(rumbling)
(birds calling)
- I'm Chris Opie, I'm 31 and I grew up
on a dairy farm just outside of Truro in Cornwall.
Down there, just along that valley,
that's where I started the second chapter
of my life just over eight months ago
but you probably don't know a lot about
what I did before, so this is my
meet the presenter video to tell you how I got here.
But as beautiful as this is, I just don't feel
it's the right place for me to tell you
my life story, so let's jump in my van
and go and find somewhere that represents me
a little bit better.
(upbeat music)
To be honest I can't wait to get in here
because I'm absolutely frozen stood outside.
(upbeat music)
(laughing)
I made it worse.
Oh for goodness sake.
(laughing)
Oh well, proud to be Cornish,
even if my sticker's filthy and my jacket.
(upbeat music)
I went to town one afternoon with my parents
and my brother and sister and my dad needed
a puncture repair patch for his bike
so we went into the local bike shop
and there was a little advert there for a
100 kilometer randonnee.
I think it was kind of said jokingly,
but my mum said to dad, oh you and Chris could to that.
This is 1997 and a few weeks later
we did the ride, 100 kilometers.
It was called the Rosie Ride, organized
by Truro cycling club.
Took six hours, 25 minutes but to this day
I'm still the youngest person to have ever done it.
And then from there, dad and I kind of
we enjoyed cycling so on a Sunday
he'd milk the cows real early and then we'd
go out on a Sunday and ride with a local club,
which was Truro for the first year
and then Chuffs racing club after that
and I kind of really enjoyed it
to the point that in 1998 I did my first
ever bike race at a place called RAF Portreath.
There were no kids my age so I had to
ride with the older kids but I kept up
with them for three of the five laps
and then all of a sudden I didn't keep up with them
and, well that's when I first realized
that I suffered from asthma actually.
And I really enjoyed it, I loved the sense
of adventure you got from riding a bike.
You can go out on these long rides,
see things you'd never, ever seen before
and that still appeals to me now.
(upbeat music)
Yeah I suffer with asthma quite badly.
So I've always had asthma, I had it when
I was a little kid, it really got worse
when I started cycling.
That's when I started to notice it
and even to this day I still have to take inhalers.
It's just one of those things you learn
to live with, certain times of the year
meant I was a useless bike rider
because I just couldn't breathe.
Again, suffering with the hay fever
and you just kind of accept it really.
(upbeat music)
My first ever race.
So it was around this place called RAF Portreath
and it was quite a hilly circuit,
really exposed on the cliff tops
on the north coast of Cornwall.
I think there were only three kids in the race
and most of them were...
Well all of them were older than me.
I was only 10 at the time.
I kept up really well for the first three laps,
I think the circuits like two miles
long, roughly from memory.
And then all of a sudden after three laps
that was it, like I just couldn't carry on,
big red puffy face and just out of breath,
legs burning but I just remember really enjoying it.
I think I did it in like a football shirt,
I didn't have any proper cycling kit at the time.
(upbeat music)
You know what I think after doing that first race,
I was instantly hooked, I loved the feel of it,
I loved going down hill, I love riding
uphill at the time.
Everything about it captured my imagination
and I loved it.
Significantly, we are about to pass a hotel
where I've literally spent, I don't know,
hundreds of nights over the years
because it was generally the perfect place
to stop between meeting my team
and going to a bike race or because I was
training with others or whatever.
And I still swear it is the best nights
sleep ever because they've got the most
amazing black out curtains there
and also it's a really quite place
and that, to me, is the most important thing
when you're choosing a hotel.
It's just down there.
Just behind the EE building.
(laughing)
Look at that view.
(laughing)
Oh my goodness.
Stunning.
Traffic light Grand Prix, one, two, three.
Seven miles an hour.
(groaning)
12!
Yeah so growing up in Cornwall, the sea was
a massive part of my life and I don't know if it
comes from every time my dad had a cold
he'd go to the beach and be like...
(gasping)
I feel better because I've been to the beach,
it's like a magical cure for everything.
So, it was kind of ingrained in me
that going to see water was this magical cure
and you'd always feel better.
And it's only when you start thinking
about it that you realize that these misconceptions
are deeply ingrained from being a child.
But look, I can see the sea and all of a sudden
I feel better.
So every time I used to go training
I'd always make sure I could see the sea
and in fact, when I did live somewhere
that was quite land locked, when I lived in
France or in Holland, it never felt quite...
It didn't feel quite like I was at home
because I was too far away from the water.
(gentle music)
Finally made it to the sea side.
