From "Willie Feet" to "Will's Wheels".

    Most of us know Will Wright as the bike riding retailer to whom you love to hand over your hard earned cash.  This article by Danielle Riley gives some insight into a much younger Will Wright, local heroes and his early days as a bike rider.  It is a particularly interesting piece of work that is fondly written.  Read this, enjoy and be inspired.  CR.

From Willie Feet to Will`s Wheels.

It`s nearly 20 years since I was stood in the car park of the Rising Sun for the weekly Manchester Velo club run, when we were greeted with a huge skid into the carpark, followed by a huge grin and the biggest saddle pack you have ever seen. That`s how Will introduced himself to those of us that were around all that time ago. I think he was about 13 or 14 with a gas tubing bike that you needed to have been weight training for some time to lift, or that might have had more to do with the large amount of food stuffed into the saddle pack, you`d have thought it was a week long tour not the weekly club run. Anyhow Will had announced his arrival. I think that day we went to Dimmingsdale in Staffordshire and was handed out one of the first of many punishments I took over the years.

Will started turning up regularly on a Sunday morning, usually on the last minute having delivered the Sunday papers to most of Marple prior to coming on the clubrun. One of the first rides we did was to the national hill climb at Nick o Pendle, we were guided by old hands Terry Nolan and Steve Horsey. We turned up and met up with the rest of the Riley cycling mafia at the event and my elder sister Terrie still talks about meeting Will for the first time. Her lasting impression of meeting him was his huge feet that were clad in huge trainers!!. As was the case in those days most clubruns were eventful and I seem to remember that we rode home down the hard shoulder of the M66 because we couldn`t find the way home.

Epic clubruns became something of the norm and later that winter we had been introduced to Laurie Pearson who was to become a very influential character on both our cycling careers. Myself and Will were like chalk and cheese, I had been to my first bike race at 10 days old and grown up surrounded by bikes and bike riders and Will exuded this raw talent and listened avidly to all the old stories from the Velo and Cowans cycles but appeared to have been born to ride a bike. I remember one of these epic rides where it was just the three of us, we managed to ride out to Stoney Middleton in about an hour and a half and then take about 7 hours to get home due to the exceptionally strong winds. I`ve still not forgiven Laurie for making me go back down Winnats because his hat had blown away and I was nearest to it. This was one of many occasions when I walked up the infamous Winnats, on arrival at the top Will had donated his overshoes to the local sheep population, I still drive past there wondering about whether there is a sheep wandering around in Will`s overshoes.

Will was affectionatley known as ""Willie feet", put it this way his cycling shoes were that big that I could get my feet clad in cycling shoes inside them, now I have to admit that I have very small feet but his were riduculously big.

It wasn`t long before Will started racing and it became fairly regular for him to just ride away from the rest of the juniors. I remember a particularly wet and soggy division champs on Cheshire, and there been no racing for the girls I rode out to watch with Laurie, we turned up about half way around the first lap and Will was already a couple of minutes off the front on his own, grinning ridiculously as he handed yet another pasting out to his contemporaries. It became fairly usual for Will to finish on his own.

Will soon introduced another character to our little group the infamous MR B. I remember deciding to go to the Isle of Man week in 1989, we had all saved over the winter and the arrangements had been planned down to the finest detail ( well I was organising them!!) But the one thing beyond my organisational capabilities was actually getting Mark to stay on his bike, I seem to remember that he fell of at Glutton Bridge whilst out training and wrecked his bike. He was dutifully supplied with Will`s spare bike for the Isle of Man week.

We arrived at Liverpool with all our bikes and gear, wheel carriers and the kitchen sink, dropped off by my late father in his infamous VW Camper and set sail for Douglas with Laurie in charge. On docking in Douglas we made our way to the hotel and were met with blank looks, you`re late and we`ve give your rooms away, onto another hotel and we were supplied with the broom cupboard with all of us and bikes squeezed in together, I for one wasn`t parting company with my brand new immaculate 653 Swinnerton. The first event of the week was the International Mountain time trial, and Mark was riding, myself and Will weren`t riding as Will was there for the Peter Buckly series and there were plenty of womens events for me. Mark duly finished the time trial in one piece. That`s when it all started to go wrong the next day the events were on the Willaston circuit, I rode the infamous handicap and later on in the day Will and Mark were on the start line resplendent in our newly modernised Manchester Velo kit ( the sameone they use today!!) Will was one of the favourites and everyone was very nervous. The field passed the first time and Will was tucked in sensibly, but no sign of Mark, we waited ages and then the tannoy went, could we go to the first aid, there was Mark laid out with road rash on his road rash. And yet another broken frame. I seem to remember the whole of the next day been occupied trying to get Marks bike welded together so he could ride the rest of the week. We continued to make our mark on the Isle of Man and I was handed a particularly nasty battering by Will in the two up ten, whatever possessed me to ride a two up ten with him when there was money at stake for the first mixed team, I was shouted at because we finished one second behind Julie Hill and Sean McVitty two good riders at the time. As well as bike riding there was the mooneying to the islanders, not me just the boys!! The terrible weather and food, why I ever went back to the place i`ll never know, but it was never as much fun as that first time.

