It worked, with Harris claiming his first victory in a proper velodrome in mid 1936. He won the sprint race at the Fallowfield Stadium in Manchester, a venue that would be named after him many years later. Full details of Peter Kohler’s TI Raleigh SDBU 1976 Time Trial Special, including a comprehensive history of the machine and of the SBDU production facility in the period when Reynolds 753 frame tubing was introduced. During the late 1970’s and 1980’s the unit was not only supplying bespoke frames to the most successful professional teams it was producing frames for discerning British riders and complete bicycles handbuilt by one builder. This was an age before lottery grants and professional funding so he moved to a job at a local paper mill that paid enough over the winter for him to take the summer months off to compete.

Combined with his reserve and ruthlessness, such pursuits did not endear him to the British cycling community. In viewpoint typical of the many contemporaries of Harris whom I interviewed, Norman Sheil, the former world amateur pursuit champion, said. “You never got close to him to know him. You didn’t socialise with him. Or let me put it another way: he didn’t socialise with you. He was out of our league financially and every other way.” By the time Harris won the world amateur sprint title in Paris in 1947, he was already employed and equipped by bicycle manufacturer Claud Butler and was testing the boundaries of amateurism. The cycling world expected that Harris would take three titles in the 1948 Summer Olympics: the sprint, the tandem sprint and the kilometre time trial, but three months before the London Games, he broke two ribs in a road accident. After hospital, with a few weeks remaining to the games, training, competing and winning, he fell in a ten-mile (16km) race at Fallowfield and fractured an elbow. [3] Completing the rest of his preparation in a plaster cast, he had to be satisfied with two silvers, being beaten by Italy's Mario Ghella in the final of the sprint, and partnering Alan Bannister to second place in the tandem sprint (timetable constraints meant Harris's place in the kilometre was taken by another rider, Tommy Godwin, who won a bronze medal). Two weeks later, he claimed a bronze medal in the 1948 world championships sprint in Amsterdam. He was named sportsman of the year by a poll in 1949, winning by 7,000 votes over the football player, Billy Liddell. [5] Professional career [ edit ] He was married three times. The first two marriages (in 1944 to Florence Stage, then to Dorothy Hadfield) ended in divorce. He married Jennifer Anne Geary in 1970. He died in Macclesfield of a stroke, survived by his third wife. Guerlach was the big dope soigneur of the time but Reg didn't use him for drugs,' Pete Brotherton said. 'He hired him so nobody else got to him. That was the deal: Guerlach had to stay with Reg.'"

SEVENTIES SCENE: A view looking towards Beech Lane, Macclesfield, during the 1970s, during road widening works on Jordangate. READ MORE: The collection of specimens, known since 1997 as the Grant Museum of Zoology, was started in 1827 by Robert E. Grant. Grant was the first professor of zoology at UCL when it opened, then called the University of London, and he stayed in post until his death in 1874. The collections have seen a total of 13 academics in the lineage of collections care throughout the 187 year history of the Grant Museum, from Robert E. Grant himself, through to our current Curator Mark Carnall. With war still raging in Europe, he was invited to perform in a series of exhibition races in Paris in 1945 and became a huge favourite of the Parisian crowds. His popularity saw cycling group Claud Butler offer him a job and the use of their equipment. Once the war was over, this investment helped him claim his first World Amateur Sprint title in 1947, once again in Paris. marks a period in Raleigh history with not only the forming of the 1974 team, but the beginning of a period of dominance not only for the team but for Raleigh bicycles in the continental race arena for best part of a decade and more. The Raleigh team, whether in the guise of TI-Raleigh or Panasonic Raleigh was the last great powerhouse team of the classic era – all equipped with SBDU built bicycles. 1974 Raleigh team

In 1971, he returned to racing, winning a bronze medal in the British championship in Birmingham after little preparation. With more training behind him, he approached the British championship in Leicester in 1974 in more confident mood, and beat Trevor Bull to win the title at the age of 54. In 1975, he returned to Leicester, but was narrowly beaten by Bull in the final and had to settle for the silver medal. He continued to cycle almost to his death. Harris, Reg; Bowden, Gregory Houston (1976). Reg Harris: Two Wheels to the Top: An Autobiography. London: W. H. Allen. ISBN 978-0-491-01957-6. Born into a poor, working-class family during the Great Depression, Reg Harris left school early to help support his widowed mother working in a bicycle shop. But after winning a local cycling competition, Harris realised his natural abilities and began to train seriously. Working in a paper mill to fund his ambitions, Harris soon started winning enough races to leave the mill and went on to break the rules of amateurism and become the favourite for three titles in the 1948 Olympics. But Harris's dreams of gold were shattered when he was involved in a high-speed car accident that nearly left him paralysed. However, Harris's determination and drive meant he defied the odds and he went on not only to compete in the Olympics but to win two silver medals. It got that way that some of the other riders were saying 'When are you two going to shake hands?', because life was getting bloody tough every time we were engaged anywhere. There was crossfire and the other guys were getting caught in it." In the end, the anger couldn't last. It burned out after 15 months and the pair became grudging colleagues if not friends. "I've seen him two or three times in recent years," Harris said. "If I've been over in Holland, I'd give Arie a ring and we'd chat for perhaps an hour on the phone." And I said, 'No, it never will be again for the two of us.' And that was the start of an enormous bloody war. We were bitter enemies. I mean, even that night, my wife and I were staying at his home – previously arranged – and my wife was sitting with his wife and his two teenage sons were there and they were in tears – 'What's happened to Daddy?' – and we didn't have a friendly word. And every time Arie said 'Look, isn't it time this was over?', I'd say 'It'll never be over so far as I'm concerned.'Harris Raleigh' No 2842. Seat tube 22 9/16". Top tube 22 7/16". Wheel base 40". Chain stay 16 1/4". 73 degree angles. The bicycles were still hand built, but hand built in batches. Raleigh management decided something had to be done and Gerald O’Donovan; his family originally owned Carlton (and then worked for Raleigh), took over a small factory at Digby Street in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. In 1974 he created this new factory for making very small numbers of outstandingly high quality specialist frames and bicycles. With only six specially selected expert frame builders from the Raleigh factory; these builders were also chosen for their inventive capability, as Gerald O’Donovan was very much focused on future innovative developments with his new unit. Thanks to exhaustive new research and investigation Robert Dineen has unearthed a truly cinematic story. This epic account of Reg Harris's meteoric success takes you from his humble beginnings to his spectacular highs and his dramatic lows. The new machine was given the model no. 28, previously assigned to one of Raleigh's rarest post-war machines, the Super Sports, which was in production only in 1947-48. This was a de luxe version of the Sports, no. 21. The Super Sports was a steel-framed club machine with added refinements such as celluloid mudguards and a detachable chainwheel (a rare version of the pre-war classic Heron's head model) painted in a vibrant orange enamel. In its essence the new model 28 was a Reynolds 531 tube version of the Super Sports with 71° seat and head angles and offered in a 21" or 23" frame, gents model only. According to Dineen's version of the story, Harris doped twice for competition and then never again. He may have used amphetamines when driving to and from races (lots of people did in those days, in all walks of life) but those two competitive occasions apart, Harris raced clean. So what was he doing working with Louis Guerlach?

