“And that beats the hour” – 5 phrases that danced momentarily within the air on 11 June, 1939, tripping off the tongue of an astonished timekeeper as rider quantity 14 flashed throughout the road. For the primary time in historical past, a bicycle owner had lined 25 miles in lower than 60 minutes within the UK.
It marked a watershed second for UK biking, corresponding to Roger Bannister’s exploits on the athletics monitor 15 years later. So why is Ralph Dougherty, the rider who achieved that first sub-hour ‘25’, not a family title?
TT unhealthy boy
Britain is keen on its time trialling icons and their exploits. Many may have heard of the bespectacled Ray Booty and his first sub-four-hour ‘100’ in 1956; or Alf Engers and his first sub-50-minute ’25’ in 1978 – Engers is remembered because the ostentatious unhealthy boy of the 70s who turned up at occasions in a fur coat and a Jaguar.
However Dougherty’s title stays conspicuous by its absence from this corridor of fame – he’s hardly ever talked about even throughout the world of time trialling.
In 1939, Dougherty grew to become the primary rider to go below the hour for 25 miles in an RTTC-recognised occasion in Britain, at a time when opponents flapped their means alongside sub-par roads sporting alpaca jackets and using heavy bikes, with not even a nod to aerodynamics.
An enormous achievement. As Biking Weekly reported on the time, a sub-hour ’25’ was “the ambition of each 25-miler”, and stays a benchmark even immediately.
100-mile file breaker Ray Booty
(Picture credit score: Future)
Whereas Dougherty’s title might not be as celebrated as maybe it should be, he stays a hero at his former membership Rugby Racing Biking Membership, who for the previous two seasons have commemorated his trip with their ‘Rugby Flyer’ 25-mile time trial.
The most recent race content material, interviews, options, evaluations and skilled shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
Rugby Flyer was the nickname Dougherty had earned for himself by dint of his exploits in opposition to the clock. It was additionally a reference to his hometown, in fact, the place he labored as a toolmaker and electrician for English Electrical.
The membership’s annual commemoration goes past a mere race, as a result of Dougherty’s son Maurice, now 86, and grandson Andy, 62, are a part of the occasion. What’s extra, Andy nonetheless owns the record-breaking bike, a fixed-wheel BSA, in addition to the Rugby Flyer’s outdated coaching diaries and certificates.
Dougherty set his file within the Solihull CC 25-mile time trial on 11 June, 1939, recording 59.29 to beat the earlier finest mark by 43 seconds. It was clearly a superb day for it, with the earlier file holder, George Nightingale (Charlotteville CC) additionally beating the hour with 59.36, simply 18 minutes after Dougherty ripped dwelling.
Held on a course simply east of Birmingham, taking in Stonebridge and the Meriden Cross – the useless centre of England – the occasion featured two ‘turns within the street’ (this was a time when visitors allowed for such issues) and, in accordance with Biking Weekly, “a track-like floor”.
Although Dougherty’s was the primary official sub-hour ‘25’, in Eire Alo Donegan had recorded a 59.05 in 1935 and George Fleming a 57.56 in 1938.
Costume to impress
Being in Eire, neither trip was RTTC-compliant, with riders permitted to put on shorts – tantamount to dishonest by English requirements, which obliged lengthy trousers. Fleming had been on the beginning record of the Solihull occasion however had drained himself out by racing the day gone by, so didn’t begin, one thing he would presumably stay to remorse.
The latest Rugby Flyer occasion, held in September, Andy and Maurice Dougherty had been each in attendance, with Andy presenting the prizes accompanied by his grandfather’s outdated machine – contemporary from being restored by Tim Gunn, well-known for being the cycle restorer within the TV present The Restore Store.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Jones)
Andy, who was a teen when his grandfather gave him the bike, says: “There was no query I used to be in awe of him. I knew he was an excellent bicycle owner, and I used to be at all times very impressed and really pleased with him.
He wasn’t an enormous, loud, outgoing individual; he was fairly a quiet individual.” Was his grandfather pleased with his achievements? “He did not make an enormous deal about issues. I can by no means bear in mind him really boasting about stuff.”
