Dave Rayner was a rising talent on the British cycling scene when his life was tragically cut short at the age of 27 in 1994. Two months after his death, the Dave Rayner Fund was set up in his memory to help young up and coming cyclists.
During the last 22 years the fund has helped a plethora of young riders race in Europe and turn professional including David Millar, Adam Yates, Molly Weaver, Tao Geoghegan Hart and Charly Wegelius.
The annual Dave Rayner Fund dinner, which takes place this weekend, has been an integral part of keeping the fund going. The book, Everybody's Friend was written by Peter Cossins in time for the 2015 dinner and covers the life of Rayner.
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In this extract from the book, Rayner's friend and former teammate Chris Walker retells the story of the time they spent racing in the US. You can buy the book here with the proceeds going to the Dave Rayner Fund.
A rollercoaster year in the States
Chris Walker confirms he was unhappy with the way things were run at Subaru, but was enthused enough by what he had witnessed of the US scene to return when the offer of a deal came through from IME-Healthshare, and particularly because Dave was part of it too. "It was always really good fun having him on the team," Walker affirms. "Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a bit grumpy, that I get irritated easily. But I'd spend a full year with Dave and never had a fall-out ever. With other people – and it might well be my fault – they would end up getting on my nerves and I'd end up having a to-do with them, but I never had cross words with Dave at all. He was just fun.
"He could always make me and everyone else laugh. I remember in the Raleigh-Banana years, when we were all into fast cars, and I had a Golf GTi and Dave had this little Fiat Uno nutter that was like a ballistic rollerskate, which was really fast. Dave would come into the car park with the music so loud the car was shaking and he'd handbrake it into a parking space. It could have been embarrassing but he wasn't embarrassed by it. It was the kind of thing most people would never do, but Dave would do it and it wouldn't matter who was there. The Lord Mayor could have been there and he'd have done a handbrake turn and then spun his wheels into the car park. Things like that didn't bother him. He just thought it was funny. That's why he was so different," says Walker.
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