Ride! Ride! Ride! Ride! Ride! Ride! E-Book

Mark Wellings

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 297

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The early 21st century has been a golden age for British track cycling, with world championship glory for the likes of Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins and Victoria Pendleton, and Olympic medals galore.  Tracing the origins of this phenomenal success story, Mark Wellings delves into cycling's chaotic and colourful past to chronicle the rise of the sport through the story of Herne Hill Velodrome, the iconic south London venue. 125 years on from the inaugural race, Herne Hill has played host to many of the most significant moments in British cycling history, from the first Good Friday Meeting in 1903 to the 1948 London Olympics and later the first track rides of a twelveyear- old Wiggins. Writer and historian Wellings, a Herne Hill regular with rare behind-the-scenes access, brings these events vividly to life, while also exploring the lives of those involved, such as 'Champion of Champions' Fausto Coppi, the legendary rivals Tommy Godwin and Reg Harris, the tragic figure of Tom Simpson and the fascinating Graeme Obree. Drawing on exclusive interviews with key figures and featuring many previously unpublished photographs, Ride! Ride! Ride! is a thrilling circuit of track cycling's history, the story of a unique venue, and a tale of British achievement against all the odds.

Leseprobe

RIDE!RIDE!RIDE!

RIDE!RIDE!RIDE!

HERNE HILL VELODROME AND THE STORY OFBRITISH TRACK CYCLING

MARK WELLINGS

Foreword by Graeme Obree

Published in the UK in 2016 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA or their agents

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Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710

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Distributed in Canada by Publishers Group Canada, 76 Stafford Street, Unit 300 Toronto, Ontario M6J 2S1

ISBN: 978-178578-042-4

Text copyright © 2016 Mark Wellings

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Electra by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

The book is dedicated to my son Finlay for introducing me to the track, my daughter Monika for being my ‘favourite daughter’, and my wife Hilary for never-ending support during what turned out to be a much, much longer ride than I ever thought it would be.

Contents

Foreword by Graeme Obree

Acknowledgements

Warm-up

1.When two roads diverge

Two iconic institutions were born in 1903: the Good Friday Meeting in south London and the Tour de France across the Channel. Two very different showcases for the world’s greatest cycle racing stars.

2.Fast and furious

Britain’s record of success goes back to the dawn of bike racing in the 1860s. But when road racing was made illegal in the UK, competitive racing increasingly focused on velodromes. It was a defining moment in the story of British track cycling glory.

3.One continuous roar

For almost a decade after its grand opening in 1891, Herne Hill track witnessed the sheer frenzy of excitement during track cycling’s late Victorian heyday.

4.From spectacle to sport

The first decades of the 20th century saw huge international success for British amateur track cyclists. A succession of world-beaters emerged from an intensely competitive domestic racing scene.

5.Racing at the Mecca

Herne Hill was the epicentre of track racing in Britain between the wars. Thousands of spectators watched their home-grown heroes competing against the cream of continental Europe.

6.Toad-in-the-hole and tight shorts

High hopes for track medals at the 1948 ‘Austerity Olympics’ at Herne Hill were thwarted by misfortune and meagre resources.

7.The glamour boys

The late 1940s and early 1950s were the heyday of the sprint superstars, but they were gradually usurped by the top road men, ‘the glamour boys of professional cycle racing’; and the champion of them all, Il Campionissimo, came to London.

8.Pop goes the track

A 30-year slump in track cycling was illuminated by appearances from superstar road men, hard-as-nails six-day riders and flamboyant time triallists, while Herne Hill was carving out a vital new role in grass-roots cycling.

9.Phoenix rising

The year 1992 was a turning point for British cycling, and Herne Hill in particular. The track was saved from closure, inspirational British world-beaters were emerging and the foundations were being laid for British success.

10.Herne Hill is the place I love

The last decade has seen a new golden age for competitive British cycling, alongside a huge surge in the popularity of cycling for commuting, health and leisure. Herne Hill continues to play a vibrant role …

Appendix 1: Race formats

An insider’s guide to the bewildering array of weird and wonderful formats, from the classic sprint, scratch and pursuit races, through the kierin, madison, devil, longest lap and more.

