Page 10 - DLNmay2015-994
P. 10

miles (1948: 1h 19m 28s), 50 miles (1949 and 1950: 2h 14m 16s), 100 miles
(1950: 4h 37m 53s) and 12 hours (1949: 237.62 miles). But her time for
25 miles never fell below 1h 5m; she said it took her at least that far to
get warmed up.She turned professional in 1951 and set about setting
place-to-place records. She still holds the records for London-Edinburgh,
London-York, London-Liverpool, London to Bath and back, London-
Portsmouth and back. She also held the Women’s Land’s End-John
O’Groats record with 2 days, 11 hours and 7 minutes from 1954 until 2002
when Lynne Taylor beat it with 2 days, 4 hours and 45 minutes. [I’ve actually
augmented the above detail from other sources because, like “BB”’s record
I was blown away.]

Colin Lewis
Lewis got into cycling for a bet after a few drinks in 1960 – specifically
that he’d qualify for the next Olympics in 4 years time. He started riding
18 miles each way to work. He was approached by a club cyclist, who asked
if he belonged to a club. Having heard of the Catford CC while he was working
in London he claimed to be a member! Asked about his racing standard,
he claimed to have ridden a 1-2-22 “25”, knowing from reading “Cycling Weekly”
that it was a respectable time. When he eventually did ride his first “25”

he did… 1-2-22! By 1963 was finishing 9th overall in the Milk Race, in 1964
made the Olympic team and of course rode the Tour de France in 1967.
After retiring, Lewis went on to be the first manager of the Eastway circuit.
He also held the lap record there for a while with 2 minutes 12 seconds
before Tour Yellow Jersey Dietrich “Didi” Thurau put 4 seconds into it. (In
case you’re curious, the record at the time Eastway closed was down to 2
minutes 1 second (Ray Eden, Eagle RC).

Sportsmanship
Remember the 1973 World Track Championships when the British team won
after the German team, who were leading, crashed in the last 100 metres,
then sportingly ceded the race to the unfortunate German team? Ever
wonder what happened afterwards? Well, the Germans didn’t just rub their
hands together in glee and pocket the win. Mercedes-Benz sponsored a
gold-painted Learjet to fly team-member Mick Bennett from his home in

                                                     10
   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15