Interview #1- The Irish Bull Terrier: An Interview with Kelton Welch

Interview #1- The Irish Bull Terrier: An Interview with Kelton Welch

Kelton Welch is a man who exuberates wisdom. A rider who loves all things fixed gear, he is the Track Captain with the University of York CC, where he aims to become faster second by second. His eyes peer in a way that may be slightly terrifying at first, or full of intent, yet as soon as you get a chuckle out of him, his smile lights up the room. His Irish accent is as iconic as his beanie hat and puffer coat combo; two items of clothes he will never go without unless he is out riding his bike, mainly because hats and coats aren’t aero. I reckon he chose a Degree in Physics in order to design the world’s fastest Track Bike. Ask this man about drivetrain efficiency and you can expect a long yet amazingly detailed conversation that engages you and flows like a waxed chain over a carbon fibre cog.

His nickname for this blog, ‘The Irish Bull Terrier’, is inspired by the dog (pronounced ‘dag’ by an Irish Brad Pitt) that appears in the Guy Ritchie film ‘Snatch’ (2000). We are both fans of cinema and Kelton wears his red beanie in full honour of the Wes Anderson character Steve Zissou from his film The Life Aquatic, my 45th favourite film of all time. This combined with his guitar playing skills, love for bicycles and other fine hobbies would make him an excellent Wes Anderson character anyway. While pitbulls may be seen as ruthless dogs that may fight in rings (or velodromes, in Kelton’s case), they are wise, intelligent and kind at heart. An alternative nickname of his is ‘Quadzilla’, for obvious reasons.

Here, I speak with Kelton in his house, on a Monday evening after a long day’s worth of work for the both of us. He is strangely not wearing his iconic red beanie hat, so he must be feeling pretty relaxed. While the roads begin to coat themselves in the frost of the dark reaches of the outside world, it is nice and warm inside. Kelton’s ultrasonic cleaner whirrs away in the back room of his house as he’s cleaning parts and trying on some very nice and new Bont shoes he just bought. We are eating some pizza to ease the process of the interview and because, well, carbs never hurt anyone… Right?

F: What is your name/ age/ degree subject and home town?

K: My name is Kelton Welch, I am [he hesitates for a split second] twenty years old, I study Second year Physics and I come from the town of Raphoe in County Donegal, Ireland.

Which bikes do you have? Be as nerdy as you please.

I have a Dolan Precursa track bike (slash- road bike, slash- everything bike), a Dolan Etape SL which is yet to come but I own it, and a pile of rust on wheels [his town bike, which he abandoned in York station over winter].

What is your main cycling discipline?

Track cycling. Well, I’m just a general track cyclist that prefers to sprint but can do anything. On the road I’m a sprinter, really.

What exact moment truly got you into cycling? Or was it exact at all?

I remember the moment I really wanted to get into track cycling… One day I was cycling along the coast between Portstewart and Portrush on the North Coast of Ireland. The wind was blowing in my face and I just thought, wouldn’t it be great to just cycle indoors? And, well, track cycling’s indoors isn’t it? So, from then on I wanted to do track cycling.

I suppose I was always generally into cycling. My friend in my secondary school in Donegal, called Dale, basically opened up a bike shop in his garage. He’d supply people with parts and do basic maintenance for us. My Dad then saw a Specialized S-Works in red with lovely components for £200, no, £150. Apparently the guy misspoke but had to sell it to him. My Dad bit his arm off for it!

Sounds like that could be a great 80s-90s British film, like Billy Elliot but instead it’s about Kelton Welch, the great Irish track cyclist.

Haha!

What appeals to you most about cycling?

Well, because I do a science-y subject I’ve always liked the science-y side to cycling. I really got into it just to keep fit in between rugby seasons as a kid and it really did help. After I quit rugby it just became my main sport and as I became more interested in sciences I just enjoyed it from that perspective even more.

Talking about science and technology, what is your favourite bit of riding gear, no matter how techy or basic?

My whole handlebar and stem setup. I think I’ve got it dialled in and once you’ve got it dialled in then you can go around the track as fast as you can. And it’s just pretty cool. I got my stem for £20 or so online and the bars for £30 or so from Aliexpress.

[He uses a comically long 150mm 3T stem which is no longer in production, combined with some 320mm wide aluminium bars, much less risky than Aliexpress carbon bars! They look like they’d suit a kid’s bike, which is perfect for a track cyclist looking to tuck their body into the bike. Having ridden them along the street I must say they feel bonkers but very fast indeed.]

