Reg Harris: The rise and fall of Britain's greatest cyclist

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He died on 22 June 1992, reportedly riding his bike near his home in Macclesfield. His record reads five world titles, five world records and two Olympic silvers. A bronze statue of him in action was unveiled in 1994 on the third bend of the velodrome at the National Cycling Centre in Manchester. Godwin hints at race-fixing and illegal performance enhancement, and cites a conversation with a Belgian soigneur, Louis Guerlache, masseur, trainer and unofficial doctor. In 1980, Harris retired which in his case, meant taking up another curator position, this time at Alderney Museum on the Island of Guernsey. Harris was awarded the Foster Memorial Prize for Bacteriology and the Fotherham Prize for Geology. Harris passed away in 1987. Rosina Down, a former student of Harris and former curator of the Grant Museum, wrote of him ‘It was said of E. Ray Lankester (a former Professor of the UCL Zoology Department and Director of the BMNH) that “he influenced the whole course of Zoology in the British Empire”. I think the same could be said of Reg Harris’s influence on the course of practical biological techniques.’ A glowing account of a teacher and mentor, clearly admired and well respected in his field. A brief Palmares of SBDU built frames from 1974 to 1985 includes 26 Classic wins including Het Volk, Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders and Ghent-Wevelgem.

That "other sport" referred to by Dineen is not road cycling but what Dineen, in one of his many euphemisms, refers to as Harris's "libidinous deceits." Harris, you see, was a bit of a ladies' man. And Dineen is from that class of British journalist that obsesses over the sexual peccadilloes of the rich and famous (Dineen's other obsession is that other British perennial: class). While Dineen spends a lot of time discussing Harris's three wives and many mistresses, one of the awkward issues with Reg Harris - The Rise And Fall Of Britain's Greatest Cyclist is that few of those women shared their stories with Dineen. Kanchelskis made history by becoming the last player to score for the former Soviet Union during the state’s last official game in Cyprus in November 1991. Read MoreHe certainly gives the impression he does. Consider this story. A typical match sprint is one rider against another. In 1951, the world championship format was changed to three riders, at the prompting of a powerful French bloc within the UCI. The motive? An attempt, Dineen insists, to stymie Harris (who had won the professional title twice already) and punish him for spending the Winter of 1950/51 riding on rollers on the cabaret circuit in the UK instead of attending exhibition events on the Continent. Not that this stopped Harris making it three titles on the trot in 1951. Though it is rolled out again as an excuse for Harris's failures in 1952 and 1953. After which the UCI reverted to the two-up format and Harris secured his fourth professional title. The collection of specimens, known since 1997 as the Grant Museum of Zoology, was started in 1827 by Robert E. Grant. Grant was the first professor of zoology at UCL when it opened, then called the University of London, and he stayed in post until his death in 1874. The collections have seen a total of 13 academics in the lineage of collections care throughout the 187 year history of the Grant Museum, from Robert E. Grant himself, through to our current Curator Mark Carnall.

Harris was born in 1920 a stone’s throw from the current location of the Grant Museum. His father was a jeweller and Harris was born in a room above his father’s shop. At age 16 he took up a post at the Wellcome Museum of Medical Science where he stayed until the second world war broke out when, in 1939, he joined the Navy in a medical capacity until 1943. During his time with the Navy, Harris worked aboard RNH Haslar, HMS Colinwood and on the Royal Netherlands Navy Hospital Ship HMHC Ophir, Eastern Fleet. In 1946, Harris returned to his position at the Wellcome Museum, but s0on after relocated to the Zoology Department at UCL as a teaching technician. Harris was born as Reginald Hargreaves at 7 Garden Street, Birtle, Bury, Lancashire,. His mother, Elsie Hargreaves, a cotton weaver, remarried and Reginald took the name of his stepfather, an engineer and businessman called Joseph Harris.In the early 1950s, the world championships were in Paris. Harris and van Vliet were there and so was an unknown Briton called Cyril Bardsley. There were three in each race. The Dutchman looked at this – to him – insignificant Brit and asked Harris to make arrangements. "He could maybe lead me out in the sprint?" he suggested. Harris not only declined but went to Bardsley and explained all van Vliet's weaknesses. "The heat was being run and Bardsley for himself shut in. Van Vliet was in third position and he knew he couldn't stay there. And he shut down on Bardsley, who collected two or three broken spokes in his front wheel." It is difficult to overstate the impact that Reginald Hargreaves Harris had on his sport in the 1940s and 1950s. At a time when Britain had not excelled in international competition for more than two decades, he won five world sprint titles and two Olympic medals, he repeatedly broke world records and triumphed in countless high-profile races across Europe. His success and charm inspired countless young men to take up cycling and earned him a celebrity that was afforded only a handful of sportsmen in his era. In a golden age for the sport in Britain, he was its figurehead sans paraleil. Harris moved from the motor mechanics job to a job in a slipper factory, then, in early 1936, found a position in a paper mill that he felt would pay him enough in the winter to allow him to spend the summer training and competing in his chosen sport. During 1936, he competed in and won his first events in a proper velodrome, at Fallowfield in Manchester.

