An Olympian at 19, he retired at 21 - only to return to racing and eventually become world champion at 30. The individual pursuit is a race where you break or are broken. To win the title is a test of both physical and mental strength. For more than 30 years, his approach to the preparation and competition has inspired both elite and recreational cyclists - and now for the first time Steele shares his unique Australian Story. From country boy to world champion, the story of Steel Bishop will inspire sportspeople, business leaders and whole generation to follow.
An Olympian at 19, he retired at 21 - only to return to racing and eventually become world champion at 30. The individual pursuit is a race where you break or are broken. To win the title is a test of both physical and mental strength. For more than 30 years, his approach to the preparation and competition has inspired both elite and recreational cyclists - and now for the first time Steele shares his unique Australian Story. From country boy to world champion, the story of Steel Bishop will inspire sportspeople, business leaders and whole generation to follow.
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Overview
An Olympian at 19, he retired at 21 - only to return to racing and eventually become world champion at 30. The individual pursuit is a race where you break or are broken. To win the title is a test of both physical and mental strength. For more than 30 years, his approach to the preparation and competition has inspired both elite and recreational cyclists - and now for the first time Steele shares his unique Australian Story. From country boy to world champion, the story of Steel Bishop will inspire sportspeople, business leaders and whole generation to follow.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781925682410 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rockpool Publishing |
| Publication date: | 02/14/2019 |
| Series: | Australian Stories |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 45 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
On my bike
'Steele shows how one can realise their dreams ... He is one of our great sportsmen and a top bloke.' — international cricketer
Dennis Lillee, AM, MBE
Do you remember your first time on a bike? Mine was both terrifying and thrilling at the same time. It was a miracle I survived it and went on to be a cycling legend, winning not just Australian titles but setting cycling records that still stand today.
But all of that was still in the future for me. On my maiden bike ride the first thing I learnt was that my brothers could lie.
I was just six years old when my big brother put me on his bike, which was two sizes too big for me. I had Buckley's chance of reaching the pedals; and, of course, it also had backpedal brakes, which are useless if you can't reach them. At the time none of that mattered to me: I was just so excited to be playing with my brother and getting on his bike.
I rushed down a hill, excited by the speed and the wind in my face. I had a grin from ear to ear and was as happy as the proverbial pig, which I ended up being. Then I realised I was going too fast. My brother John had promised he would hold the bike, but he had lied. He was nowhere near me as the bike careened down the hill.
The moment I realised John was not taking care of me as a big brother should, my hands froze on the handlebars. Despite John screaming at me from a distance to turn around the shed at the bottom, I couldn't. At full speed and with nowhere to go, I collided with the rocky garden bed. And so I learnt my second lesson about cycling: it hurts when you crash – big time. (That never changed with age.)
Despite the cuts and bruises and the soreness that lasted for days, the experience was exhilarating. Thus the third, and possibly most lasting, thing I learnt that day was that I was hooked. I was excited beyond words with the thrill of speed and the freedom of wheels. I remember my imagination running wild in my little brain. From that day on I wanted to feel that way forever and knew that only the bike could give me that kind of adrenalin rush.
I may not have realised it right away, but that day I had found the thing I would be passionate about for the rest of my life.
I knew I wanted above all else to ride a bike. How was it going to happen? I had no money, and Mum and Dad had no spare cash for such a luxury for me. Our family were not well off. Mum made our soap, butter and cheese, and we almost never got anything new.
I remember once John and I needed sports shoes for school, and Mum had to find the money out of her already stretched budget. The three of us caught the bus to Horley's Shoe Shop in Kalamunda, and the only shoes Mum let us try on were the cheapest they had, the all-white Dunlop sandshoe. I can still smell the cheap rubber. We were so excited that Mum let us wear them home.
As we arrived back home we saw a bush fire coming up behind Lush's Service Station, which was across the road from our house. Bush fires in the hills of Perth are potentially life threatening. A strong wind can wipe out hectares of bushland and homes in moments, so they had to be put out fast.
John and I raced over to lend a hand, grabbing tree branches to beat out the fire. By the time we finished our white shoes were black, and the rubber soles had melted. Mum was not impressed and had to throw them out. We never got another pair.
