'As you well know, fellow cyclist, we're all obliged to trash-talk triathletes': Six of the best columns Katie Archibald wrote for Cycling Weekly
As well as her results on the bike, the retiring British star leaves behind a whole lot of memorable writing – we take a look
As well as being an untouchable force on the bike, Katie Archibald enjoys a wonderful writing talent. As one colleague pointed out, not only could she destroy us all on the bike, she could come for our jobs too, such is her ability to craft engaging and humorous prose.
During a two-year period pre-Covid, Cycling Weekly was lucky enough to have had her in our employ as a column writer, deftly popping out opinion, insight and humour between bouts of bike racing.
'As you well know, fellow cyclist, we're all obliged to trash-talk triathletes'
In a November 2017 column, the talk turned to tattoos – both of the Olympic and the Ironman kind. Archibald describes her five inked rings as at once both subtle and ostentatious: ("A delicate balance of pretending to be the goodie whilst actually being the arse," she wrote.)
Archibald had got her Olympic rings tattoo after her first Games appearance at Rio in 2016, almost as a matter of course. "As a child I thought an Olympic tattoo wasn’t a choice but a branding that every participant was required to get and feel proud of. So I’ve always understood that if I went to a Games it would be on my skin forever," she wrote.
However, the famous five-rings tattoo was not the first she coveted. That would be the Ironman 'M-dot' icon. That is, until she realised that cycling looks down on triathlon.
"…as you well know, fellow cyclist, we’re all obliged to trash-talk triathletes," she wrote, tongue firmly in cheek. "Just like wearing your glasses under your helmet straps or having mismatching kit, prefixing your ride with a swim and suffixing it with a run is forbidden.
"I’ll never get that tattoo."
'I guess you didn’t listen to a word we said, did you?'
Winning the points race at the UK Track National Championships, 2018
In January 2018 Archibald wrote about being on training camp in Tenerife with Team GB, and staying in the same hotel as Team Sky. Surrounded by 'Zero days' posters, she eventually learned that these were a boast of how few days the pro team had lost to illness in its Grand Tours, thanks to its diligent observation of hand hygiene.
"Somehow, though, I’ve got a cold," Archibald wrote. "I’m mortified. The posters read to me now as: 'Well I guess you didn’t listen to a word we said, did you?' It’s humiliating. I can only assume someone licked me in my sleep because I honestly feel woozy from all the hand foaming I’ve done."
She'd had a "few days compromised" she said, but clearly not too compromised: in the Track Nationals a week later she won golds in the individual pursuit, the points and the scratch race.
'I felt proud to have my first bad-man Shane Sutton story in the bag so early'
A February 2018 column saw Archibald in a playfully reflective mood as she contemplated a return to the Dutch Apeldoorn track for the World Championship. Her first visit there, in 2013 for the Track Euros, was the first time she was selected for Team GB.
"It was the first time I met Shane Sutton," she wrote. "'You look ****ing terrifying,' was his odd version of, 'Hello, nice to meet you.'
"I was, to be fair, sporting more metal on my face and surrounding areas at the time. I felt proud to have my first bad-man Shane Sutton story in the bag so early. I had arrived!"
She added: "Accidentally stumbling on new ways to upset Shane would continue, but other British Cycling firsts eventually dwindled. This World Championships will be my 16th international representation of Great Britain."
It saw her take home a gold (with Emily Nelson in the Madison) and a silver (in the team pursuit).
'My arrogant desire to have the world hear me speak… collapses into 'um's, 'ehm's and 'well's'
A column in November 2018 was written shortly after Archibald was awarded a runner-up prize at the Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year Award. 'Cycling is like public speaking,' was the takeaway – 'timing is everything'.
She had been interviewed at the Awards do and, in her estimation at least, had not performed as hoped.
"Sometimes I’m asked a simple question and my arrogant desire to have the world hear me speak, arrogance that looked like a tiger when I saw its reflected shadow but is revealed as a sloth on all fours when it steps into the light, collapses into 'um's and 'ehm's and 'well's," she wrote.
The problem with her speaking style, she wrote was that: "I start without much sense of where I’m going which leaves two options: (a) find out on the way or (b) find out once I’ve stopped. The problem with option (b), an option I often go for, is that if I only settle on what I want to say once it’s already been said, my tone never makes it clear where the climax was."
Serendipitously, the event goodie-bag contained a magazine which featured an advert for a book on improving public speaking which, she wrote, she would be ordering.
'I've been competing for air time on the family WhatsApp group…'
Brother John (leading) riding the mixed relay TTT at the Yorkshire World Championships, 2019
Anybody who has followed Katy Archibald's career is likely to be aware that she isn't the only talent in the family. Every now and then, she delighted readers of her column by bringing in her brother John, who himself has a healthy palmarès in pursuiting and time trialling.
She wrote one such column in October 2019, after she'd just finished the Poland GP track event, having won the scratch race there. However, as she pointed out, hers was not the only success in the family that week: John had won himself a bronze medal in mixed relay TTT at the Yorkshire World Championships.
"I’m contented having ended on a high," she wrote of her Poland GP victory, "but I’ve been competing for air time on the family WhatsApp group with my brother. What’s a win at the Poland GP when your brother is on the podium at the World Champs?"
'I realised [my] talent because I wanted to hang, not because I wanted to be the best'
A column written in November 2019 saw Archibald looking back over her entry to the sport as a young teenager. It wasn't so much a question of talent, she mused, as a question of being able to hang with the cool kids.
"What was cool had a big impact on the decisions I made as a teenager," she wrote. "Fixies were cool. Edinburgh was cool. Travelling to Edinburgh to ride a fixie on a velodrome and make friends with other cool people who thought fixies were cool, was cool. I got lucky that I was talented at this cool thing, but I realised that talent because I wanted to hang, not because I wanted to be the best."
She had been a competitive swimmer as a youngster, she explained, but dropped out – as many do, she pointed out – aged 15. Bike racing though, continued to hold her in thrall thanks to all that went with it.
"Mine isn’t the story of an Olympic champion driven to be the best by something intrinsic and great. It’s the story of a vain teenager who liked racing because it was a weekend away in the van with people I wanted to be like," Archibald wrote, humbly skipping over the fact that it is now her that people want to emulate.