Andy bear in mind’s how, due to his expertise as a tool-maker, Ralph may “flip his hand to virtually something”.
As a living proof, the elder Dougherty made a sledge that he christened the ‘Dougherty Flyer’ and introduced to a younger Andy and his brother Tim as a shock present. “It was only a very good piece of engineering, with sculpted sides and runners,” remembers Andy. “We had been simply gobsmacked.”
At all times awheel
Ralph Dougherty joined the RRCC within the early Thirties, the place he made his title, although he had joined the native Leamington C&AC membership by the point of his file trip. He was hardly ever off his bike, in accordance with Andy.
“He rode just about day by day, for many of his life. He was a bicycle owner, that was it, he did not actually do every other sports activities.”
Andy references an area newspaper article, written “fairly late on” in Dougherty’s life, that data his grandfather as persevering with to trip 200 miles each week.
Ralph Dougherty handed away in 1990, however his spirit lives on in each the golf equipment he was a member of and – way more publicly – on Rugby’s Viaduct Cycleway, the place a sculpture of him, crouched low over his handlebars simply as he did on 11 June, 1939, urges passing riders on from the aspect of the path.
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Jones)
The Flyer flies once more
Not lengthy earlier than he left for college within the early Eighties, Andy Dougherty obtained a particular present from his record-breaking grandfather: the very bike, a BSA, on which he rode the primary ever UK sub-one-hour 25-mile time trial. The underside bracket shell, threads stripped out by a long time of wear and tear, wanted changing however past that, it was in working order.
When Andy Dougherty took supply of it, he set about modernising his new steed, altering wheels and tyres and shoehorning a derailleur into the body rather than the unique mounted wheel, in addition to giving it a brand new pink end. Andy, now 62, held on to the body, and after not too long ago making contact along with his grandfather’s outdated membership was impressed to have it correctly restored.
With the assistance of Tim Gunn of The Restore Store, he had the body returned to its former period-correct glory, together with a coat of its unique British Racing Inexperienced paint. Gunn fitted a pair of Dunlop Particular Light-weight rims (in 27in relatively than 700c, in fact), a Brooks Swallow saddle and the unique single brake lever related to a rear brake – simply because the Rugby Flyer himself rode it.
“It is come out rather well,” says Andy Dougherty. “There’s solely a few bits that weren’t normal on BSA, so it got here out fairly genuine.” Contemporary from wowing Rugby Flyer aficionados on the current time trial, the bike is now again in its ordinary place, displayed with delight on Andy’s kitchen wall, accompanied by the RTTC certificates his grandfather was awarded for his historic achievement all these years in the past.
Andy had harboured the thought of using it within the Rugby Flyer himself, however the body is not as sturdy because it was, and Gunn suggested in opposition to using it in anger. By no means say by no means, although: “I am a member of the Veteran-Cycle Membership,” says Andy, ” so possibly I am going to go on a kind of rides. I loved using it after I had it earlier than – it would be good to trip it once more.”
Ralph Dougherty’s memorial plaque on the Viaduct Cycleway
(Picture credit score: Future / Andy Jones)
twenty first century Flyers: Ralph’s commemoration
Ralph Dougherty would absolutely have been impressed with the gathering of Rugby flyers who gathered on the village corridor at Bourton on Dunsmore on 15 September, 2024, for a 25-mile time trial held in his title.
He’d have been notably moved to see his son and grandson in attendance, and other people admiring the freshly restored machine upon which he broke the file 85 years in the past.
The Rugby Flyer occasion is a road-bike-only time trial, as befits the Flyer himself, and held below CTT membership occasion guidelines, enabling riders to enter on the day.
They actually did Dougherty proud, with six riders going below the hour on a course that’s largely twin carriageway with a few miles of B-road at every finish, and what organiser Laurie Chicken calls a “longish” hill.
Winner Sam Harding, of the marketing membership, recorded a powerful 54:54. He and the 5 different sub-hour riders obtained a medal marking their achievement, together with the commemorative certificates given to all 30 finishers – all in homage to Dougherty.
“We made a little bit of an event of it,” mentioned Chicken. “We’ll positively do it once more subsequent 12 months.”
