It wouldn’t quite end up being the razzle dazzle scenario I was imagining. In fact it ended up being something straight out of an anxiety dream.
The schedule for the day was that I was supposed to go for a short bike ride with Sean Kelly so they could get some shots of us on the bike together and then we would end up in a little coffee shop outside of Bath where I would ask him annoying questions and he would impart some wisdom onto me. I got into my kit at the hotel, I picked up a shiny new Orbea in the GCN office first thing that morning and then met the film crew out front. They wanted to film us going up the Bannerdown climb so myself and Sean Kelly were to cycle to the bottom of it and the lads would meet us there.
“Sean cycles round here all the time. You two cycle there. We’re going in the car. Sean will know where it is. Meet you there.” is what they said to me as they drove off with no further instructions.
Sean did not know where it was.
Sean Kelly met me outside his hotel where I introduced myself and he responded with a kind of ‘yes yesss’ the way he does but which really meant “this plonker, I’ve had to sit through watching him on that stat attack nonsense on the World of Cycling show one too many times’.
I said “So will we head off? Do you know where we’re going?”
“No”
“The lads said you’d know where the Bannerdown Road is.”
“No”
“Oh right, so you’ve never been there before”
“No”
“Do you not cycle round here all the time?”
“No”
It was up to me then apparently. This is where the anxiety dream begins. The anxiety nightmare.
How the fuck do you change gear on this bloody bike
I typed Bannerdown Road into Google Maps. About 6km away. No problem, I’ll just stick the Google Maps lady in one ear and chat with Sean Kelly using my other ear. But my first problem was that this was one of the days where my bluetooth ear phones decided to be absolute pricks and wouldn’t connect to my phone. So instead of casually tossing my phone into my jersey pocket and seamlessly following oral instructions, I had to hold my phone with one hand watching out for turns while trying to cycle the bike with the other.
My second problem was trying to cycle the bike with the other. I was supposed to have picked up a normal Orbea bike, but when I got to the GCN workshop the mechanic wasn’t there. We were a bit pressed for time (didn’t want to be late for Sean Kelly after all) and there was an Orbea just by the door which looked like it was ready to go, so I took that one.
I shouldn’t have taken that one. It was not the correct bike.
It wasn’t quite a time trial bike but it was as aero as you can get without being a time trial bike, something I had never used before. It sounds absurd to say about a bicycle but it was really difficult to steer. Especially with only one hand. Bear in mind I am physically incapable of cycling a bike with no hands, this is the level of cyclist that Sean Kelly was dealing with here. It also had SRAM gears, which is also something I had never used before.
So while trying to make small talk with one of the greatest cyclists of all time, I was fiddling with my gears with my one free hand. I had managed to get myself into the hardest gear on the bike, I couldn’t shift into an easier sprocket on the back because I was holding the stupid phone in that hand. And I couldn’t move into the small ring at the front because I didn’t know how. How the fuck are you supposed to know that you have to click both levers at the same time for that to happen?!!
I was stressing out so much about trying to change gear and worrying what Sean Kelly would think of me as I travelled alongside him in the biggest gear I have ever been in, on my stupid uber-aero bike, turning the pedals at about 20rpm, that I couldn’t concentrate on the fucking map. We kept getting lost. Well, I kept getting us lost.
“Really sorry Sean, we’ve come the wrong away again” after I’d led King Kelly down a cul-de-sac for the third time in three minutes.
How is this happening? This is an absolute disaster. How the fuck do you change gear on this thing?!!! And there I was doing a slow motion U-turn in a housing estate, again, with a double Paris-Roubaix winner on my wheel as I was just really really trying not to drop my phone.
I also thought it would be a good idea to not wear my GCN kit that day. Instead I wore An Post - Sean Kelly team shorts and a Sean Kelly Tour of Waterford jersey I’d gotten for completing the Sean Kelly Tour of Waterford in 2014. What a twat. What a useless moron. There’s a stat attack for next week - what’s the worst bike ride Sean Kelly has ever been on? No, not his first ever Paris-Roubaix in 1978 when he said he ‘never wanted to endure anything like it ever again’. He hadn’t met me yet. It was cycling three miles through Bath with a fucking idiot who didn’t know how to operate a bicycle.
This Week in Cycling History for the first and only time in his life, Sean Kelly wishes he had never gotten involved in cycling.
We eventually got there, we went to the coffee shop, he answered my questions and he wouldn’t let me eat any scones because I was ‘in training’. I promised him I was taking my training seriously. I wanted him to think I was a serious person.
The next day I was partaking in what had become a tradition for me when I visited the GCN office - lunch at Five Guys. This time I made the mistake of choosing to sit at a table outside while I smashed a big fat giant sloppy burger into my face. It must have been lunchtime for the Giro commentary team as well. Along walked Rob Hatch and Sean Kelly. I’m sure he didn’t, but in my memory Sean Kelly literally gave me a clip round the ear. But he definitely did say “I thought you were supposed to be in training?! What the fuck is that you’re eating?”
“Sorry Sean!”
I’m really sorry Sean
