So why did Bradley choose Cambridge to promote his book? Perhaps because Cambridge is currently the cycling capital of the UK, given a third of its residents cycle five times a week, or that it has some impressive cycling icons and history of its own? Let's see...
Cambridge's cycling champion
Cambridge can boast its own amateur GB cycling champion from the 1870s thanks to the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, a student from Trinity College. Another iconic student there, at the same time, was John Graham Chambers who in addition to instituting national championships for cycling (in the era of penny farthings), invented the modern rules of boxing, rowed for Cambridge, founded inter-varsity sports, became English Champion walker, coached four winning Boat-Race crews, staged the FA Cup Final and the Thames Regatta, instituted championships for billiards, boxing, wrestling and athletics, and rowed beside Matthew Webb as he swam the English Channel - all in his short life of 40 years. John Graham Chambers is certainly an unsung sporting icon from the Victorian era.
Increasing popularity of cycling
Whilst rowing was very popular in Cambridge in the 1860s, its popularity, amongst its townspeople subsequently declined owing to the counter-attraction of cycling. At the same time the Cambridge University Bicycle Club was established in 1874 with 11 members, which within five years had grown to 260.
Cycling and 'the physical liberation of women' - and a setback
Cycling had a major impact on "the physical liberation of women" in Cambridge according to Kathleen E. McCrane (The 'Lady Blue') - set in the context of Emily Davies (Foundress of Girton College in 1869) believing that her students' health was so important that free time for physical recreation was provided each afternoon. However such progress was slowed when in 1897, in an act more powerfully symbolic than they probably realised, the ‘gentlemanly’ Cambridge undergraduates hung an effigy of a woman on a bicycle in front of the Senate House in celebration of the Senate’s rejection of degrees for women, and by so doing, in one fell swoop condemned the intellectually and physically liberated woman.
The growth of cycling at Girton College
Until the bicycle’s advent, Girton College’s distance from the centre of Cambridge kept students safely secluded from town and undergraduates, and forced them to travel about in horse-drawn cabs irreverently called ‘Girton hearses’. Fearing the effects of the new mobility on university opinion and students’ morals, college authorities at first subjected cycling to strict regulations. Students who wanted to ride had to pass a proficiency test before they could go into town, and they were not allowed to ride on Sundays until 1900 nor around Cambridge until 1903, by which time female cyclists had ceased to be stared at as an extraordinary novelty. The following year students gained permission to ride to lectures after dark, unaccompanied by a don, as long as at least three went together; and by 1906 all restrictions had disappeared.
Cambridge's recent cycling Olympic medalist
Whilst Cambridge has no individual to match Bradley Wiggins Olympic haul of medals, Emma Jane Pooley (born 3 October 1982) won an Olympic silver medal in the cycling time trial in 2008, and was world time trail champion in 2010. Emma had been a student at Trinity Hall.
Cambridge as host of the Tour de France, and......!!??
More recently Cambridge hosted both the start of a stage of the Tour de France on the 7th July 2014, and over the last 4 years, the World Naked Bike Ride, which operates across the world to highlight cycle safety in built up areas and the problem of road pollution.
So what did Sir Bradley Wiggins have to say?
Bradley was interviewed by Matt Barbet, a television presenter and journalist. He started by sharing something of his very challenging childhood, given his father ( - a professional cyclist 'on the circuit') left home when he was 6 months old, so Bradley's mum and grandparents had to bring him up. Rather than turn to a life of smoking, drinking and petty thieving, common amongst his peers on the London estate where he lived, he pursued his cycling dream, that came at a cost given the abuse he received, as a Lycra-dressed teenager. It was at this time that many of the Icons he features in his book had a critical impact on sustaining his enthusiasm and passion for cycling. These icons included Miguel Indurin, Eddy Merckx, the British rider Tom Simpson, and controversially Lance Armstrong. The book shares key pieces from his collection of memorabilia, amassed over the years, from its greatest and most controversial figures.
Given he was promoting his book on Icons he said nothing about the controversies that have followed cycling, which was a shame, however it was a privilege to hear from the only rider to have combined winning both World and Olympic (x 8 medals) championships on both the track and the road, as well as winning the Tour de France, and holding the iconic track hour record. A remarkable sportsman - an icon.
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