Robin Walker again on this issue:
"Mass start road racing was banned in the UK as being dangerous. The sport's controlling body, National Cyclists Union , simply did not allow it. However, Percy (Stallard) got permission from the Police force to stage a race between Llangollen and Wolverhampton towards the end of WW2. This incurred the wrath of the NCU and led to the formation of the British Leauge of Racing Cyclists."
I would find it to be very interesting to hear from any of our British List Member friends who would care to elaborate more fully on this piece of British cycling history; strikes this under-informed observer as a turning point of sorts. Have books been written about it?
Regards, Michael Lebron NYC
----------
>From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
>To: themaaslands@comcast.net, Classic Rendezvous <Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
>Subject: Re: [CR]Why there are no Brits in the TdF
>Date: Thu, Jul 15, 2004, 2:45 PM
>
>Well of course, for UK you should be looking for world time trial
>champions, not track events. As to US, what happened to Major Taylor and
>all his contemporaries in the late 19th and early 20th century? Perhaps
>UCI only lists the world champions since the formation of UCI. But even
>more recently I'm pretty sure Marty Nothstein has won at least a couple of
>world championships. And I certainly thought Sheila Young, Sue Novara and
>Rebecca Twigg had a few world championships between them.
>
>Regards,
>
>Jerry Moos
>Houston, TX
>
>themaaslands@comcast.net wrote:
>Jerry Moos writes:
>
>> Well, Tom Simpson certainly was committed enough, but he evidently took a few
>> too many drugs. But I think the general lack of British contenders can be put
>> down to the same cause as the lack of Americans until Lemonde. Massed start
>> road racing was not traditionally popular in either US or UK. In America, the
>> traditional form of cycling was track, while in Britain it was time trial. Each
>> nation has produced many world champions in its preferred form of the sport.
>
>The evidence thoroughly disproves this comment. I went through the men's
>results of the track world championships and took note of the various
>podium finishes for each country up to and including 1983 (CR cut-off
>limit). Since the team results on the UCI site (www.uci.ch) do not give the
>individual components of the team, I simply wrote down the country, whereas
>with the individual riders, I kept track of the number of different names
>in each discipline. So if one particular 'star' rider repeated, he is given
>the same value as somebody who had a podium finish once only. (I may have
>missed or noted a rider twice by mistake, but in general lines the results
>are the ones stated.) Just as noted in road race results, neither Britain,
>nor much less so the US, ever produced any appreciable number of World
>Champions or even podium finishers in the classic era of cycling (as
>determined by the CR cut-off limit of 1983)
>
>I was able to find 3 British professional pursuit podium rider, 2 sprint
>podium riders and one team pursuit podium team. Among the Juniors, they had
>one points podium rider and one team sprint podium team. The USA was even
>less visible with one jr. team podium, Lemond's Jr. pursuit podium and 4
>sprint podium finishers prior to WWI.
>
>You can commpare this to Germany with 23 pro team podiums and 10 junior
>team podiums and 37 different riders making it to discipline/podiums (these
>results are inflated as Germany used to send two distinct teams). The USSR
>had 21 team results and 10 individual results (no pros!) Italy 11 team
>results, 26 individual results. France 2 teams and 27 individual results.
>The Netherlands 17 individual results. Belgium 13 individual results...
>--
>Steven Maasland
>Moorestown, NJ
>
>
>-------------- Original message --------------
>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jerry Moos
>> Houston, TX
>>
>> brucerobbins wrote:
>> Since David Miller's drugs entanglement and his disappearance from the race,
>> my guess is that there are no Brits there because we don't take enough
>> drugs.
>>
>> Bruce
>> Dundee
>> Scotland