(gentle music)
Since obviously growing up in Cornwall,
I was used to being by the sea a lot
and just actually riding my bike towards the sea,
sitting there if I was on a recovery ride or whatever.
There's something about just hearing the sound
of water gentle lapping the rocks,
kind of helps me forget anything else
that's going on in my life so if I'd had
a bad race or whatever, generally the first thing
I'd do would be to get my mountain bike
and go and ride on the coast the next day.
So over the years I've made loads of attempts
to move away from where I grew up
and I kind of never imagined I'd live there anyway
but in recent years, certainly having a family,
two young kids, my wife, we kind of found it
a natural home for ourselves.
And I'm not sure if it's being near the water
that makes us feel so at home and so relaxed
but in Cornwall there are just so many things
that you can do just at the drop of a hat,
go out and have a little explore in the countryside,
along the coast and every day was kind of different.
So yeah, it's a new challenge and a new chapter now
but we're quite lucky with where we live
so we're looking forward to exploring there as well.
And we now live in an incredibly rural area,
probably more so than actually where I grew up.
I grew up just outside of Truro and you can get
to the town really easily, whereas now
the nearest town pretty much is Bath
and that's 40 kilometers, and I quite like it like that.
So you really get to go home at the weekends
and spend quality time with the kids
and enjoy that side of life as well.
But as much as I love sitting out by the sea
listening to the water, it's pretty cold
so come on, let's go and get a coffee in the van.
Nice.
That's the coffee made, so find a comfy seat
and we'll go through a few of my scrap book items.
(upbeat music)
Here is literally the first thing I ever
had to do with cycling.
So, the 8th of June 1997, 63 miles or 100 kilometers.
Randonnee ride, so these are all like cue notes
so over bridge then at T junction, turn left
and it's covered in instructions like this.
And that is what you would have had to
navigate around one of these rides.
Organized by Truro cycling club
which I didn't realize at the time
was actually only quite a new club.
I think they celebrated their 25th anniversary
this last year.
The ride went pretty much past our home
so sign post Baldhu, two and a half, Carnon Downs four.
This is all really close to where I grew up.
And to do the ride you had to raise
a little bit of money.
Back then I managed to raise
£81 for Sight Savers International.
So there's even more, look, there's loads of
stamps from that first ride.
It wasn't long after that that I did my first race.
7th of September 1997, did a 70 mile bike ride.
So I would have been 10 years and two months at the time.
That's a picture of me, that's an actually
photo, that's how we took photos back then.
Right next page and my first ever race bike,
I was incredibly lucky with this,
it was absolutely amazing that when I was
10 and a half, my parents were able to get me
a Battaglin racing bike and it's the only
bike from the past that I still have
and it appeared at my wedding a few years later.
The boxing day, so the day after Christmas
we then rode to this lake which is Stithians Reservoir
which is where my family's from originally,
like 80 odd years ago.
And in a bizarre twist of fate,
I ended up living there for two years
up until very recently.
The original advert for the bike that I had,
but actually looking at that, I think that
might be the one level up with Veloce
and not Avanti which is what I had on mine.
This is an advert for my first ever bike,
as in a wanted advert, so wanted
for 10 year old boy, keen rider, racing cycle,
17 to 18 inch frame, must be in excellent order
and good quality.
I'm not going to embarrass anyone in this photo
but I remember the names of most of them.
Anyway, the ride that I did is now ridden
in memory of this man who is Bob Mansbridge,
that's quite special.
And here's a picture of me at my first ever
club dinner back in 1997 this is.
This guy taught me to corner, Tony Rowel
and that's me on the start line.
Well I've got a cycling jersey on underneath
which I didn't realize but quite a baggy shirt there.
So this is racing in Exeter which is in
the south west of the UK which would have been
the second place I ever raced.
And in fact, I've got pictures of me
taking my hands off the bars there.
Not a massive self promoter but if I got
a picture of it, I might as well share it.
There we go, just after the finish line,
hands off the bars, wahay!
First divisional championship, that's me
in the massive T-shirt.
This is something that became a theme of my career.
Sprinting for the line, not really sure
what's going on in that picture.
Couldn't tell you if I won or was second, no idea.
First ever racing license, looks like
I used it quite a lot that year
because it's kind of falling apart,
probably sat in my wallet for a while.
Geraint Thomas there, he turned out
to be quite good, didn't he?
Really interesting photo of the back of my dad's head.
(laughing)
My mum watching me over the barriers.
That's quite an embarrassing photo for mum.
Ah, here we go, these are cool pictures.
