I went to Stansfield Road Primary and Junior School
and then to Failsworth Comprehensive. I did an
apprenticeship at Mather & Platt in Electrical and Mechanical engineering
for four years and then got tired of being poor so went contracting at various
firms around Manchester
In 1989 I went to Santa Rosa, Northern California, to
race with Parky. A month later I went to Toledo, Ohio to race with Greg.
While I was there, I met Lori, who is now my wife. She came to Manchester
in September and I followed a month later.
The first half of 1990 I spent in Manchester with Lori
who was at university there. After that, I went back to Toledo to race,
but before I went, I bought a house in Moston. BIG mistake.
I came back to Manchester after three months and lived
in Moston while I worked at British Nuclear Fuels in Warrington. In September
1991 I went to Cincinnati, Ohio to live with Lori who had started a PHD
there. I stayed there for a year and trained and raced full time, I did
a few odd jobs and brewed lots of beer too. I also got engaged. I had a
great racing season as I was so fit from training all the time. It was like
being a pro only without getting paid, but I managed to get by off my winnings.
I had to come back in October, 1992 to apply for a fiancee
visa etc. I spent 3 miserable months in England; it rained everyday, I couldn't
get a job and I missed Lori. I stayed with my parents as I had rented the
house.
I went back to Cincinnati in January, 1993. I couldn't
get a real job so I worked at a restaurant for a couple of months and then
at a landscape company, Botanics. During 1993 I was a landscape laborer
and a pretend racing cyclist. The rigors of the landscape industry are too
much for a cycling career to compete with and my heart wasn't in it any
more either. So I hid in the bunch for a season and retired at the end of
it. We got married in July and went to Niagara Falls with both our families
for our honeymoon.
That winter, instead of training, I started coaching.
I had taken my certification tests a year earlier and thought it would be
a good way to stay involved. Anyway, the Cincinnati cycling scene needed
some help, it was a bit stagnant at the time.
During 1994-97 I developed both my coaching and my landscaping
careers. I moved through landscape supervisor, Lighting Division manager,
Retail Division Manager and finally Office Manager where I virtually developed
a complete office system almost from scratch. I coached a club team, then
organized a coaching program for all area cyclists and finally put together
an group that helped train another ten or so coaches to make Cincinnati
on of the most highly concentrated areas in the country for certified cycling
coaches. At one time, the District of Ohio and West Virginia had about fifteen
coaches in it; eleven of those were in Cincinnati.
During 1997, with our departure from the area approaching,
I cut back my coaching to just a small developmental team and left Botanics
to form my own landscape lighting company.
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