The National Cyclists' Union (NCU) was an association established in the Guildhall Tavern, London, on 16 February 1878 as the Bicycle Union. Its purpose was to defend cyclists and to organise and regulate bicycle racing in Great Britain. It merged with the Tricycle Association in 1882 and was renamed the National Cyclists' Union in 1883.[1]
The National Cyclists' Union selected teams for world championships and regulated circuit and track racing in England and Wales. It was a founder member of the International Cycling Association, forerunner of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the world governing body.
During and after the Second World War, the NCU became involved in a dispute with a rival body, the British League of Racing Cyclists, which defied the NCU's rules that massed-start races should be held on public roads only when they were closed to other traffic. The struggle between the two lasted for a decade, after which they merged to become the British Cycling Federation.
Formation
The Bicycle Union was formally established at a meeting in the Guildhall Tavern, London, on 16 February 1878, instigated by Gerard Francis Cobb (a Cambridge University music tutor, president of the Cambridge University Cycling Club, and also a member of the Cyclists' Touring Club's national council).[2] Its purpose was to defend cyclists and to organise and regulate bicycle racing in Great Britain. In July 1878, Cobb, as its first president, led the Bicycle Union's lobbying of the Local Government Board, one of the official bodies managing British highways, and also actively campaigned for highway improvements in Cambridge.[2]
The Bicycle Union merged with the Tricycle Association in 1882 and was renamed the National Cyclists' Union in 1883.[1] It continued to campaign for highway improvements, successfully pursuing an 1885 legal action, with support from highway engineer Thomas Codrington, regarding the road between Birmingham and Halesowen.[3]
In October 1886, the CTC and NCU pooled resources and formed the Roads Improvement Association.[4] This did not present itself as a cycling organisation, instead initially focusing on production of technical literature distributed to highways boards and surveyors to promote improved construction and maintenance methods.[4] In the early years of the 20th century, however, the RIA gradually became primarily a motoring lobby organisation, under honorary secretary William Rees Jeffreys.[5]
Activities and amateurism
The British weekly, The Bicycle, said:
"Even during the insecurity of its early years, the union found that it had substantial problems to fight. Foremost among them was a proposed amendment to the Highways Act, then before Parliament, which threatened to check very seriously the use of bicycles on the road. The cyclist of those days was considered a nuisance whether he rode a bicycle, a tricycle, or a velocipede, and was banned by municipal bodies and corporations all over the country. Here was a matter affecting the very existence of cyclists. The Bicycle Union, then barely five months old, was called upon to act promptly. By instant and energetic action a rejection of the venomous amendment was secured."[6]
The NCU erected road signs warning cyclists of steep descents and other hazards. It was prompted by a member, J. George Jnr, who suggested them in 1878. The idea was taken up by the Earl of Albemarle, who became president of the NCU.[7] The NCU shared signposting with the Cyclists Touring Club but after 10 years could no longer afford it and the CTC took on the whole job.[7] The NCU also produced publications to help cyclists tour Britain.
The NCU also ran racing championships, at first open to anyone in the world. Its championships were the world's most prestigious and considered unofficial championships of the world.[8] The NCU, which had a strict definition of an amateur,[9] proposed to create an International Cycling Association, open to national organisations whose views of amateurism were similar to its own, and to organise world championships. The International Cycling Union was the forerunner of the Union Cycliste Internationale.
The NCU defined amateurism in English races and banned the American sprinter, Arthur Augustus Zimmerman when he appeared to be sponsored by the Raleigh Bicycle Company. It insisted the organisers of the first Bordeaux-Paris met its own ideals[10][11] before allowing British riders to take part. When George Pilkington Mills won, the NCU would not recognise the victory, or consider Mills still an amateur, until he proved he had no help from the cycle factory for which he worked.[12]
Amateurism and the International Cyclists Association
The NCU was a founder member of the world's first cycling authority, the International Cyclists Association. NCU championships, until 1937 open to riders from any country,[13] had been considered the unofficial championships of the world.[8] It was because the sport needed world championships independent of any national body that Henry Sturmey of the magazine The Cyclist and later founder of the Sturmey-Archer gear company proposed an International Cyclists Association in 1892. He approached other countries' cycling national associations through the NCU. The founding meeting was in London in November 1892, with representatives of the NCU and organisations in France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Canada.
