Jack was Comm 1. The chief judge at a bike race. He got to oversee sign on and order race organisers and riders about. Jack didn’t order about too much. He raced hard and fast in his youth and was front line in organising and taming our local sport after his pedalling ended . Jack always smiled except when it was necessary not to. He wore Hawaiin shirts but tucked in. And if you were buying, he would accept a drink . He was the first international Commissaire I knew, so could tell you to get off the bumper in French and for the last 20 years was an antiDoping officer so oversaw more pee than a swimming pool toilet cleaner and helped our sport survive a rough period.
Commissaires are there to keep the rule books. In my view, some adhere to the rules too much but I’m more for the rider than the result. Without them, races would be feral and argument ridden. Jack loved the racing. He loved the people on and around bikes and that is why he was a good Comm 1.
Jack kept it straight and cool.
T’was a big race, day 6, stage 7 and the riders were tired. My team mate was shaken and a 170km stage loomed on him like a turning headmaster’s door handle. He had gone south within the first hour with a puncture at the wrong time. “Finty” was our manager driving my old, gold Mercedes estate and at some point when he saw his rider struggling to get back on. He assisted him in rejoining the bunch with the aid of a very well polished chrome wing mirror. He was seen through a plume of black smoke in the act by the motor cycle commissaire, who disqualified him at the end of the stage.
Getting ready for this race had consumed the last 6 months of the riders life and he was devastated. Promptly the rider and Finty got hammered drunk. Meanwhile, I scribbled a begging letter to Jack, explaining that it was a mistake. He was on the third page of the results, and it was his one chance to do the race.
Next morning at breakfast the rider had a pint of Guinness and a massive fry.
Just one hour and one minute before the 160-kilometre stage Jack came into the dining room with a clipboard and a cheeky smile, with a pointed finger
“You’re in, behave yourself”.
Jack was a volunteer for cycling til the end. He will be missed by me and generations of riders who raced.
