Great inventions of Cycling... Winter
In some trifling heliospherical respects ‘winter’ predates even the Sturmey-archer 3-speed hub. However, cycling-specific winter began in the late 1860s.
There was a wobble early on, when a man called John Mayall rode one of the first boneshakers in the UK from London to Brighton in midwinter. But after that, cyclists settled into a sensible pattern of spending the winter playing billiards, smoking cigars and singing bawdy songs. Bicycles came out in spring, and not a moment sooner, since the dirt roads were totally impassible until they’d dried out.
By the mid 20th century a racing man still laid aside his racing iron for most of the winter, instead focusing on the ‘social season’ — an endless round of club dinners.
The super keen did circuit training — gathering at a local village hall to do a handful of desultory press-ups.
Then some fool spoiled it all by realising that if he trained all winter, he could win some races come the spring. The earlyseason races were once an opportunity to set a low benchmark. They soon became the most hotly contested events of the year.
Assos gets a mention for contributory negligence when it invented the first Lycra cycling kit. Lycra leaves us with fewer excuses to hit the beer than we had in the days of baggy wool tights and gloves that could hold 5kg of rainwater apiece.
Still, at least winter is good for Strava KOM hunting. As long as you’ve got a mate to drive you back upwind.