Graeme Miller with his gold medals at Ash St, Avondale, the finish of the race. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Sports carnivals turn ordinary streets into competition venues and in the case of the 1990 road race, Avondale, Green Bay and Titirangi provided the laps for the 180km battle. When in the area, Miller sometimes detours to his favourite spots from the race, and friends ring from Ash St now and then to joke that they are calling from Graeme Miller Boulevard.
"I remember every bump in the road, every second of that day," says Miller, 54, a builder-turned-real estate agent.
"We had a lot of pressure on us from Bike NZ, the media, from the country and you hardly ever get a chance like that to show your wares at home.
"People often ask me what the pinnacle of my career was and that is hard to answer. I don't think it is quite the same anymore, but back then when we had amateur cycling it was quite an honour to win in the Commonwealth Games."
Miller and Fowler - along with Ian Richards and Gavin Stevens - had won New Zealand's opening day gold medal in the team time trial. Miller and Fowler were the road race heavyweights tipped to close the 10-day carnival in similar golden style. They entered the race in very different states, though. Miller was on a high. After winning the initial gold, Miller recalls sneaking out of the Games village three times with Stevens, Richards and triathlete Rick Wells to hit the Grapes nightclub above the Les Mills Gym in central Auckland.
"We were on top of the world but going stir crazy in the village. [Road coach] Garry Bell thought we were asleep but we'd jumped out the window," Miller says.
"We were the only New Zealanders with gold medals and it was four days before [14-year-old gymnast] Nikki Jenkins won the next one, so a lot of attention was on us.
"I remember standing on the bar, opening bottles of beer with our gold medals. I'd hand my medal to someone and it would go around the club and suddenly it would be plonked back on the bar.
"For the first time ever, people knew who we were. It was nice to be recognised, for all the hard work we'd done. It was good to be able to let your hair down for a few days, before locking ourselves away for the road race."
The 1990 Commonwealth Games cycling gold medalist after being presented with his medal. Photo / Kenny Rodger
But Fowler suffered an awful tragedy, when his father Trevor died two days before the road race after being hit by a cyclist while sweeping a track.
Fowler, an electrician, said: "He'd stayed home to look after the business ... I'd talked to him after we won the time trial and he was pretty proud we had won the gold medal, the first medal of the Games.
"He died on February 1 which is coming up and it is sad thinking back. We had our successes [in cycling] and yet it also cost us a lot - but you can't change what happened. It was hard getting out there to race. It was on my mind all the time and I just wanted to get home."
Miller and Fowler were regularly portrayed as bitter rivals but Miller exaggerated this to the media to get more coverage for cycling. They were "fierce rivals" for sure, but often roomed together in New Zealand teams, and would even do deals to split the prizemoney in events like the Tour of Southland.
"I knew his dad well - he ran all the track racing down there and would do any job. He was a bloody good guy - it was so tragic. I hate to think the anguish Brian was in," says Miller.
"At the time I didn't know what to say to him, which is what I told him. What can you say when something like that happens?"
Thousands crammed the streets on a blistering hot afternoon to watch Miller charge to the lead in a sometimes lone ride on the back of far better form than the lead-up to the Games indicated. Remembering what had happened in the 1986 Edinburgh Games when a red-hot Miller finished fifth, he feigned poor form before the Auckland Games so as not to be targeted on the big day.
The way Miller remembers it, he told Fowler of his attack plan on the start line, inviting him to come along. Fowler replied with some surprise, and did not follow.
Home town advantages were applied. Miller got detailed information on the state of the pack from a cameraman on the TV motorbike, who he knew from previous races. When householders turned garden hoses on the parched cyclists, the Kiwi riders got them turned off via the TV commentators, because it was helping the Canadian medal chaser Scott Goguen.
The race became a three-man contest - Miller, Fowler and Goguen. When the other two didn't attack on the final Godley Rd climb, Miller - the best sprinter - felt "pretty happy". He pipped Fowler, who was hampered by a slow tyre leak in the last 20km, by about a wheel.
"I remember finishing outside the racecourse and like the Tour de France this massive road had narrowed to a tiny chute with so many people on the road," Miller says. "I remember turning back towards the tents, and there were thousands of people everywhere. I threw the helmet off - the crowd was going nuts."
Miller's cycling and building career was ended by a back injury and surgery at 42. Close friends like Wells helped him through mild post-competitive depression. He almost lost his Games medals during a house move - a metallic clunking sound saving the day as a box landed in a skip. He didn't have the same luck with a video cassette of the road race.
"I'd love to see it again ... maybe I could tap up TVNZ," he says.
Fowler hasn't been to Auckland in 20 years. He's about to put that right, for a 1990 Games reunion with Miller, Richards and Stevens.
