Go Up North our Lad

Today is the start of the Tour of Italy Cycle Race, the Giro D'Italia which is the first in the annual calendar of the Grand Tours which continues in the Summer as the showcase for France and in the early Autumn the sights, sounds and atmospheres of Spain.

The TV coverage of these three events gives the impression that there is nothing else in the cycling year but even before that first turn of the pedals, today in Bologna, the superstars of the sport have already been in action in the early Spring Classics which include the One Day Races or Monuments which in name as well as through the passage of time have a unique legendary status.

These are typically run between great European Cities with the best known being Paris Roubaix, Milan San Remo and Liege Bastogne Liege.

In my pursuit of cycling facts and trivia I have only just come across another place to place race and this took place quite close to my own doorstep in Yorkshire, England.

It says something about the secondary or even tertiary status of the sport of cycling in the UK in the 1970's and 80's compared to its popularity it has attained today that the London to Bradford professional cycle race has been relegated  to the archives with little even basic information other than the results from its three successive runnings and a short reminiscence from the winner of the inaugural event in 1979.

It was certainly an ambitious undertaking by the organisers although under the principal sponsorship of Empire Stores, the UK's first home shopping brand whose Head Office was in Bradford, the level of prize money attracted a good field of riders.

The winner could take home £1000 and there was a further £1500 up for grabs at intermediate sprints, ten of them in various towns on the way.

Crucially it was enough to lure some of the Continental based amongst them to take part and to rub shoulders with what was quite an insular Pro-scene on these shores.

The profile of the race was epic.

The 260 mile or 416 kilometres from London to Bradford made the distances of the Monuments resemble a short ride around the block.

The inaugural race started at the Post House Hotel in Hampstead, a well to do suburb of the Capital with a neutralised zone to Elstree, well known for its Film Studio before making for the A5 Trunk Road in a northerly direction.

I have not been able to find any information on the exact route other than the mention of passing through Banbury in Oxfordshire and nothing else until the Lancashire town of Oldham, the topographical feature of Standedge in the Pennine Hills, Marsden, the regional city of Leeds and the finish at the Odsal Stadium a Rugby League venue in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

First across the line in that initial 1979 event was Barry Hoban who for some years held the record for most wins by a Brit in the Tour de France amongst an illustrious career in Europe at elite level.

His fitness and stamina was just too much for the rest of the field and remarkably, compared to current race management, he operated as a lone rider without a team and relying on the food and water he could carry between official replenishment zones. He worked on the basis of 200km worth of supplies until he could take on new nourishment.

A professional rider can cruise effortlessly all day well in excess of 20mph over a mixture of all terrains and climates and Hoban's time for the London Bradford excursion at 11 hours 15 minutes and 12 seconds represented an average speed of around 24mph.

Those placing second and third were nearly seven minutes behind.

There was financial support from Empire Stores for two further races with the respective winners being Jean Marie Michel of La Redoute Motobecane in 1980 and the Dutch Raleigh Team Rider Ludo Peeters in 1981.

That last edition of the race saw the great Sean Kelly get to Odsal in third position. This in itself was an endorsement of the status of London Bradford as Kelly has already established himself on the continent and as we all know went on to assemble the most impressive of major race wins and placings.

It is indeed a pity that London Bradford only survived three episodes as in terms of its severity of endurance and stamina it was poised to stake its claim to a regular date on the global cycling calendar.