The cycling "craze" started in about 1984 or 5 in Durban ( the first Maritzburg - Durban race was in about 1986) and the late Andrew McCurrach was the first in the Highway area to cycle seriously. His brother Steven followed soon after and so did a number of others in Westville including yours truly and Rupert Swart.

The next batch of guys in our area to get bikes were Dave St Clair, Antoine Lailvaux, Ian McGregor, Roy Menzies. Families started to join in and the training rides from Stedman Garage (there was no Mews or Westville Mall in those days) to the foot of Fields Hill and back included Louise Menzies, Cheryl Lailvaux and Jocelyn Thompson.

This group rode their first Pmb - Dbn race in 1988 and in the year after (I think I'm right) Steve and Andrew McCurrach had started Highway Cycles in the newly built Stedman Mews as the sport seemed to be taking off and the area would sustain a bike shop. (Dave Wiseman by this time was a millionaire I think). This was the regular drinking spot especially on a Friday evening and morning training rides then left from here.

Steve and Andrew suggested starting a club and a steering committee was formed in mid 1989 with the first meeting in the back of the Shop. The first Chairman elected (by about 15 guys and girls present) was Steve with yours truly as Secretary with committee members Antoine Lailvaux (social) and Ian McGregor. The club was called " WESTVILLE CYCLING CLUB". Some years later when Dave St. Clair was chairman he arbitrarily changed the name to Mr Price KZN Cycle Club - he just didn't have the education to know better!!

In 1988, we all entered the Pmb - Dbn Race and needed to do longer rides than the 20 k's or so from Westville to Pinetown! We agreed to meet at what was then known as the "Cattleman" on Durban's North Beach on Saturday mornings (5 o'clock start in summer and 5.30 in winter) and that group quickly swelled to include the Kings Park riders.
There was segregation in those days and each club stuck together. KCC had started long before us and had all the good riders (mainly from track racing) - WCC was very much a social club.
To give you an idea how "social" we were - Rupert Swart had no cycling kit at all and regularly came down in sleeping shorts, T shirt and a balaclava! I wish I had a picture! I was voted best dressed by Steve because I had travelled to Jhb on business and bought a few cycling shirts at one of their cycling shops!

The Maritzburg race changed everything and we drew a lot of members after that.
Bikes changed rapidly, clipless pedals came in and strip helmets went out in favour of plastic.

The next chairman was Harry Chapman (with myself as Secretary again) who at that stage was also a runner but his knees were packing up. He had a vision of merging WCC with Westville Athletic Club as they had a clubhouse and we had an idea of building our own but it seemed silly to build our own if we could piggy back on them.
We did a lot of work and did presentations to them etc. but in two votes at their AGM's it didn't carry by a small margin. A hard core of runners weren't interested in having other disciplines in the club - they obviously didn't class cyclists as athletes - in our case they were probably right!!

When we got a female on the committee (Liz Feuilherade as she was then) the club jersey changed from red and white hoops, like the WAC running vest, to the one we have today.
Thats when I got off the committee!!

John Thompson