One bit of kit that I’m looking forward to being released is not a Kelton Welch product [he’ll be making them one day], but rather the Aerocoach // NewMotion Labs chainring. The current best aerocoach chainring is coated in gold coloured Titanium Nitride with a profile that fits the grooves of the chain and costs a measly £1000! They’ve just signed a contract with NewMotion Labs for that skip- tooth design to implement into their design.

It’s two bits of tech that I already really like merged into one. I think more cycling companies should collaborate but it’ll never happen. NewMotion Labs is actually an engineering company that lease out their technologies and more engineering companies should get involved with cycling. There are components in cycling that can be implemented in so many other areas of mechanical engineering. For example, if you improve bicycle chain efficiency then you can improve chain efficiency in various parts of Mechanical Engineering.

^an example of the Aerocoach gold and NewMotion Labs skip tooth chainrings

[I’d never really thought about this, and I’d mostly seen it the other way around with F1 teams such as McLaren influencing the aerodynamics of the 2014 Specialized Venge.]

Boiling hot or freezing cold?

Freezing cold, because well, I can ride indoors. Although it can be warm indoors especially for ideal air conditions. And you can always wear more layers outside. I suppose I’m more resistant to the cold weather as well because I’m from…

Northern Ireland…

Yeah, exactly.

What is your go to drink and snack at a café stop, if you’ve even been to one on a ride yet?

I do like a wee espresso- it’s rocket fuel. And does it have to be a cake? I’d have a calzone. I suppose if you stop at an Italian place… Italians are good for that. Can it be any kind of carbohydrate?!

We’re putting down calzone, I’m eating one right now. I agree with you, take a compliment!

Hahaha!

What is the toughest ride you have ever done? In what ways was it tough?

When York Velodrome opened up for the first time last summer, I went on it and did a couple of high intensity efforts. I was stoked to get onto it for the first time and give it some beans. I did a couple of flying two hundreds and a few standing start laps. Towards the end my two hundreds were down to thirteen seconds [something which this speedy man considers to be slow] and afterwards I couldn’t walk for a good half an hour, especially in cycling shoes, and my legs cramped up. I could just about hobble.

You never really think about high intensity sessions as being painful but some of them can be brutal to get through.

Oh yeah, it hurts. As Graeme Obree says it’s not so much about your physical fitness, it’s about how far you can push yourself.

Which in turn improves your fitness even more?

Exactly. It’s something like that, I can’t really remember.

From the ugly grittiness of interval sessions I must ask- what’s the most beautiful thing you’ve seen on a bike?

Will Jeffery in full team kit! ;)

Will is my number 1 inspiration…

[You might see why Kelton is influenced by Will in a future interview…]

Now, you’re probably going to hate this question, but what is your favourite climb, up or down?

There’s a climb near Downhill beach outside Castlerock called Bishop’s Road that maxes out at 25% (1 in 4). It’s brutal but it’s my favourite by far. I’ll take you to Downhill. KoM mission?

In my dreams, I don’t think I’ll be good enough for a KoM! Talking about dreams, do you have any dream destinations or bike rides?

There’s this route across the North Coast of Northern Ireland; I’d like to go to Tor Head, the Northernmost point of Ireland and the road leading up to it is one of the most beautiful roads I’ve ever been on.

Off the bike I’d like to go to Berlin and visit the Olympic Stadium there. There’s a lot of history, nightlife and culture there.

Do you think the beauty of Northern Ireland is often understated?

There are pieces of Northern Ireland and Ireland that are absolutely stunning. The Moors, the North coast and the West coast are amazing.

[Two of my favourite poets are Irish, Yeats and Heaney, who comment perfectly on the conflict of nature and internal Irish conflict itself. Hence I am provoked to ask this question. Kelton seems as baffled by poetry as I do by his physics papers…]

Tea or coffee? Actually screw it, I know the answer to this already.

Haha, yep. Coffee.

What cycling phenomenon, out of the countless number of them, do you think is massively overrated?

The first thing that springs to mind is the leg warmers under/ over socks debate… But that doesn’t really count?

I think it does, ride how you want!

Over- oh, yes, yes, Di2. Electronic gearing. I realised it after I looked into them for my new bike. It’s overpriced and overrated.

What kind of riding do you want to try next, if any?

Proper road riding in the hills. And descending without…

Feeling like you’re gonna die?