Appendix 2: Track slang and jargon

All the trackside parlance, from attack to zonk; with track stands, hitting the wall and riding on bread and water. You need to know whether you’re drafting or wheel-sucking, let alone being called a chopper …

Sources

Index

About the author

Foreword

by Graeme Obree

I have fond personal memories of Herne Hill. I broke the British hour record there in 1993 and without that achievement my career in track cycling could easily have ended prematurely. It gave me the confidence to progress and beat Francesco Moser’s hour world record on my own terms and have a cycling career that allowed me to compete all over the world.

Herne Hill Velodrome is such an important part of British cycling infrastructure and culture, allowing kids the opportunity to test out their skills on the track, giving them access to equipment and coaching that is often outwith their reach. The track at Hill Herne is also one for the connoisseurs. It is longer and shallower than modern-day velodromes, demanding different skill sets, tactics and intelligence.

But perhaps most significant of all, is the venue’s heritage. It has been host to thousands of exciting races over the years and has witnessed incredible performances from the likes of Reg Harris, Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Boardman. It has enormous importance to the heritage of not only British cycling but also Continental track racing – it is to cycling what Lord’s is to cricket.

Mark Wellings’ affectionate portrayal of Herne Hill brings back great memories and helps keep this most important of British cycling venues alive.

Graeme Obree March 2016

Acknowledgements

I’m indebted to the help of many people who have known, loved and supported Herne Hill track over the years. First and foremost must be John and Christine Watts for their time and support, and for the exhaustive research John has done for his books on the velodrome and the Good Friday Meeting – both of which I have drawn on heavily.

Particular thanks also go to Jim Love for his stories and photographs, and also to Keith Robins, Wally Happy, Graham Bristow, Keith Waldegrave, Steve Cave, Pete Cattermole, Phil Wright and John Scripps for their time, thoughts and memories. I’m grateful also to Josh Cole-Hossain and Andrew Bradshaw for checking technical details in the book and more broadly for being inspirational young race promoters and coaches.

Thanks to editor and friend Ian Preece for persuading me to write the book in the first place and then providing enthusiastic encouragement and insightful support over the two years it’s taken; plus Andrew Furlow, Duncan Heath, Robert Sharman and all the team at Icon Books.

Finally, cheers go to my favourite riding buddies Kev, Dom, Sean and everyone at VC Londres.

Warm-up

Track cycling is one of the oldest and most specialised forms of cycle racing, featuring an eclectic mix of sprint and endurance events for individuals and groups of riders. Intense, physical and cerebral – track cycling is all about speed, technique, tactics and nerve.

The bikes are strong and rigid to cope with extreme acceleration, with a single fixed gear (preventing freewheeling) and no brakes. It is the simplest and purest bicycle, where man is at one with machine.

The tracks themselves vary from large open-air oval circuits with shallow banking to the small, tight and steeply banked hardwood ovals of the indoor velodromes.

And Herne Hill is arguably the best-known, most-loved velodrome in the world with the richest history, ranking alongside the legendary Velodromo Vignorelli in Milan, Roubaix in northern France and Buffalo in Paris.

Known initially as Herne Hill Stadium when it was built in 1891, and latterly Herne Hill Velodrome, but often referred to simply as Herne Hill track or ‘the Hill’, it was for many years the leading international track in the UK. It is now the only remaining venue from the 1948 Olympics, with a direct link to 125 years of cycle racing: a unique and iconic institution, with a vibrant role and a bright future. It is simply the spiritual home of British track cycling.

‘Ride your bike, ride your bike, ride your bike’

—Fausto Coppi on how to become a champion

1

When two roads diverge

Two great cycle racing institutions were born in 1903: the Good Friday Meeting at Herne Hill in south London and the Tour de France across the Channel.

The Tour de France is not only the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tour road stage races, it’s grown to become the world’s biggest annual sporting event. Traditionally held over three weeks in July and nowadays taking in a 3,500-kilometre circuit of France (and neighbouring countries), the first edition was 2,428 kilometres from Paris to Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes and back to Paris. It was won by Maurice Garin. The list of winners since then includes the greats of world cycling such as Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, as well as Britain’s Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.

The inaugural Good Friday Meeting, meanwhile, took place on an outdoor cycle track in suburban south London on 10 April 1903, some three months earlier. Herne Hill stadium stood in nine acres of grounds, modestly concealed from the general public by the recently built houses on Burbage Road to the south, Village Way in Dulwich to the east and a railway viaduct to the north – an inauspicious location for the most prestigious outdoor cycling track in the UK, one that was for many years the only international-standard track in the country, and one which is still revered by many as the spiritual home of track cycling in the United Kingdom.