Not all were the main bodies in their home country. The largest French organisation, the Union Vélocipèdique Française, sent observers but was not allowed to take part because the NCU had broken off relationships with it over the question of amateurism.[9] Countries objected to having one vote when Britain, with England, Scotland and Ireland each voting, had three.[14]
France was due to promote the world championships in Paris in 1900. It refused to accept the NCU's position and, after failing to have the issue discussed at an ICA meeting, convened a meeting in Paris to form the Union Cycliste Internationale. Not only would it permit just one team from the United Kingdom but the NCU and Britain's other governing bodies were excluded because they had not been at the founding meeting. It took until 1903 for Britain to be admitted.
Road racing
The NCU banned all cycle racing on public roads in 1890,[15] fearing it would again jeopardise the position of other cyclists. It compelled members to hold their races on velodromes, although the word was not known then, or on closed roads such as in parks and airfields. The only races allowed on public roads were time-trials, in which riders competed against the clock at intervals,[16] and distance and place-to-place record attempts.
Such a ban did not operate in other countries and massed road racing continued as before. That made little difference to the British because the few international events to which they sent riders, notably the Olympic and world championship road races, had been run as individual time trials. It was as a 100-mile [162km] time-trial, in Shropshire, that Britain organised the world championship road race in 1922. Then in 1933 the UCI decided that championships would be massed-start events. The NCU organised its 1933 world championship trial as a circuit race at Brooklands near Weybridge in Surrey. This and Donington Park in the north Midlands remained the sole venues for massed start racing on mainland Britain until 1942, along with the Snaefell Mountain Course on the neighbouring Isle of Man.
The trial led to a series of races at Brooklands, organised by the Charlotteville cycling club under Bill Mills, a professional rider who founded the weekly magazine, The Bicycle. Mills was one of few authorities to whom the NCU could turn for advice on road racing and it was he who wrote the NCU's rules, at the request of the secretary, H. N. Crowe.
The wording that Mills chose in 1933 led to the NCU's long civil war with a later rival body, the British League of Racing Cyclists. Mills wrote: "No massed start race shall be permitted, other than on an enclosed circuit, unless the course is closed under statute by the competent authority, to other vehicular traffic." Nine years later, in October 1942 and after the BLRC had broken away from the NCU because of that insistence on closed roads, Mills regretted what he had done: "In 1933 it was impossible to foresee the future... the war, the changing conditions on the road, the decline of track sport, the growing demand for massed start under real road conditions. My notes covered conditions as they existed in 1933."[17]
At the time, said the writer and team manager Chas Messenger, "there were thousands riding in time trials and, apart from a once-in-a-while article in the cycling press, they knew little or nothing about road racing."[18] The Brooklands races inspired some riders and one, Percy Stallard, took advantage of low wartime traffic in 1942 to organise a race on the open road from Llangollen to Wolverhampton. The NCU banned him sine die - until further notice - and he and others formed the British League of Racing Cyclists as a rival.
Rivalry with the BLRC
The NCU and the BLRC (British League of Racing Cyclists) remained rivals for 17 years, a position which split British cycling. The BLRC's position was that racing on the road was not illegal, that it did not obstruct other travellers, and that it gave riders from England and Wales[19] the experience to compete internationally. The NCU had entrusted its wartime administration to an emergency committee which did not have power to change major rules. The journalist John Dennis said the NCU still believed that racing on the road threatened all cycling and did not want to make any change while so many members were out of the country, fighting in the war.[20] The two sides maintained their positions when peace came in 1945 and for many years each banned the members of the other.
The National Cyclists' Union leased the velodrome at Herne Hill for 21 years from 25 March 1942.[21]
Records
The papers of the Bicycle Union and the NCU, mainly committee minutes, are held by the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick Library, England.[1]
Related Research Articles
The Union Cycliste Internationale is the world governing body for sports cycling and oversees international competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle, Switzerland.
British Cycling is the main national governing body for cycle sport in Great Britain. It administers most competitive cycling in Great Britain, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It represents Britain at the world body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and selects national teams, including the Great Britain (GB) Cycling Team for races in Britain and abroad. As of 2020, it has a total membership of 165,000.
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common competition formats are mass start events, where riders start simultaneously and race to a set finish point; and time trials, where individual riders or teams race a course alone against the clock. Stage races or "tours" take multiple days, and consist of several mass-start or time-trial stages ridden consecutively.