Harris joined the 10th Hussars in the North Africa Campaign as a tank driver but was wounded and invalided out of the services as medically unfit in 1943. Depite the judgment of the army medics, in 1944, he won the 1000 yards, quarter-mile and five-miles titles in the national cycling championships. He retained the two shorter titles in 1945 and added the half-mile on grass. He was invited to race in Paris in 1945 and again impressed the crowds, and he was expected to do well in the 1946 world championships in Zurich, only to have his chances ruined by an over-enthusiastic pre-race massage. Such ambition helped to persuade Raleigh to offer Harris a sponsorship deal that made him synonymous with the bike manufacturer long before such sportsman-brand partnerships were commonplace. It succeeded because Harris was the consummate showman: handsome, he talked well and was careful always to present an impeccable public persona, dressing impressively and often flashing his winning smile. When Reg died in 1992, some older members of the Section who could remember riding with him attended his memorial service at Bury Parish Church. As president of the British Cycling, Brian Cookson was given an office at the National Velodrome close to the brilliant bronze bust of Harris that was commissioned in his honour. Cookson described the dichotomy to his childhood hero nicely. “Reg is a huge figure,’ he said. “He deserves his iconic status. But the more that you find out about the way that he operated as a man and as an athlete, the more you find out that there were nuances to him, a pragmatic side where he was determined to make the most of his circumstances financially, and every other way. He had a businesslike, ruthless approach to his sport. Ultimately, he realised: “This is my one chance of achieving greatness.”’ Harris's achievements are marked annually with the Reg Harris Sportive, organised by his family and friends. The inaugural event on 25 August 2013 raised money for charities. [6]Harris insisted that he protest. "I said 'Show your wheel to the chief judge and make a case that it was before the 200-metre mark.' It was just about on it, but it could have been two or three metres before it or after it." The officials, in fact, supported van Vliet but the Dutchman was so furious that a long friendship with Harris ended there and then. And van Vliet exacted his revenge. He was married three times. The first two marriages (in 1944 to Florence Stage (daughter of the former Bury F.C. captain Billy Stage), [8] then to Dorothy Hadfield) ended in divorce. He married Jennifer Anne Geary in 1970. He died in Macclesfield, Cheshire, of a stroke, survived by his third wife, and was buried at St John's Church in the north Cheshire village of Chelford. Dineen's solution to this issue is as simple as his solution to doping: all of Harris's major titles were hard earned, of others the same cannot be said. When Antonio Maspes defeated Harris in 1955, winning the first of his six professional titles, Dineen notes that Harris had been offered a fee to throw the race in the Italian's favour: Harris Raleigh' No 2842. Seat tube 22 9/16". Top tube 22 7/16". Wheel base 40". Chain stay 16 1/4". 73 degree angles. Lenton Green with yellow head, mudguards, inflator and handlebar tape. Or Flamboyant Royal Carmine with grey head, mudguards and inflator. White handebar tape. Silver lining

He was married three times. The first two marriages (in 1944 to Florence Stage, then to Dorothy Hadfield) ended in divorce. He married Jennifer Anne Geary in 1970. He died in Macclesfield of a stroke, survived by his third wife.Simon joined the staff of the Association in 2007 as a Technical Officer, initially to develop the AA’s training programme. He went on to become the Editor of the ARB Magazine, helped deliver the annual Amenity Conference and the ARB Show and technical publications, as well as being an Approved Contractor assessor in his spare time! In 2015 he was promoted to his current role as Senior Technical Officer.