Yet this venue has also been a showcase for the world’s greatest cycle racing stars, witnessing the breaking of national and world records for 125 years: from Jimmy Michael, Leon Meredith and Frank Southall in the early days through Reg Harris, Tom Simpson and Barry Hoban and on to Tony Doyle, Graeme Obree, Bradley Wiggins and other leading lights of the 21st-century British cycling phenomenon. And that’s just the British talent. There was also a panoply of foreign riders who appeared week in, week out, from Fausto Coppi to Jef Scherens, Toni Merkens and Stuart O’Grady.

For both events to continue through to this day with almost unbroken regularity is a remarkable achievement. But they also symbolise the divide that separated the UK and continental Europe for the following half-century. In Europe whole villages would turn out to watch hugely popular, colourful pelotons storming along public roads on free-wheel, multi-speed bikes. In the UK thousands would flock to noisy and colourful grass and hard tracks for virtuoso displays of speed, risk-taking and endurance, on fixed-wheel bikes with no brakes.

The Good Friday Meeting was promoted by the Southern Counties Cycling Union (SCCU) – an amateur association of about 30 affiliated cycle clubs based in south London, Surrey and Sussex, committed to organising track racing. Given that there were already many race meetings and other distractions over the Easter weekend and any form of public entertainment on Good Friday itself was generally discouraged, it was a big risk for the modestly funded SCCU to launch a new track meeting in 1903.

One of the first to sign up was Leon Meredith, the outstanding racing cyclist of the period. The London-born rider was already the 50-mile national tandem-paced champion at the time. A mild-looking, bespectacled man who parted his thick black hair in the centre, his appearance belied a tough character. In the following year, 1904, he won his first world championship at Crystal Palace in the 100-kilometre motor-paced event. As he entered the final 20 kilometres his pacing motorcycle broke down and Meredith hit the banking and fell. He turned somersaults across the track, but quickly jumped back on to his feet covered in blood, shouted for another bike and pacer and finished the race – breaking the world amateur record to boot! He later went on to win two Olympic medals and seven motor-paced world championships between 1904 and 1913 – still an unbeaten British record.

Other champions followed, to guarantee a high-class field. Vic Johnson, a thick-set carpenter from Warwickshire with a low hairline and protruding ears, was a brilliant sprinter who went on win a sprint gold medal at the 1908 Olympics and also became world amateur sprint champion, and holder of three world records. The diminutive A.E. Wills, also known as the ‘Putney flyer’, was another brilliant amateur racer, who went on to find fame as the first ever rider to break the mile-a-minute barrier for an hour, managing 60mph paced cycling from a standing start at a Munich track in 1908.

But despite a high-class field, crowds were by no means guaranteed as track racing was actually in a period of relative decline following the 1890s heyday. Cycling had been hugely popular as pastime and sport in the closing decade of the 19th century, after the invention of the safety bicycle (the precursor of the modern bike), but crowds were starting to drift away as the craze ran its course with the fickle general public. In his research for The Good Friday Gamble, John Watts unearthed the memoirs of Aubrey King, a member of the De Laune Cycle Club, who recalled meeting at the Half Moon pub near Herne Hill station beforehand with a group of anxious officials and helpers. The meeting had been well promoted, with a good programme and fine weather too, but they still feared failure.

“Imagine our astonishment when we sauntered into Burbage Road to find a queue five to six deep stretching beyond the railway arches with more and more people hurrying to join. Our saunter broke into a run and it was a stiff job forcing our way into the ground. Half a dozen stewards opened the big gates and the money was thrown into sacks as the spectators poured through. By two o’clock every seat was taken, the enclosures packed and a deep circle all round the ground.”

It would have been a mixed crowd: predominantly men dressed in black top hats with long dark coats to protect them against the spring chill in the grandstand; but also the middle classes in their bowler hats, and the working classes in their flat caps milling around the cheaper viewing areas. And lurking among them was a risk which became apparent when the racing started. No horse racing was allowed on Good Friday; consequently, ‘half the bookmakers in south London had come along to combine business with pleasure’ and when the first heat started ‘the shouting of odds drowned everything else’.