So this is when I first learnt to ride the treck
and this is Calshot track which is near Southampton,
kind of on the south coast of the UK
and it is an incredibly short track.
148 meters, it's the shortest track
by quite a margin in the UK.
So I always had a really miserable face
on the start line even when I was a kid
and it looks like I don't enjoy racing
and in later days you could certainly
almost argue that point but I used to love it,
I don't really know why I always looked so miserable.
Look at that, that's a pain face.
It's probably important to mention,
the person that I blame for getting me into cycling,
wasn't my dad, wasn't my mum, it was Richard Evans
who was the son of neighboring farmer.
So he grew up not a million miles away from me,
he's quite a lot older than me,
a lot older than me Rich but he turned up
at our Cub Scouts one night with a bike
and the shoes, the wheels, everything looked
really cool and it was him that first
took me out on a Saturday to go for a bike ride
and actually helped me a load throughout my early career
because he was just always friendly,
positive and full of advice,
and used to push me home nearly ever single weekend.
So fortunately now I can do that to him.
Here he is, dressed in his kit.
Cardiff Ajax, just before he went off to race in France.
(gentle music)
So my first ever trips away were to Holland,
or the Netherlands, and the first one came
in 1999 and we went to Helmand Yoke tour
in Bao Toulouse Helmand
and yeah it was amazing, you had kids games
in the morning and racing in the afternoon
or vice versa and it was just like
a week of fun for kids on bikes.
The next year I went back for a couple of weeks
and I did alright.
Holland, famous for it's climbs or not
but it kind of alluded to my sprint ability
because the climbs were actually, I think
under two and a half minutes and I won
the king of the mountains which is something
that I kept on doing in that race
because it was a really short time trial
and growing in the cycling club community
that I did in the UK, there are actually
loads of hill climbs.
So I was quite well rehearsed in warming up
for them and then going really fast.
I celebrated my 13 birthday in Holland,
so my first Dutch card.
(speaking in a foreign language)
And that was kind of like the start
of me learning Dutch and falling in love with the place
to the point that I actually thought
I was going to live there forever
but years later, crashed, hit my head,
six month of concussion and feeling homesick
and everything else that goes with concussion
which is a horrible thing to suffer with.
So we moved back and stayed in Cornwall for a while
but I absolutely loved racing in Holland.
I met my wife there in 2002, didn't see her
for five years and then bumped into her again
and we've been together ever since.
So yeah, the Netherlands is a country
that I owe a lot to really.
Most of my favorite races were there,
I absolutely love racing there,
the racing's aggressive, it's fast,
it's tactical, you have to be really well
positioned all the time.
There's just a lot going on so it's really action packed
which is good fun.
(upbeat music)
It was my mid teenage years when I started
to get really serious with cycling.
This is the Youth Olympics in 2003
with John Mosley there in that picture
and then I don't know I think I finished 6th
in the end which probably at the time
I was quite annoyed with.
And then, when I was 19, or actually
when I was 18, I was so convinced
that I was going to be amazing at cycling,
I took myself to France and spent a year living there
and whilst I hated basically every single minute
of living in France, it's taught me
a huge amount about being an adult
and being a grown up to the point that I now
actually really value the experience
that I was able to have back then.
I raced for a French team who paid me
a tiny bit of money in return for
coaching their youth riders and washing
the team cars and just being generally
well behaved and trying to ride my bike.
Not a great year at all but as I said
I learnt loads and because of that experience
I went back to Holland the next year
and I met my wife because of it
so it's not all bad, is it?
I actually think it's pretty cool kit
and back then I was a good 14, 15 kilos
lighter than I am now.
The following year when I went to Holland,
I was actually quite a bit bigger.
I got up to about 69 or 72 kilos
or something like that and I've been
a similar weight ever since.
(gentle music)
So over the years I got loads of jerseys.
Unfortunately I haven't kept many of them,
I've given most of it away to family and friends
to wear when they ride their bikes
but Tour Two's leader's jerseys,
something I'm particularly proud of,
that series was a huge part of my career.
Probably the best year, I think you would have
seen in James' video that actually
these jerseys go with these jerseys
and I think you'd be hard pushed
to find someone on our team that didn't agree
that's just the best team ever
with the best coach ever, Steve Benton.
We had the best mentor ever in Nigel Mansell
who was just incredible at getting us all
to act like actual professional athletes
and the way you conduct yourselves.
So that was a really special experience.
We've got 2014 Rapha Condor, getting
4th series overall.
One Pro cycling, jersey that's probably
been ruined by riding some of the
spring classics and yeah, didn't stand
the test of time very well that one.