Yeah…

100 flat kilometres or 50 hilly…

100 flat. [The speed with which Kelton says this doesn’t surprise me.] Ideally, I’d like 2 flat kilometres on a track or a slight downhill.

What’s your favourite place to visit in Yorkshire?

To be honest I haven’t ventured out very much… Urm…

[Kelton thinks long and hard about this one, before saying the obvious.]

The YorkSport Velodrome.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time, on and off the bike?

I dunno. [‘Do any of us really know?’, I think.] Probably finishing up my PGCE and hopefully finding a job as a teacher.

On the bike, well, hopefully still on it! I’d like to think that I’d still live near a velodrome and keep up the track cycling.

Talking about track; do you prefer too easy a gear or too hard a gear?

Too hard a gear. Graeme Obree used to overgear a lot on his road rides to increase his muscular force. I think I’m more of a strength athlete than a speed athlete. Might hurt your knees, but whatever.

Another drivetrain related question, which I ask more out of curiosity than out of judgement, is why do you bother waxing your own chains?

The maintenance benefits of waxing your chain makes your chain dry so no dust or dirt accumulates on it. You wax your car- why? So that nothing sticks to it, it just rubs off. It protects your chain better and it’s faster than any other type of lubricant.

It’s a big picture thing. It doesn’t even take an hour, it’s a 10 or 15 minute thing, a tiny bit of effort. A waxed chain lasts thousands of miles.

Can you describe in words how it feels to ride a fixed geared bike?

Stupid. Terrifying. Fun.

I suppose you’re really connected to the bike with one gear and the fixed wheel. You control the speed of the bike with the speed of your legs. You are part of the bike.

What’s your favourite velodrome and what velodrome do you want to visit most?

My favourite velodrome, well, I like York ‘cause I’ve spent the most time on it. I like Manchester because it’s quite nice. There’s a reason why it’s the home of British Cycling. London [Lee Valley, not Herne Hill] is… Fine. It’s a bit of a weird velodrome because its finish line is nearly by the bend.

[Kelton, being Kelton, then goes on to talk about finish line design, kilometre records at altitude vs. sea level and Chris Hoy in his prime. So the velodrome he wants to visit the most will be kept a secret!]

Who inspires you? Why?

Will?! There’s something about his hair…

As Kelton stares into the distance, I recite the classic line from ‘Scarface’: “The eyes, chico, they never lie…”, which we both laugh off as fans of cinema.

Nah, I dunno. I dunno actually. There’s many people! Dan Bigham is obviously a very cool guy who thinks about the science of cycling and who is now the Ineos director of something techy.

Yeah, I actually know his fiancee, the South- East local hero Joscelyn Lowden, so maybe an interview could be arranged… Dan, please do an interview with me!!!

Haha!

Not Chris Hoy because he's a bit of a ‘See- you- next- Tuesday’ [a term which neither of us like, hence we only use it when we have reason to, which is rarely the case anyway- if you aren’t familiar with it, a google search should help you out].

Probably Jason Kenny. I think his Keirin win at Tokyo was one of the greatest British track cycling moments of all time. I’m surprised that he did what he did. He was 19 in Beijing so he’s 31 now? [Edit: turns out he’s 33, which is relatively old for a track sprinter].

Chris Hoy was 36 when he retired after London so technically he’d have another [Olympic] games in him going by Chris Hoy standards. Going into Tokyo I knew it would be really hard for GB to beat the Dutch in the team sprint [which they didn’t…].

Also, Matthew Glaetzer, because he’s got the most insane position on a bike. He had thyroid cancer just after he became world champion and for a time he held the world record in the kilo. He’s been 4th in the Olympics, like, 3 times? He was man 2 in the Keirin who let Jason Kenny go. I think he deserves Olympic Gold out of all of them… Absolutely.

That question concludes our interview, but upon looking back at the finalised document, something seems to be missing. I remember the nickname he has been given for this blog article and the nickname he has in other various group chats… So, I message him:

D’ya like dags?

Kelton, rather than responding ‘absolutely’ as he is very inclined to do, replies with a nice and simple:

Yea.

^Stephen Graham pictured with Daisy the ‘dag’ in Snatch. I think this sums up our dynamic pretty well.

Want to ask Kelton any questions yourself? Or simply want to talk about films or bike tech? Maybe you even fancy being interviewed yourself or know someone who would. Leave a comment on the blog or contact me via my social media/ email.

Thanks for reading, see you out on the road!

-F