The Year

In 1939 British cyclist Tommy Godwin cycled 75,065 miles in a single year. Think about that for a second: it’s an average of over 200 miles each day. And it’s a mark that still stands after almost eighty years. In The Year, Dave Barter resurrects the legend of the year record – a challenge nearly as old as bicycles themselves – and the cyclists who pushed themselves to establish and break it. Barter uncovers the stories behind these riders who would routinely cycle over a hundred miles a day in the race to set new records. Americans such as John H. George who recorded over 200 ‘centuries’, nineteen double ‘centuries’ and three triple ‘centuries’ in the late 1800s. The British advertising executive Harry Long, whose annual tallies of over 20,000 miles in the early twentieth century led to the founding of the formal cycling year record and Cycling magazine’s Century Competition. The Englishman of French descent, Marcel Planes, whose 1911 record of 34,666 miles stood for over twenty years. Not forgetting the legends of the job-seeking Arthur Humbles, the one-armed vegetarian communist Walter Greaves, the ‘keep-fit girl’ Billie Dovey and the staggering mark set by Godwin who left a youthful Bernard Bennett trailing in his wake. Meticulous research through the annuals, archives and news stories of the bicycling world is backed up with insights from the families of these legendary cyclists, as well as Dave’s own analysis of the riders’ years in numbers. There is no more difficult challenge in cycling. The Year is the definitive story of these phenomenal cyclists.

Dave Barter is the author of the road cycling guidebook Great British Bike Rides, and Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder, a worldwide bestseller on Amazon. He has contributed many articles to Cycle, Cycling Weekly and Cycling Plus and has appeared on BBC One’s The One Show. An expert on the life and cycling records of year record holder Tommy Godwin, Dave has made it his mission to resurrect the early-twentieth-century-legend of the cycling year record. A fanatical cyclist, he is a veteran of numerous races and sportives, including L’Étape du Tour, the Fausto Coppi, the Polka Dot Challenge, two successful Land’s End to John O’Groats expeditions, the Highland Trail 550 and numerous other events. Residing in deepest Wiltshire with his wife Helen and children Jake and Holly, Dave’s passion for cycling drives him out into the countryside in all weathers seeking two-wheeled incident and adventure.

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