For a family that couldn't afford shoes a new bike was out of the question, so despite all the pain and suffering it caused I had to learn how to ride John's bike. I looked ridiculous: a tiny boy on such a big bike, falling off more than hanging on, but I didn't care. I was riding. After a while I found a way to stay on, with my leg through the triangle of the frame and my waist against the top bar, clinging with white knuckles to the handlebars, happier than I could ever have wished. It was clumsy and I didn't go fast, but I was riding. I kept at it, imagining that one day soon I would be out beyond our property riding my own bike down the street to the shops. Freedom!
I couldn't ride John's bike forever. A friend of mine, Richard Melville, had an old, dusty, broken bike hanging in his dad's shed that he said I could have for parts. Wow: I could make my bike. I had no idea how to do it, but reckoned I could figure it out bit by bit.
I started to search the Carmel rubbish tip near our home. Me and my mates played there regularly, and it soon became a common sight to see the group of us rummaging through whatever the locals had discarded. One time I found stacks of boxes of brand new Bic pens, all in different colours. I shared them with my mates, and we each took some to school and made money selling them to our friends. This was my first foray into entrepreneurship.
I also happily found bike parts. Nothing flash, but better than nothing, such as a scratched frame on which I could attach Richard's bike parts. After about a week of hard work and excellent scavenging, I had my very own bike and I rode it everywhere. I was in heaven. It was the freedom I had been seeking.
I soon became a good rider, but I was a bit too smart one day. My mates and I were riding down Grove Road, a steep gravel hill not far from home. I was feeling confident and decided to show off by riding with no hands. I was wearing black footy shorts, thongs, no top and of course no helmet. Nobody wore helmets in those days, as they weren't compulsory. Not that anything would have saved me from what was about to happen, which was significant pain. My front wheel hit a rut in the road and jackknifed. The handlebars twisted round over 90 degrees and jammed into the frame of the bike. The front wheel collapsed under me, and I flew over the handlebars.
I remember thinking: 'This is not going to be pretty.' My flight was short, and I hit the gravel road with my hands and my bare chest. My bike landed on top of my back, hit my head and whacked my face into the road. I slid spread-eagled down the gravel road with my bike on my back.
This was my fourth lesson about cycling: avoid gravel and rocks at any cost!
I had never felt such excruciating pain before. The flesh tore from my face, chest, legs, knees, hands and arms. Almost every part of the front of my body was cut and bleeding from gravel rash. My back and head hurt from the bike landing on me. To add to my misery, I had to push my bike a kilometre home, crying all the way. Mum patched me up, again, and the next day, although feeling very sore and sorry for myself, I was back in the saddle.
Little did I know that all these falls, scrapes and disasters would give me the best grounding for competitive riding, and would teach me to watch out for potential problems and not be a show-off. I learned the value of knowing what I wanted: resilience, determination and persistence.
My childhood era was unique, and one that I believe doesn't exist today. As kids, we could be out all day with our mates and our parents knew we were safe. A favourite game we'd play day after day was 'follow the paper trail'.
Front riders would have a 30-minute lead and lay a path for the followers to find. One day we found ourselves riding out through Carmel, past the Melville Rose Farm and down to Bickley Brook Reservoir. The paper trail led us down the bush track to the bottom of the foothills, then along the base of the hills to Crystal Brook Road, a very steep hill. We had been out all day with nothing to eat or drink. It had been a scorcher, and we were exhausted.
The hill was so steep we had to hop off our bikes and push them up the hill. Halfway up the slope was a brook where clear water ran over granite rocks, so we lay down and let the water cool us, drinking as much as we could before pushing our bikes the rest of the way up the road. We headed home late afternoon, making sure we were home before nightf before nightfall. No one missed us. Those were safe days in the hills for kids.
For years I rode with mates and by myself around the area, on bush tracks and roads with guys such as Steve Milo, Dale Allen, Wade Smith and Robin Daglish. I got to know every inch of road in the hills. The steeper the hill the better I loved it, and the stronger the easterly wind the harder I rode. It's the same today.
It was at Steve Milo's where I had my first taste of competition. We used rakes to create a big sand track circuit at the back of his father's block, and would take turns racing and timing each other. It was just the best fun, trying to beat each other and getting faster every time.