The race promoters would be held responsible for breaking the law, meaning the meeting itself would be under threat – not to mention their investment. King described the robust response from the organisers:

“We pleaded and threatened but it was no use; so with our one sergeant, two constables and every available steward we bundled the ringleaders outside the enclosure and locked the gates. But as soon as our backs were turned they tore up one of the long seats and forced the gate off its hinges to get back again. Things certainly looked ugly when we went after them, and it was a hard struggle before they were deposited outside the ground. Most of us bore the mark of battle and my chum, a big Scandinavian cyclist, had his right eye closed, but he enjoyed every minute of the fun. Anyway, it stopped the betting and the crowd settled down to an exciting afternoon of sport.”

The racing itself was enthusiastically cheered on by the capacity crowd, according to Watts’ reviews of the press reports, especially the shorter races. The quarter-mile and half-mile handicaps were both hotly contested. G.C. Anderson of West Ham was narrowly beaten by W. East of Paddington CC in the quarter-mile, but then went on to win the half-mile by half a wheel.

There were eleven riders competing for the Mellins Cup in the 10 miles point-to-point race (an endurance race which encourages speed and excitement by awarding points for intermediate sprint laps, with the winner being the rider who accumulates the most points, not necessarily the first over the line at the end), including numerous national champions. Meredith was beaten into second by Wills, who also went on to win the race in the two following years, giving him the right to take the trophy home for keeps.

‘Never in the whole annals of track cycling, has a meeting been so largely attended nor the field so good in each event,’ sang the praise in Cycling magazine, ‘to say nothing of the keenness of the competition, as at a Good Friday gathering.’ Happily it was no flash in the pan. The following year saw record crowds again (‘the road to the track was like the Epsom road on Derby day,’ according to press reports) and the meeting went from strength to strength.

2

Fast and furious

British cycling success may feel like a recent phenomenon, with 21st-century Olympic gold medallists, world champions and Tour de France winners – and British cycling is certainly enjoying a golden era – but it has a glorious record, right back to the dawn of bike racing in the 1860s.

The world’s first officially organised cycle race is immortalised as the one held in Parc de Saint-Cloud on the banks of the Seine in western Paris on 31 May 1868. And it was won by James Moore, an Englishman – albeit one who had lived in Paris since he was five years old, when his father moved there from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk to work as a blacksmith and farrier.

The bicycle had evolved from its early days in 1818 when a Paris-based German, Baron Karl Friedrich Drais von Sauerbronn, had patented his running machine – the so-called ‘Draisienne’. This was basically a wooden two-wheeler with a saddle and handlebars, propelled along by the riders’ legs – a simple, winning format still sold as ‘balance bicycles’ for young children today. Denis Johnson of London swiftly evolved the design to include an elegant curved wooden frame and metal parts which made it lighter than its predecessor. He also showed far more entrepreneurial flair when his ‘pedestrian curricle’ as it was called, became very popular with Regency dandies, earning the more memorable nicknames ‘hobby-horse’ or ‘dandy-horse’.

The next major development was in 1861, in Paris again, when Pierre Michaux a French blacksmith, attached pedals and cranks to the front wheel of a dandy-horse and called his invention a ‘velocipede’. This innovation enabled mechanically transmitted leg power: a game-changer in the evolution of the bicycle. Although they were branded velocipedes, once ridden on cobbled streets or stony tracks they quickly became known as ‘boneshakers’ for obvious reasons.

The velocipedes used in the Parc de Saint-Cloud race in 1868 were huge and heavy wooden machines with wheels of flattened metal: a 31-inch back wheel and a 38-inch front wheel. Napoleon III bought one and gave a dozen to his aristocratic friends, who took to them straight away. They quickly became popular with young, wealthy Parisians and began to be mass-produced by firms such as Michaux’s.

The event in Parc de Saint-Cloud was organised by René and Aimé Olivier, owners of the Compagnie Parisienne, who had recently acquired the Michaux company from the family, and wanted publicity for their new product. By this stage the factory was turning out over 400 machines a year. The event was well advertised, with generous prizes, was open to all-comers and brought a large, enthusiastic and well-heeled crowd, dressed in crinolines, top hats and frock coats.