Thank you, Simon, for all your dedication, hard work and commitment to trees and arboriculture. You really have earned this award. Fignon’s Castorama team also used SBDU machines during the 1990 season, which arguably was both the swansong of a great rider’s career and a great flowering of British technology and craftsmanship dominating the continental professional cycling arena.Such ambition helped to persuade Raleigh to offer Harris a sponsorship deal that made him synonymous with the bike manufacturer long before such sportsman-brand partnerships were commonplace. It succeeded because Harris was the consummate showman: handsome, he talked well and was careful always to present an impeccable public persona, dressing impressively and often flashing his winning smile. Harris was born in 1920 a stone’s throw from the current location of the Grant Museum. His father was a jeweller and Harris was born in a room above his father’s shop. At age 16 he took up a post at the Wellcome Museum of Medical Science where he stayed until the second world war broke out when, in 1939, he joined the Navy in a medical capacity until 1943. During his time with the Navy, Harris worked aboard RNH Haslar, HMS Colinwood and on the Royal Netherlands Navy Hospital Ship HMHC Ophir, Eastern Fleet. In 1946, Harris returned to his position at the Wellcome Museum, but s0on after relocated to the Zoology Department at UCL as a teaching technician. From that, you might be able to work out that Dineen's biography is one part Lance Armstrong's War (the world against Reg Harris and Reg Harris against the world) and one part Paul Howard's Sex, Lies And Handlebar Tape. Let's now jump to another quote, this from toward the end of the book. An important source for some of the story Dineen tells is Harris's daughter from his first marriage, Marilyn Harris: Harris was born as Reginald Hargreaves at 7 Garden Street, Birtle, Bury, Lancashire,. [3] His mother, Elsie Hargreaves, a cotton weaver, [3] remarried and Reginald took the name of his stepfather, an engineer and businessman called Joseph Harris. Godwin hints at race-fixing and illegal performance enhancement, and cites a conversation with a Belgian soigneur, Louis Guerlache, masseur, trainer and unofficial doctor.

Yes, I experimented with drugs, in world record attempts and important races, but never in World Championships. But I found that my nerve control was harmed by it. It was a failure, although I am not ashamed to admit that, had I found it a success, I would have used it in world-title events." A memorial to his achievements in the form of a sculpture by James Butler RA can be found in the Manchester Velodrome (the National Cycling Centre). In 1971, he returned to racing, winning a bronze medal in the British championships in Birmingham after hardly any preparation. With much more training behind him, he approached the British championships in Leicester in 1974 in more confident mood, and beat Trevor Bull to win the title at the age of 54. In 1975, he returned to Leicester, but was narrowly beaten by Bull in the final and had to settle for the silver medal. He continued to cycle almost to his death. Care has to be taken when identifying SBDU machines, as Raleigh operated in parallel with the SBDU in Ilkeston, a Lightweight Unit in Nottingham. The Lightweight Unit offered not only complete machines such as the Team Replica 12, Road Ace-EX 12 and the Corsa (the author bought a Corsa new in 1984 which he still has), but off the peg framesets not featured as complete machines – these frames were the Gran Course and Gran Tour. Whilst the Lightweight Unit complete machines and off the peg frames were built to a high standard they were a grade down in build quality from the SBDU machines which were always bespoke. Like comparing a high quality off the peg suit from Daks to a bespoke item from a Saville Row or Jermyn Street tailor.

Biography

In 1968 the team changed its name to Carlton BMB and it became their best year to date; Trevor Bull joined the team in 1968 and became the British Professional Sprint Champion. Fiamme sprint rims on Airlite large flanged fixed gear hubs 40/32 spoking fitted with Clement silk tubs Raleigh would also build, alongside the new technologies framesets in steel for professional teams like Raleigh-Weinmann, Panasonic, Systeme U, Castorama and Raleigh Banana to name four. Mudguard and Pump Fittings (under top tube) and Pulley Boss, top tube and chainstay fitting for "bare wire" Derailleur control.