My Great Grandad the fixie-skidder

Was going to put this in the tarck forum but thought it may be of interest to a few more on here.
Basically, from what I hear, my great grandpa was fucking awesome: Dock worker, featherweight bare-knuckle champ and epic cyclist. The attached files are an article about his cycling exploits in the early part of the 20th century. The article covers track racing, brakless night races, tandem crashes and a little about his time spent as a coach at Herne Hill. Could be of interest to track geeks, racing historians etc. It's also pretty funny at times.
A little wordy but certainly worth the read. I think the article was written at some point in the 50's...
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My mum vaguely remembers him having awesomely modified bikes to allow him to keep riding once arthritis set in and that at his funeral loads of dude from his club(mostly in there 80's) made the ride in from around the country.

Some great quotes in there:

"The road from the church became more of the country lane type, part tarmac interspersed with pothole and the curb was just a gully to the drain."

That's awesome!

Great read, thanks for posting.

Brake? You may have had one when you joined the Imps, but after the first club run you crept away ashamed....you were considered dangerous!

It's this article that makes me want to flog the pug tandem and invest in something ALOT faster....

I'd love to say my grandad was cooler than your grandad but thats clearly not true as having scanned through this he was fully awesome. Need to set some time aside to read properly, thanks for posting.

I liked that bit too. Was the old skool word for noob "Novitiate" ?!

Dock worker, featherweight bare-knuckle champ, epic cyclist ...blah... blah...time spent as a coach at Herne Hill.

Your grandad is RPM.

my grandad broke his hip wrestling a sheep, then part of the rehab was told to buy a stationary bike, but then fitted an ashtray to the handlebars so he could smoke and also watch days of our lives on the telly.

he also later fixed a motor to help turn the wheel as it was to hard pedalling. true story. RIP!

That's brilliant Ed! I'll read the whole thing asap!

As a side note, seeing as i'm back at the family homestead, I'm going to trawl the cellar on the off chance there are any photos left.
Also, dogsballs grandad=hero

My Grandad is a racist.

[QUOTE]Dock worker, featherweight bare-knuckle champ, epic cyclist ...blah... blah...time spent as a coach at Herne Hill.
Your grandad is RPM.[/QUOTE]

Sadly not, I ain't never been no featherweight!

cruiserweight now, maybe light heavyweight last year for a month or two

Thanks, edmundro. Post of the month. Some familiar names in there.

I used to go on the odd clubrun with Joe Mumford of Lea Valley CC. Probably no relation, but you never know.

I want my great grandkids to tell stories like this about me. Going to start bareknuckle boxing and brakless fixie skidding.

Great grandma(oscc)

Grandpa in middle, grandma on left(her bike in background i think), aunt on right would have been in the sidecar of the motorbike

Only photos I can find at the moment.

I used to go on the odd clubrun with Joe Mumford of Lea Valley CC. Probably no relation, but you never know.

As far as my folks know Billy was the last male Mumford that she knows of, could have possibly been a cousin or as you say, unrelated.

Glad it's been of interest to you.

fantastic! you are so lucky to have a bit of history like that

Awesome. An epic read.

Sounds like things were way simpler back then...

Ride, fight, ride, load/unload ships, fight, fight, ride, train others to do same, repeat.

fantastic! you are so lucky to have a bit of history like that

I know, getting new(old) wheelset for the Mason sorted then I'll finally drag myself down to Herne Hill, I'd be a fool not to really.

Wanted: Early track tandem frame(seriously)

Ride, fight, ride, load/unload ships, fight, fight, ride, train others to do same, repeat.

That sounds so butch & exciting compared to my Ride, look at computer, drink, ride, go to bed

Great read. What a super piece of family (and cycling) history to have. The Sydney Arms in Chislehurst is still there... Pilgrimage ride?

^ In.

You and Stix can pace the rest on the tandem...