And then another 2014 jersey with Rapha,
pretty cool jerseys.
Unbelievably, that still fits,
it just stretches really well.
Then we've got some winning ones,
this is pretty cool.
The last ever person to win a bike race in Libya.
We rode for a team called Pendragon that year
and Nick Bourne took us over to Libya.
And then this one, Ronda Provincie Antwerpen
which was really cool because that was like
the first decent race that I won
over in that part of the world in Belgium.
Yeah it was quite unexpected really,
I'd had glandular fever and I'd only started
racing the 1st of June that season
and I won the first race and then this was
in August and it was a big sprint and I won that as well.
And then these days I'm wearing this
which I'm especially happy about because
despite wearing the occasional red leaders jersey,
I never actually got to race in red
and I always wanted to ever since I think
I was about 12 and our local club
had a vote for what color their next seasons
kit should be, I was like red but I was the only one.
So yeah, I love riding in red, I think
it's a pretty cool jersey, but also because
already it's given me a whole new
sense of adventure with my cycling.
I've done Sportive's in the Dolomites
and I've been Amar, I'm riding my bike
for pleasure, I'm like racing where it's you know
a real straight job.
It's breathed a whole new lease of life
into my cycling career.
(upbeat music)
So I stopped racing last year because
I kind of achieved all that I felt
I was ever going to achieve.
The motivation wasn't the same to continue
performing, I got the incredible exciting
experience to come and do this
but the main reason, truth be told,
is that I just want to spend more time with my family.
(upbeat music)
Mine was winning the Ronde van Midden-Nederland
in 2016 and the reasons it's my proudest
achievement is because it's based
in the area of Holland where I first went in 1999.
It's on the first roads that I ever
won bike races on in Holland.
It's where I spent my entire like young career
in Holland, it's where I met my wife.
The roads there have just got so many
special memories, it's the closest I'll ever
get to a home race and yeah, it's really, really special
and in fact, it's the only trophy
I like to have on display in the house.
(upbeat music)
So a huge part of my life is actually
living life and not just being tied
to a desk or tied to my job.
Even when I was a bike rider, my favorite
thing to do was to get out in my adventure van,
that's what I call it anyway.
The family adventure van.
So we built it in 2016 and 17 and we kind of
finished it last year, except with a project
like this you never actually finish it
and every single time you get into it you...
Whoa!
I haven't finished telling you about my adventure van.
Guys, guys?
(upbeat music)
So when I'm not busy toiling away at GCN towers
or out on my bike in some stunning
mountain scenery, I like to spend my time
with my family in the family adventure van.
Come and have a closer look.
Before we start, if I plug this bad boy in,
that's 300 watts, that's more than I produce
on my bike these days.
Electrics, boom, boom, boom.
Lights are on.
Get inside, we've got a table,
lots of food gets eaten on there.
We have a sink.
Gas hobs.
And party trick, running water!
All important speaker, laptop,
some anti-slip netting.
Rock and roll bed.
And upstairs, oh yeah we have a mezzanine
which is where the kids sleep or if I'm in
it by myself because when I was traveling
to races, I'd sleep up there as well.
We've got the...
This is the wardrobe basically,
where you can throw all your odds and sods.
So you can see it's an unfinished project,
bars on the floor and this...
I'm proud of this.
In the hope that it opens.
(laughing)
This is what happens when you build stuff yourself
and you don't know what you're doing.
(creaking)
Right, shall we do that again?
(beep)
(rattling)
Ta-da!
It's a larder unit.
This is where you get, I don't know like
tins of fish.
A little bit of lighting, some curtains,
somewhere in here we've got cover for the windows.
Stick these on and away you go.
Genius.
But my proudest feature.
(singing)
Here we go, bike storage, up to six bikes at one point.
Toilet, pre-race nerves, kind of self explanatory I think.
And then, bike and BBQ storage space.
Oops.
And of course if you go camping
you've got to keep it clean.
(upbeat music)
I do yeah, I mean it's a little bit
temperamental at times like now I'm fighting
with the chain underneath the door
which is held together with a zip tie.
(upbeat music)
That's better.
And you know what time it is, it's the moment
you've all been waiting for, the free hub sound check.
And as you can see, I'm rolling
the 16 inch standard steels.
(knocking)
Yep, they sound like they're not rusting.
That's the end, I hope you enjoyed
having a closer look at my personal life
and my professional career.
If you haven't already done so,
check out James' meet the presenter over there
to learn more about him.
Give me a big thumbs up before you do so.
Right, I'm off to bed.