Somewhere between five and ten riders are reported to have lined up between two ornamental fountains on the gravel path in the park, according to research by cycling historian Les Woodland. They raced 600 metres, turned and raced back. Francois Drouet, the favourite, took an early lead, followed by a rider named Palocini, but at the halfway turning point Moore ‘accelerated as fast as lightning’ according to the Cycling Record, winning by 20 metres. He was cheered with ‘frenetic hurrahs’ and won a gold medal worth 100 francs, engraved with his name and the image of Napoleon III.

While the occasion has gone down in folklore as the first ever bike race, there’s actually debate over whether it was even the first race on the day – and there is some evidence that organised races may have been held before this date too – but nonetheless, it’s this race and this rider that have stolen the limelight. In its write-up of the afternoon’s racing, Le Petit-Journal also reported a 50-metre ‘slow race’ for six competitors.

“This race was very amusing; the riders tried their best not to go fast, without stopping; their contrary movements made them fall except for Mr J Darenty, student of the Grand Gymnasium, who won the prize.”

Cyclists were already developing a passion for arcane and eclectic race formats.

Cycle racing had caught the public imagination elsewhere too and soon inspired similar events in the UK and Belgium. The first formal cycle race in England was held on 1 June 1868 – the very next day – in less salubrious surroundings: a field behind the Welsh Harp Hotel, a public house in Hendon, north London. It was won by Arthur Markham, who received a silver cup from the licensee of the hotel, who had sponsored the race. Markham went on to open bicycle shops in Edgware Road and Shepherd’s Bush, and had the occasional brush with the law for running fraudulent bike races.

But the bicycle had been adopted much earlier in France and racing quickly grew in popularity there. Despite the excitement of the crowds at Saint-Cloud, the races were actually quite slow: very low gearing essentially limited the speed to how fast riders could spin their legs. The challenge therefore turned from how fast a rider could go, to how far. The Olivier brothers, fresh from the success of their first race came up with the idea of a long-distance race from Paris to Rouen. Mass-start cycle racing was born. And James Moore won this one too. Held on 7 November 1869, the one-day race ran from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to Rouen (81 miles), and took in St-Germain, Mantes, Vernon and Louviers. One of the few rules stated that riders were ‘not to be trailed by a dog or use sails’. The event was sponsored by sports newspaper Le Velocipede Illustre, a tradition that continued on to 1903 when L’Auto sports paper sponsored the first Tour de France.

Cycles evolved quickly in the eighteen months following Parc de Saint-Cloud and by the time of the Paris–Rouen race, metal frames and metal-spoked wheels were common; tyres were made of rubber and the hubs ran on ball bearings. Speed was still limited by the rider’s leg speed as he turned the front wheel, so the bigger the wheel, the greater the distance travelled per pedal revolution. Wheels grew to enormous sizes – resulting in the development of the ‘ordinary’ or ‘penny-farthing’. With saddles over five feet from the floor, penny-farthings were the preserve of daring young racers – generally male. Moore’s bike had a 48-inch front wheel and 15-inch rear wheel.

The first prize was 1,000 francs, and 120 starters, including several women, set off from Paris at 7am. This is the first record of women’s cycle racing, although there is discrepancy over how many there were. Moore was the favourite, alongside Jean-Eugène-André Castéra, who had come second at Saint-Cloud, and another Englishman, a visiting student from Cambridge called Johnson. Moore won in 10 hours, 25 minutes (an average speed of 8mph), 15 minutes ahead of his nearest competitor. Only 34 competitors made it inside the time limit, including one woman, in 22nd place. Although female competitors were welcomed by organisers in this and other early races, in wider society cycling was still regarded as a scandalous activity for women, so the finisher called herself ‘Miss America’, rather than using her real name (and despite apparently being English!).

Possibly one of the reasons the Saint-Cloud race has dominated historical memory is the fact that Moore went on to become one of the first stars of cycle racing, dominating competition for many years. As well as winning Paris–Rouen, he became the first ever world champion when he won the MacGregor Cup in 1872, retaining it in 1873, 1874, 1875 and 1877. He also won the one-mile world championships in 1874 at the purpose-built track at Molineux Pleasure Grounds in Wolverhampton, where he also set an ‘hour record’ of 14 miles, 880 yards.

After the invention of the ordinary, which enabled much longer trips to be made, the bicycle soon became popular for leisure as well as competition. The introduction of solid rubber tyres improved comfort and handling even further. Although Britain was behind France in its adoption of the bike, cycling quickly gained in popularity. In February 1869 three cyclists – Rowley Turner, John Mayall and Charles Spencer – rode from London to Brighton, trailed by a reporter from The Times. It took them 15 hours to cover the 53 miles: a mere 3.5mph, but that did little to dampen The Times’ enthusiasm when it proclaimed the ‘Extraordinary velocipede feat’.

