Cycling and Britain’s war effort
Unsurprisingly the war continued to loom large over the country in 1946. Manufacturing was key to the country getting back on its feet as Dunlop proudly exclaimed on the cover that they were backing Britain’s recovery. And not just making tyres. The 583 products they were involved in making in various factories included hot water bottles, gas cylinders, shoes (or at least the soles), hosepipes, armchairs and beds, or parts of.
Inside a revealing story highlights the sheer size of Raleigh’s exploits during the war, and how it affected the Nottingham-based company. Their production of bicycles was just five per cent of their output. The rest of their output was ammunition for the army and the RAF.
Production hit one million units a day, this despite the fact that their workforce was depleted as 3,100 of them eventually joined the forces. Raleigh still employed 9,000 workers. After the war Raleigh faced a mammoth task of returning their production line and processes to normal.
All this was captured in a book by Dudley Noble entitled, Thus We Served, published for limited circulation.
Raleigh’s soon-to-be top rider, Reg Harris, was featured this week in a popular feature where a top rider posed in their underwear while a doctor, coach or other expert – this time it was Sir Adolphe Abrahams – examined him. While his musings, based on little more than the circumference of Harris’s leg muscles and the expansion of his chest, are borderline laughable compared with the metrics we have on little computers on our handlebars, Abrahams is considered the founder of British sports science. He was also the medical officer in charge of the British Olympic teams from 1912 to 1948.
His observations include, “The general physique of Reg Harris is true to track type. His legs are especially heavy with fine muscular separation,” and, “The expansion of the chest is first class. I have rarely seen greater.”