Gerry McGarr has been cycling for more than 55 years, he’s been a member of Gloucester City Cycling Club for half a century and he’s one of just a handful of life members at the club.

The now 71-year-old was a very decent cyclist back in the day, good enough to compete all over the country and in Europe, and remains a hugely enthusiastic supporter of the sport.

The former St Peter’s School pupil joined Severn Valley Cycling Club at the age of just 15, switching to Gloucester City half-a-dozen years later, and as well as making a name for himself as a competitor, he also became a prolific organiser of races in and around the area.

So how did he get into competitive cycling?

“I had a friend who used to live next door to Malcolm Prince, who was chairman of Severn Valley Cycling Club,” explained McGarr. “I joined the club in 1967. They used to organise the Tour of the Cotswolds which was a big race and my ambition was always to compete in it as an elite rider.”

He realised that ambition just five years later, and 1972 was also the year when he recorded one of his best ever results.

“It was the Hanley Swan Road Race, I won it,” he said. “I beat Stan Jones and Bob Maitland who had both ridden in the Tour de France. They were in their 50s when I beat them but they were still very good. Maitland rode in the 1948 Olympics.”

McGarr can remember the race as though it were yesterday and he can certainly tell a good story.

“I met Bob Maitland at a car boot many years later, he was selling old cycle parts,” he said. “Anyway, he produced these shoes which he said he’d worn in the 1948 Olympics and he gave them to me, I’ve still got them.”

McGarr relished meeting and taking on some of cycling’s biggest names in years gone by, with many of his greatest successes coming after he joined the police force in his early 20s.

His great mate was Nick Yarworth, who was a very good cyclist, and McGarr said: “I’m proud to say that we won six consecutive national police 25-mile team titles from 1985 to 1990. That was no mean feat.

“I won the individual title in 1991 and was third four times. I also won the 10-mile title in 1992. I won nine national police titles but Nick was top class, he won many more.

“Nick and I also represented Great Britain Police in the European Police Championships in Belgium and we came fourth in the team race, it was a great experience. I remember on the first lap I punctured but the tyre change was really quick and then I managed to re-catch the peloton by using the convoy of cars, that was so cool!”

McGarr loves anything and everything to do with cycling but he says that first and foremost he was a road man.

“That was my first love,” he said. “”It’s not just about who is the fittest, you’ve got the tactics. You’ve got to decide when to attack, do I go now or later? You’re thinking all the time. I wasn’t a great sprinter and I wasn’t a great climber, quite often I’d attack before a big climb.”

And they were certainly tactics that worked well, most notably when he won the 35-mile road race at Hartpury in the early 90s.

“That was my best ever victory,” said McGarr. “I was up against Andy Llewellyn, who was Gloucester-born and rode for Great Britain, and an up-and-coming John Barnes who, next to Phil Griffiths, was the best cyclist Gloucester City have produced. He became an elite rider and rode in all the top races.”

But while they were very good, McGarr was even better on that particular day.

“They got away going up the final hill but at the top I jumped across the gap to them,” recalled McGarr. “I outsprinted both Andy and John, I got Lewy on the line.

“I look back on that race and think, ‘That was some ride’. I was flying that night. I’d only just finished work, I arrived for the race in my police uniform!”

McGarr left the police in his early 40s and went to work at an outward bound centre in the Forest of Dean, a move that allowed him to devote even more time to cycling.

“I was self-employed and in the 90s I was the most prolific organiser of mountain bike races in the country,” he said. “Originally I started off doing cross-country races but then I moved into downhill races, I organised the first downhill race in the Forest of Dean.”

Interestingly, this year’s men’s Downhill World Championship at Fort William was won by a cyclist from the Forest of Dean – 25-year-old Charlie Hatton.

McGarr doesn’t know Hatton – he said he planned to contact him to congratulate him on his title success – but back in the day big names from the cycling world such as Mark Beaumont, Tracy Moseley, Fiona Griffths and Nicole Cooke all competed in races organised by him.

“Fiona became a world champion and Nicole became an Olympic and world champion, it’s rather nice,” said McGarr.

Jo Tindley, who is from Dursley, and Julian Winn, who both became national champions are two other high-profile competitors who rode in races he organised.

McGarr is obviously very proud of all the races he put on and the fact that a lot of the riders went on to achieve such success in the sport.

He’s also very proud of the fact that he was able to compete to a high level while still organising races at such diverse places as Ashton Court, Cannock and Chepstow.

“As I got older, I liked doing time trials,” he said. “Anything from 10 miles up to 12 hours. Your endurance gets better as you get older but your speed drops off.”

The aforementioned Phil Griffiths, an Olympian and a Commonwealth Games silver medallist who also managed a Tour de France team, is considered Gloucester’s best of all time but McGarr, nevertheless, clocked up some pretty impressive times of his own.

“My best for 25 miles was for, many years, 54 minutes, 58 seconds on a steel five-gear bike,” he said. “But riding one of these modern bikes, I’ve now got it down to 54.10.

“My best over 50 miles was one hour, 57.01 but then when I was 60 I did 1.51.36. I couldn’t believe it! I thought, ‘Wow, 60 and I’ve smashed my PB!’.”

That was in Derby, a part of the country that he obviously likes, as he does Yorkshire, although for very different reasons.

McGarr takes up the story.

“It was when the Tour de France came to the UK,” he said. “I’d been reading a book about Henri Cornet, who is the youngest ever winner of the race. He was 19 when he won it in 1904 and he won it riding in longjohns.

“I thought it would be cool to do a stage of the Tour de France riding a vintage bike while dressed like Henri Cornet, so I rode from York to Sheffield, I started at 4 in the morning.

“I was on a 1936 BSA with no gears and it was just incredible, after an hour or so there were people cheering me on, what an experience!”

McGarr has always had a fascination for vintage bicycles and in 2016 he set up his own vintage cycling club.

“I resurrected the name Tyndale,” he  said. “Gloucester City Cycling Club were initially known as Tyndale Athletic and Cycling Club.”

And, typically, McGarr threw his heart and soul into the new club.

“All the vintage cycling clubs had a bugler so I thought I’ve got to get myself a bugle,” he laughed. “When I got one I could hardly blow it!”

But needless to say that didn’t put him off.

“I did the famous Tweed Run in London,” he said. “I took my bugle and I made a helluva noise, I ended up on Japanese TV!”

McGarr and his bugle have been back to London a couple of times in the last 18 months, although not for the cycling.

“My son Tom ran the London Marathon last year and my daughter Claire ran it this year,” said McGarr, who is married to Valerie. “I blew the bugle when they went past.”

McGarr was actually a decent runner himself. He ran the London Marathon three times and has a best time of three hours, 30.

“I’ve run one hour, 20 in the half marathon and I ran 17.58 in the 5K when I was 50,” he added.

That’s pretty good going, of course, but let’s be honest, while McGarr clearly liked to run, he always loved to cycle.