I now realise that even when I was quite young I liked to win at everything I did. But I also knew that if I didn't win I wouldn't show my disappointment. I just had to work harder the next time.
CHAPTER 2A Kalamunda boy
'In the 1960s thousands of young Perth boys rode their bikes to school and sports training.' — international sportsman and former federal member of parliament Ric Charlesworth, AO
The Kalamunda Boys
The Kalamunda boys, the Kalamunda boys The Kalamunda boys are we.
We're always up to mischief, wherever we may be.
While standing by the station, a copper said to me:
'If you are one of those Kalamunda boys, you better come with me.'
He grabbed me by my collar and tried to run me in But I upped my fist and knocked him stiff, and we all began to sing:
'Ham and eggs for breakfast, ham and eggs for tea A piece of bread as big as your head and a lousy cup of tea And if you do not like it, a piece of bread and jam We'll all go back to Kalamunda in the Black Maria van.'
By Geoff Read and Doug Bishop
I feel blessed having grown up in Kalamunda, and am forever grateful that my parents chose to live there.
The word 'Kalamunda' derives from two Noongar words:kala, meaning 'home', and munda, meaning 'forest'; hence Kalamunda Shire's motto is 'A home in the forest'. It is on top of the Darling Scarp about 20 km east of Perth, with only state forest bushland beyond.
Kalamunda air was fresh (it still is), we had freedom, there were no locked cars or front doors: it had a safe, laid-back country town atmosphere. Even today, Western Australians consider Kalamunda too far away from the city when in reality it is only a 30-minute drive from Perth, much closer than many of the satellite suburbs on the ends of the freeway. The Kalamunda district is a hidden gem. My two wonderful daughters, Cassandra and Kimberley, and my grandchildren Havana and Archie still live in the area.
When I was a kid we lived in a small shed about 3 m x 5 m, at 86 Lesmurdie Road. I was the fourth and final child of Betty and Steele Bishop, delivered on 29 April 1953. Unplanned, I was born four years after John, five after Jill and ten after Doug. I was named Steele after my dad, who had been christened Steele after his mother's maiden name. To avoid confusion in the house, Mum called out 'Steele' for Dad and 'Steele Roy' for me. I also had the family nickname of 'Stinks'; I guess I must have smelled a lot.
We moved out of the cramped shed when I was two years old, as my dad had finally finished the real house he had been building on the property with the help of his two friends George Milo and Bill Lyons. After such cramped conditions the new house must have seemed like a palace to us. In reality, it was a humble four bedroom, two bathroom, timber frame construction with asbestos walls and a tiled roof.
My first memory is as a three year old coming down the back stairs at home. I used to love sitting on those steps. My older brother, John, who was seven, didn't want me to play with him and his friends because I was too little to hang out with them. I remember feeling sad every time I watched them disappear down the road.
Thinking back, I was never really close to any of my siblings growing up. My oldest brother, Doug, left home not long after he got his driver's licence and moved to Roebourne in the north of Western Australia with one of his mates. Because of our big age difference, I never really knew him until we reconnected when I was in my 40s.
My sister Jill wasn't into playing sports, so we didn't spend much time together as kids either. However, we did get much closer in our teens and later in life.
I had more in common with John, who loved sports and was a great Aussie rules football player, but the difference in our ages meant we didn't spend too much time together. As a result I was a bit of loner growing up, and still am a bit today. This solitude didn't weaken me; rather, it served to strengthen my sense of self-worth and ability to be at ease with being alone.
I learned to enjoy my own company, playing by myself and creating my own fun. I would play under the house with pieces of broken asbestos that remained from building our family home; we didn't know about the dangers of asbestos back then. I would also play with toy soldiers, cowboys and Indians and cardboard boxes.
Another fond childhood memory is of the mulberry fights with John. There was a massive mulberry tree in the orange tree orchard over the road where we would play. It had the sweetest, tastiest, largest mulberries on the planet. Mum would strip us down to our underwear and put hessian bags over us with holes cut out for arms and head. The mulberry fights were unequalled fun. We ate and played for hours and would come home completely covered in mulberry stains and with buckets of fruit for Mum.