Will by now had given up on school and was working in Marple Cyclesport, Mark was an apprentice of some sort and I was working at Harry Hall Cycles. Will for sometime had had a girlfriend Sarah, and I remember her and Will coming to pick me up for the Janus Road Club dinner, I`m still not sure whether until that point Sarah had actually realised "Dan" was a girl. Anyhow Will won a bottle of champagne that night for declaring his love to Sarah, obviously Sarah became Will`s wife and she`s always personally being a heroine of mine how you put up with him I have no idea.

It wasn`t long before Will`s talent was recognised and he eventually gained selection for Wales, I think his mum and dad were on holiday in Bangor when he was born or something along those lines. Anyhow he eventually went to the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada. I got a postcard from the trip outlining how much money he had managed to win on the build up to the games. It was here that Will was introduced to track cycling, having never ridden the track, he then rode his first competitive event on the track in the games.

Around this time I disappeared over the Peaks and went to university in Sheffield, so I didn`t see much of what was going on in Will`s career but I always kept in touch, well who else was going to sort all the clunks and bangs out on my bike. I think it was around this time that I actually had to learn to change an inner tube myself, after years of using the i`m totally pathetic I don`t know what to do look when I punctured, when in reality I just didn`t see the point in getting my hands dirty or worse still breaking a nail! Mark had disappeared of to Belgium to earn fame and fortune as a bike rider and Will was still fixing bikes and ripping the legs off people.

The velodrome opened in the mid nineties and very soon after the Manchester Regional Track League started and I encouraged Will to have ago on my very small track bike, I seem to remember the wheels almost smoking on it as it had never been so fast before. Will soon became a regular at the velodrome and purchased his own bike. It was around this time that "ATOM" the precursor to "Wills Wheels" became into being and became quite a phenomenal team at the velodrome.

There was one event that Will always wanted to do well in, the infamous Tour of the Peaks. I remember every year as everyone else was getting fed up with racing we would be treated to the slimmed down version of Will at the end of the season for this blue riband event. Now i`ve seen more Tours of the Peak than I care to remember, years of travelling around in the back of my dad`s campervan whilst he drove the St John Ambulance men around, these are the sameone`s who still ask where`s my trike. I`ve had a two wheeler for 32 years for god`s sake!! I think Will managed a very respectable 8th in the event in the late nineties, which isn`t bad for an all rounder.

Will as you know took over Bardsley Cycles and became the owner of his own business and never one to miss a business opportunity rode the 2002 Commonwealth games in Manchester. I`ve still not recovered from coming in from a 14 hour shift on traffic duty outside the weightlifting and switching on the news to see Will flying through the air on national TV. My only disappointment was that the bare skin that was exposed wasn`t bearing an advert for Will`s Wheels!!

Will has now retired from competitive cycling to spend time with daughters Emily and Megan, I think he`s given up on the idea of going for his own team pursuit team, although having been told about the array of the bikes that the girls already own it wouldn`t surprise me if it`s not long before the Wright sisters are a force to be reckoned with on Cheshire.

There`s many more stories I could tell from the early days these are just some of the one`s that have brought a smile to my face over the years I hope you`ve enjoyed hearing about the man himself. But be warned he can get you to part with money, i`m still not sure how I walked into the shop in 2000 for a new inner tube and came out with a new bike! But one thing is for sure i`ve now got my own stories to tell about the bike shop where everyone goes to meet, I don`t just have to listen to stories to of them old bikies that I swore i`d never turn into when the good old days were better but somehow it`s happened.

So if you see a overweight middle aged woman crawling around the Cheshire countryside on a very smart Cinelli give her a wave because she could once take a battering from the best.

And just one request to the man himself, just because you`re not racing doesn`t mean you can have hairy legs, get them shaved!!

Danielle M. Riley