Meanwhile, Jerome K. Jerome, author of Three Men in a Boat, wrote that

“In Battersea Park, any morning between eleven and one, all the best blood in England could be seen, solemnly pedalling up and down the half-mile drive that runs between the river and the refreshment kiosk. But these were the experts – the finished article. In shady by-paths, elderly countesses, perspiring peers, still in the wobbly stage, battled bravely with the laws of equilibrium.”

But in reality cyclists were quickly becoming quite unpopular with large sections of the general public as they thundered through villages blowing their bugles, horns and whistles to warn people and sleeping dogs of their approach. To put things in context, motor cars weren’t allowed on public roads until 1896 or to exceed 12mph until 1903: a limit which also applied to cycles.

Many people resented swarms of cyclists riding furiously along the roads endangering life and tranquillity. The riders crowded into quiet village post offices to send telegrams to prove how far they had ridden and frequently behaved in an arrogant and discourteous manner. Rivalry soon developed, with village lads ambushing cyclists, encouraging aggravated dogs to attack cyclists, poking sticks through their wheels or even stretching wire across quiet lanes to bring them down. In 1876 Henry Cracknel, the driver of the St Albans mail coach was fined for swinging a home-made weapon made from ropes and weights out of his window, bringing down the entire Trafalgar Bicycle Club.

More and more cyclists were also taking part in competitive events. Road races rapidly evolved from informal affairs into organised challenges. One of the first promoters was the North Road Club, formed in 1885 ‘to promote fast and long-distance cycling on the Great North and other roads’. Road races also started the practice of using pacers, instantly doubling the number of riders charging for the line.

The fact that cycling, as both pastime and sport, was mainly the preserve of the aristocracy didn’t seem to make any difference to the authorities’ disapproving attitude. In 1878 a proposed change to the Highways Act would have made cycling illegal. Although the law was not changed, the police took to more actively harassing ‘road scorchers’. They often adopted a hard-line approach, charging at racers on horseback and throwing truncheons into wheels. In 1882, The Cyclist magazine reported on a gentleman of a ‘most respectable address’ being fined 40 shillings for riding through London at a ‘furious’ 10mph.

The restrictions led to a drive to find alternative places to race: better surfaces, in private and without interference from the police. Races were held on closed circuits, tracks or ‘paths’ – made of ash, shale, gravel, grass and eventually cement – partly as a result of health and safety concerns, partly as a way to commercialise racing as a spectator sport. Many of the earliest events were held in general sports arenas, but soon special tracks or ‘velodromes’ were constructed. In the second half of the 19th century, velodromes had begun to appear across Europe and the United States. Soon, they sprang up all over the United Kingdom, with more than twenty in London alone.

As sports grounds became enclosed in the 1870s and people began to have to pay for the pleasure of watching horse racing, rabbit-coursing or dog racing, attendance initially went down. But cycle racing was a popular spectator sport from its earliest days: the novelty and sensationalism meant it was one of the few events to attract large crowds and fascinate the press. The races were carefully orchestrated and hugely popular, with 15,000+ crowds turning up at velodromes and adapted exhibition halls to watch the action and bet on the results with trackside bookies.

Track cycle racing was in full swing, with events at enclosed grounds such as the Star Grounds in Fulham or Aston Cross Grounds in Birmingham. Penny-farthing races were mostly held on big flat cinder tracks, one of the most famous being Lillie Bridge track in Chelsea. In 1875, ‘monster crowds’ of 18,000 were reported at Wolverhampton’s Molineux Pleasure Grounds during the Christmas period to watch cycling stars compete.

Wolverhampton had quickly become a centre for bicycle manufacturing and Oliver McGregor, an astute local businessman and owner of Molineux House and grounds, realised the potential of organised cycle races – both as a way of raising money through entrance fees, but also stimulating interest in buying the new machines. In the late 1860s he built a cycle track around an ornamental boating lake and fountain, and began promoting regular race meetings several times a week, with large prizes. The track was one of the best in the country for a number of years, hosting many international race meetings including the international bicycle world championships in 1886, before being built over to become the home ground for Wolverhampton Wanderers FC in 1889 – the new craze.

