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Would you be surprised to learn that Chris Hoy's bike broke two days before the start of Olympic competition in Beijing? Thought so. Chris Boardman made the revelation in his presentation to UK Sport's annual World Class Coaching conference this week.

The story's a remarkable tale of ingenuity, bush mechanics at its finest. As you know, it had a . Well, several. It goes a bit like this:

The big man's bike is making the kind of noise at the velodrome that makes everyone stop what they're doing and look. If it was your car, you'd be thinking "expensive". The problem's to do with the pedal crank, the engine house if you like, and it's not happy. A metal on metal grinding, rather than nicely lubricated efficiency.

was working with 成人论坛 Radio 5 Live at the time but didn't have accreditation to be with the British team. He thought he wouldn't be much use to them and, given there was great pressure on the number of accreditations each team was allowed, felt it better if his ticket went to someone else.

As it happened, the bike's builder, a Greek, wasn't in Beijing either. So Boardman gets a call from , GB's legendary performance director, and asked to (nervous swallow) "do what he can".

Boardman jumps into action, transforming his mobile telephone into a and getting online. With the Greek bike builder, who is on an island somewhere, sat in front of a computer, Boardman is able to show him images of the problem areas. A diagnosis is quickly made and a solution found. Brailsford needs to get hold of some special glue that has to be heated to 70 Celsius before application.

Cue a desperate, but ultimately successful, search around the city for the said glue. Now there's just the matter of getting the temperature right without an accurate thermometer. Using a hairdryer, they heat it all up and, several singed fingers later, the repair's carried out: The rest is history.

Boardman's take from all of this? "Get accredited, 'cos you never know what may happen." God is in the details...