Kev C wrote:Just finished reading "Reg Harris: The rise and fall of Britain's greatest cyclist" by Robert Dineen. An interesting book about an interesting champion and a nice easy read. I'm not sure nowadays whether he is “Britain’s Greatest Cyclist” when you consider the achievements of Tommy Godwin, Tom Simpson, Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins Chris Froome etc but he was a great champion of his era.
Was Harris the greatest rider ever? That’s an unanswerable question. What is true is that Harris possessed a huge charisma which, with one or two notable exceptions is lacking in the present generation of top riders. Whether you liked him or loathed him one thing that you couldn’t do is ignore him.
I know that Tom Godwin couldn’t stand the man, in fact I well recall Tom telling me that he, Tom, had been in invited to attend a Manchester Wheeler dinner and would only go if Harris wasn’t there.
In the book was anything said about the time Harris “won” the National Sprint Championship? I would by very interested to know as would those who know the true story.
In those days sprinting was the tops as far as track racing was concerned and the likes of Harris, Arie van Vliet, Antonio Maspes and so on were the superstars of their day. They didn’t prat about with kierin (sp) team sprints and other Mickey Mouse events.