The Bordeaux–Paris professional cycle race was one of Europe's classic cycle races, and one of the longest in the professional calendar, covering approximately 560 km (350 mi) – more than twice most single-day races. It started in northern Bordeaux in southwest France at 2am and finished in the capital Paris 14 hours later. The professional event was held from 1891 until 1988. It was held as an amateur event in 2014.
The British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) was an association formed in 1942 to promote road bicycle racing in Great Britain. It operated in competition with the National Cyclists' Union, a rivalry which lasted until the two merged in 1959 to form the British Cycling Federation.
Cycling Time Trials is the bicycle racing organisation which supervises individual and team time trials in England and Wales. It was formed out of predecessor body the Road Time Trials Council (RTTC) in 2002.
Frederick Thomas Bidlake was an English racing cyclist of the late 19th century, who became one of the most notable administrators of British road bicycle racing during the early 20th century. The annual Bidlake Memorial Prize, was instituted in his memory. He was a timekeeper in cycling, motorcycling and for seaplane races in the 1930s.
Scottish Cycling, legally the Scottish Cyclists' Union (SCU), is the governing body for cycle sport in Scotland and is part of British Cycling, the national governing body in Britain.
George Pilkington Mills was the dominant English racing cyclist of his generation, and winner of the inaugural Bordeaux–Paris cycle race. He frequently rode from Land's End to John o' Groats, holding the world record time on six occasions between 1886 and 1895. He was a member of the Anfield and North Road cycling clubs. He later won races and broke records as a car racer and motorcycle rider.
Charles Holland was a British road bicycle racer. He was one of the first two Britons to ride the Tour de France.
The British Best All-Rounder (BBAR) competition, organised by Cycling Time Trials, is an annual British cycle-racing competition. It ranks riders by the average of their average speeds in individual time trials, over 50 and 100 miles (160 km) and 12 hours for men, and over 25, 50 and 100 miles (160 km) for women. There are similar competitions for under-18s and teams of three. Qualifying races have to be ridden between April and September.
Percy Thornley Stallard was an English racing cyclist who reintroduced massed-start road racing on British roads in the 1940s.
Ernest J Clements was an English road racing cyclist, frame builder and cycle shop owner.
The British National Road Race Championships cover different categories of British road bicycle racing events, normally held annually.
Dave Bedwell was one of Great Britain's most accomplished racing cyclists in the 1950s, known as the "Iron Man" of cycling. He won four stages in the first Tour of Britain, rode for Britain in the world professional road championship in 1953 and 1956 and rode for Britain in the Tour de France.
The International Cycling Association (ICA) was the first international body for cycle racing. Founded by Henry Sturmey in 1892 to establish a common definition of amateurism and to organise world championships its role was taken over by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 1900.
Robert John Maitland was a British racing cyclist. He won national championships in Britain, tackled long-distance records, was the best-placed British rider in the 1948 Olympic road race, and rode for Britain in the Tour de France. His career coincided with a civil war within British cycling as two organisations, the National Cyclists Union and the British League of Racing Cyclists, fought for the future of road racing.
John "Ian" Steel was a Scottish racing cyclist who in 1952 won the Peace Race, a central European race between Warsaw, Berlin and Prague. He was the only Briton, and the only rider from the English-speaking world to win it, as well as the first Briton to win any major race. He also won the Tour of Britain as a semi-professional and was at one stage second in the 1952 Tour of Mexico before crashing.
Norman Leslie Sheil was a racing cyclist who won world pursuit championships for Britain in 1955 and 1958 and rode the Tour de France in 1960. He became national coach of the British Cycling Federation and later of the Canadian Cycling Association. He returned to racing in 1998, one month after the birth of his grandson,and won the world points championship for over-65s, in Manchester England.
The Roads Improvement Association, established in 1882, was a British organisation which campaigned for better roads in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century. Founded by cycling organisations ten years before the first motor cars arrived on the roads, it became predominantly a motoring body before World War I.
↑ The NCU insisted that amateurs won no prizes in money; the Union Vélocipèdique de France was happy for amateurs to win up to 200 francs, or what a manual worker earned in 16 months
↑ McGurn, James (1987) On Your Bicycle, John Murray (UK) p108
↑ Run under the rules of the Road Time Trials Council, formed in 1922 as the Road Racing Council, originally a rebel movement to circumvent the NCU's ban
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