Most nights after dinner the family gathered around the radio. We didn't have television back then; TVW7 launched in Perth on 16 October 1959. I loved lying on the floor in the lounge and listening to serials of detective stories such as The Untouchables. Then, in 1960 when I was seven years old, Dad bought our first black and white TV set for £250. From that moment on the family dinner went from sitting at the table together to sitting in front of the TV set.
I know that Dad worked long hours. He started off as an office boy for CIG (now known as BOC Gas), and over the course of 20 years worked his way up to the position of distribution manager. He travelled a long way to and from work (35 km each way), so he would leave home early in the morning and didn't arrive home till late. I can't remember my dad ever kicking a football with me or throwing or hitting a cricket ball; it never entered my head that he ever would. I thought this was normal, and I don't remember him doing anything with my brothers or my sister.
In fact, I don't remember much of what Dad or Mum did at all, even on weekends. Sometimes they would have friends over but I don't remember details of any of them, only that often they would talk and play music late into the night. This would be long after Mum and Dad had gone to bed even, telling their persistent partying friends to close the door and turn out the lights when they left.
One day when they were entertaining, John and I grabbed some of Dad's tobacco and cigarette papers from the top of the stable door that separated the kitchen from the dining room. We then hightailed it up the road about 200 metres, where we had a secret cubbyhole in the middle of a windrow of logs. John's friend, Johnny Hog, who lived opposite the cubby, met us at the hideaway. At the time we thought we had got away with it, until Doug arrived. He must have spotted us running up the road looking like we were up to mischief. As he confiscated our booty, he threatened to tell Dad what we had done. Ironically, John and I never smoked but Doug became a lifetime smoker.
Kicking the football around became my favourite pastime. We had a large block, and the best place to kick the footy was up the back where there was a chicken-wire fence that I could use as a goal. I would let my imagination go wild, pretending to be playing in the grand final. With seconds left in the game and my team five points down, I'd kick my football into the air then leap high above my opposition to take the most spectacular mark of the day right on the siren. I'd walk back to my mark, line up the goals and kick the ball through the centre of the goalposts. I'd win the match every single time. The roar of the hometown crowd was deafening: I was their sporting hero, and my teammates loved me.
This astounding play was even more amazing considering I usually did it with a broken and deflated ball. My mum loved cactus plants and they were everywhere in our backyard, so pretty soon after I got it my poor football ended up impaled among them. As there was no money for new bladders I had to be content with the deflated leather ball, which I would nonetheless lovingly rub with the leather polish Dubbin to keep it looking as good as it could. The image of the scratches and gouges from the cacti on the soft leather ball are etched in my mind.
Like most kids, I started playing Aussie rules. The youngest age group back then was the under 13s, so I joined them to play at only eight years of age. Every Tuesday and Thursday night for five years I ran the 1.5 km to training with John. My footy boots had aluminium sprigs that I had to tack onto the soles using a shoe last. After only a few weeks of running on them, the sprigs would be completely worn down and need replacing.
I sat on the bench for the entire first season, fronting up not only to training but to every game. I was positive that one day I would be given a chance to run onto the field. For some reason, I had an incredible amount of expectancy as a kid.
Then one day near the end of season one, the coach asked me to take to the field for the last quarter. Wow: was I stoked, totally on a high! I was over the moon with excitement, and now I felt as though I was a part of the team. Most of them were 12 years old, bigger, faster and stronger than I was as an eight year old. They dwarfed me. It was scary mixing it with the big boys, but they were constantly encouraging and took care of me.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Wheels of Steele"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Steele Bishop.
Excerpted by permission of Rockpool Publishing Pty Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
1 On my bike,
2 A Kalamunda boy,
3 The racing bug,
4 A dream is born,
5 Dream stealers,
6 Gaining experience,
7 Turning senior,
8 Munich,
9 Moving to Europe,
10 In the lost and found,
11 The Flying Fireman,
12 Just five seconds faster,
13 The world championships in Czechoslovakia,
14 The funny bike and Leicester,
15 Just when you think it's all over ...,
16 Mr Flowers,
17 Taking ownership,
18 Ron Webb's secret edge,
19 The big day,
20 'Go get him, Bish!',
21 Going home,
22 Farewell tour of Australia,
23 My final race: The Westral,
Epilogue: Life after racing,
The world champion jersey beckons again,
Appendix 1: My tips for success on (and off) the track,
Appendix 2: Achievements and major wins and awards,