bostingayeit, Thanks for the link. I remember those lads very well, didn't they all join up with me into Tommy's Birmingham Racing Cyclists Club? I know Trevor Bull came across with me from the Solihull CC, I'm sure the Cox's came along too. Tommy could have been the most famous coach in the world if he had put all his eggs into my basket, but he found people like Derrick Harrison more interesting, guess I just wasn't pretty enough
. Photo is of the Birmingham RCC 1966 badge.
Of course I remember Wilson's Cycles, I think that I bought my first lightweight equipment there. Had to save up for a pair of hubs, then save for the rims, then save to have them built, found a frame in a shed! How did I ever become world champ?
It's been many moons since I saw Eileen, that was at a dinner in London when I handed over the original artist's plaster bust of Tom Simpson to the BCF. In 2004 I handed it over again at Manchester from the BCF to the Tom Simpson museum at Harworth.
P.S. To compleat this story, last year I got the bronze cast of Tom Simpson's plaster bust moved from the indoor cycle track in Ghent to a better location. It now stands in the 'Tour of Flanders' museum at Oudenaarde, Belgium. Tom is still the only Brit to have ever won the 'Tour of Flanders' ("the greatest one day cycle race on earth" my words and repeated by Lance Armstrong only last year) in 1961. I also got Dave Marsh, of Maltby, to donate the cycle that Tom won on that day in 61.