In 1878 the Cyclists’ Touring Club was founded, with membership going on to reach its peak of 60,000 in 1899. The Pickwick Bicycle Club, together with Cambridge University Bicycle Club and two others, also formed the Bicycle Union in the Guildhall Tavern, London in 1878. It was set up to oversee bicycle racing in all its forms. They hosted the first official British National Cycling Championships in May 1878 at the Stamford Bridge arena, later to become home to Chelsea FC. The two-mile event was won by Ion Keith-Falconer, a six-foot three-inch Edinburgh-born, Harrow-educated Cambridge University student, allowing him to lay claim to being Britain’s first cycling champion, if not the fastest cyclist in the world.

Keith-Falconer had been winning cycle races since he’d started competing in 1874. He enjoyed a decade or so of success on road and track, including riding from Land’s End to John o’Groats in thirteen days, finishing his cycling career at the amateur championship in 1882 at Crystal Palace. He went on to become a professor of Arabic at Cambridge University and later a missionary, which gives a clue as to his naively optimistic attitude towards the benefits of cycling, picked up by Carlton Reid in his fascinating book Roads Were Not Built for Cars:

“It is an excellent thing to encourage an innocent sport (such as bicycling) which keeps young fellows out of the public-houses, music halls and gambling hells and all the other traps that are ready to catch them. It is a great advantage to enter for a few races in public, and not merely to ride on the road for exercise, because in the former case one has to train oneself and this involves abstinence from beer and wine and tobacco, and early going to bed and early rising, and gets one’s body into a really vigorous, healthy state. As to betting, nearly all Clubs forbid it, strictly … A bicycle race-course is as quiet as a public science lecture.”

An iconic track racing format that would no doubt have horrified and appalled Keith-Falconer at the time but was to gain huge popularity also started in the 1870s. Six-day racing began as a stunt, playing to popular taste in late Victorian England for unusual, callous tests of physical strength and stamina. This was an era when prizefighting was illegal but still practised. In 1860 a bare-knuckle fight between an Englishman, Tom Sayers, and an American, John C. Heenan, was staged in Farnborough, Hampshire and reportedly continued into the 42nd round before the mob broke it up. It was the qualities of strength and endurance that appealed to spectators, rather than skill per se.

Six-day racing took the specific form it did due to public respect for the Sabbath. Keeping Sunday a day of rest was supported by law and observed so strictly that there was debate over whether it was acceptable to ride a bicycle in public at all on Sundays, even for recreation or transport – never mind racing. So if the endurance of cyclists was to be tested to its limit, the longest period it could be done for was between midnight on a Sunday and midnight the following Saturday. (The principles still apply today, although it’s rare for six-day races not to run through Sundays nowadays, as that’s a busy day for crowds.)

There’s a lot of speculation about when and where the first six-day races were held – and indeed what format they took – but the events have a history going back at least as far as Birmingham in 1875, when riders set out to cycle around an oval timber outdoor track for twelve hours a day. That event was organised by a local manufacturer of ordinaries who wanted to demonstrate the reliability of his products. Another, eighteen-hour event, held in London later in the year was won by eighteen-year-old George Waller. The runner-up was Charles Terront, an eighteen-year-old Frenchman, who went on to become the first French cycling star, winning 54 major sprint, middle-distance and endurance events in Europe and the United States over a fifteen-year career.

These early races were essentially promotional events, but three years later the first recognised six-day races were held at the Royal Agricultural Hall (now the Business Design Centre) in Islington, London in 1878. Indoor races had been held there – albeit with the venue renamed the Velocipede Cirque for the occasion – as early as 1869.

The late Victorians’ love of excess and watching suffering led to a variety of formats being tried – a six-day walking contest in April 1877 reportedly attracted crowds of 20,000 a day. A more direct precursor of the race format was held in February 1878 when a professional rider called David Stanton sought a bet that he could ride 1,000 miles in less than six days, riding no more than eighteen hours a day. It was essentially an individual time trial over six days, with a £100 stake put up by a Mr Davis and held by the Sporting Life newspaper. A flat oval track was marked around the Royal Agricultural Hall interior and he started riding his penny-farthing at 6am on 25 February. He hit 1,000 miles and won the bet in 73 hours, riding at an average speed of 13.5mph.