By Debbie De Gannes

Corkie De Gannes

Funerals normally bring out our innermost feelings for our fellow human beings. We get a chance to reflect on life and sometimes wonder what our legacy would be like. What will people think of us when we die? My husband Corkie often tells me that funerals are really for the living. Which is why I decided, at this point in our lives, that I should write about his achievements and contributions to the sport of cycling, recreational cycling that is.
 As a young boy Corkie got involved in competitive cycling through his uncle Ferdie de Gannes and his next door neighbor, David Kerry who had represented Trinidad in the sport of cycling. His father Claude de Gannes was his first coach. Every morning at 4 o’clock, Corkie and his brother Martin would be put through a routine under their father’s guidance; after school, there would be another routine, all in preparation for Corkie’s first ride in Palo Seco. He came second with a fall on the finish line against the likes of Dave Mitchell, Tony Sellier, David Pantin, Noel Luces and Roland Gardner just to name a few.
None of them knew anything about specialising in an event. They rode all events, were very competitive on the line but were all good comrades after the races, no animosity here, only the love of the sport.
At that time, Corkie belonged to Witco Mario and was fortunate to be coached by the French’s National Coach Claudio Costa who had trained world champion Daniel Maurelon. Corkie was listed to represent Trinidad at the CAC Games but was left behind because of money constraints, a memory he would prefer to forget.
He lost his zeal for the sport and stopped competing entirely. It was only after he got married and had his first daughter that he rediscovered the enthusiasm to get back in the saddle on the encouragement of his cycling buddies Robert Camps, Roland Gardener and Richard Cabral.
 Corkie continued to ride until his early 30s when his mind began turning to the idea of coaching; He took every single course that he could get. Training under the guidance of Guido Costa in 1982, he became a qualified commissier. He then completed his course in Sports Psychology for Coaching and got his diploma for the Pan American Sports Organization Cycling course which took place in 2005 in Colorado Springs.
 Corkie can boast of having trained national medallists like Stanley Barnwell, Clinton Grant, Roger Smart, Robert Camps, Elisha Green, Sheldon Edghill and Barry Antoni. Ask him a question and he will even pull out the stats of every ride and event.
It was around this time that he was encouraged to open his own business.
With cycling as his hobby, a cycling shop was a natural progression, although he never left the saddle. He somehow preferred his fun rides —every Tuesday and Thursday with long rides on the Sunday. I, too, got enlisted on the long Sunday rides at that time. In 1985 when we got the Suzuki Carry, we painted the van bright pink for visibility so people could see the vehicle. The bunch of riders grew so big that we became concerned that motorists would not see the cyclists. We painted the brands Mavic, Campagnolo etc and got a sign “Cyclist in Training. Caution.”
The first group of Corkie’s Casuals were made up of his friends Christian Gurley, Donna Pollard, Stacey Hee Chung”, Edo” Hatt”, Nicholas Charlie” Mouttet, Derek Mc Lean, Chris Munro,Roland Gardner, George Modell, Mikey Phillips, Pat and Patrick Brown, Richie Chin Assiong, Derek Armstrong, Barry Edghill, Corkie’s s brother Martin de Gannes, Corkie and myself. It was after a ride at the Base in Chag with a few beers one day that the Casuals came up with the idea of the 100-mile ride. The original Casuals had started out with a few cyclists, but in short order, the pack was 95 and growing strong,
The ride started out as a one way challenge, first to Mayaro, Toco, Cedros and other areas of Trinidad. It was a family event.  Families would go to the beach houses and cook up a storm and wait for the cyclists. When they saw the pink van in the distance they knew that they Casuals were near. The ride grew popular; many of the cyclists were recreational riders who wanted a challenge and we gave them one. Soon though, the numbers had grown to over 200 plus cyclists. It was now clearly a public ride.
 It was Martin’s wife Lana who suggested that we make it a charity ride with donations going to the Rainbow Rescue Home in Belmont. What emerged was the 100-mile cycling event which has been open to the public for the last 10 years.  Cyclists from other Caribbean islands took part regularly; there was also a notable increase in the number of expatriates and women cyclists.  When the numbers started to hit 300, Corkie decided to rethink the entire event.
 We had been a small family network that worked like magic on the 100-mile, everyone with their part to play and after many years of doing the job it was well done. But now we were concerned that the ride was becoming too big for us to handle. So we decided to hand it over to a big corporate entity, the National Gas Company, several of whose employees knew the ride well, having participated in the event for years.
Private sector support had always been solicited for helping with  running expenses. We will be forever grateful to these people, whose names I will not call but who know themselves.
Corkie was  also the force behind the  participation of one of the largest groups of T&T cyclists to the Pan Am Masters Games which, at the time, was not deemed to be very important by the Cycling Federation.
Our group was comprised of past national cycling champions who had represented this country in their youth and who were still competing against the younger cyclists.
We attended the championships in Cuba and Venezuela, bringing back gold, silver and bronze medals that the cyclists wore proudly at the Masters, happy to represent their nation again.
Corkie also pioneered the first ever recreation cycle/multi sport tours to Tobago, Grenada, Jamaica, St Vincent. For the runners in the group, the annual December Run is also a very interesting event.  It takes place at the end of each year with runners gathering just opposite Villa Maria. Starting time is at 5.00 am. The run goes all the way up to Sam’s Bar in Maracas Bay. The December Run  is  growing in numbers and showing potential to become a big event. The original idea had been to celebrate the birthdays of all the Casuals’ members who were born in December.
In the sphere of mountain bike rides, Corkie was among a group of Casuals that included  Dominic Farfan and Rodney Vier who decided to make mountain biking more enjoyable since some cyclists were asking  for something to do, some event to prepare for. Mark Thomas emerged winner at the first official mountain bike race in Ozone Park, Chickland in 1997, Scot Farfan won the juniors and, of course, Corkie won the masters at age 40.   
In  conclusion, I must add that  as the third specialized bicycle shop (Pa Fernandez being the first, Austin’s Bicycle Shop being the second and Corkie’s being the third ) Corkie championed the changing face of cycling in Trinidad, making the public more aware of the sport by his organised rides and by challenging fellow cyclists with his annual 100 mile charity ride which most people used as a benchmark for their performance in the sport. Many of them have branched off into competitive cycling and bicycle-related sports like the coast to coast race and  triathlon. 
My husband, Corkie, however, was never acknowledged for his efforts in the promotion and development of recreational cycling which was used as a basis for competition in various sports. Nor was he recognized by corporate Trinidad. He was, however, recognized by our Caribbean neighbours in St Vincent and Grenada who always sought his advice when it came to organised recreational cycling.
I write this article in honour of my husband whose tireless efforts were left unrecognised. Hopefully, this article will now live forever in the archives of Trinidad’s history.