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

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He retired in 1957 to devote himself to business interests, none of which suited his tastes or abilities. He managed Fallowfield Stadium, renamed the Harris Stadium; he was involved in various abortive ventures associated with Raleigh; and he started a 'Reg Harris' bicycle manufacturing business in Macclesfield which lasted three years before folding. He then worked in sales promotion for the ' Gannex' raincoat company, before working for two plastic foam producers. 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. In early 1937, he was confident he could support himself as an athlete, selling the prizes he won as an amateur, [3] and left the paper mill to focus on the summer cycle racing season, returning to the mill the following winter (repeating the process the following year). He continued to win races and attract attention, and by the summer of 1938 was able to beat the existing British sprint champion. At the end of that season, he joined Manchester Wheelers' Club, and in 1939 won a major race in Coventry, leading to his selection for the world championship in Milan, Italy. He travelled to Milan and had familiarised himself with the Velodromo Vigorelli when World War II broke out and the British team was recalled to the UK. According to Dineen's version of the story, Harris doped twice for competition and then never again. He may have used amphetamines when driving to and from races (lots of people did in those days, in all walks of life) but those two competitive occasions apart, Harris raced clean. So what was he doing working with Louis Guerlach? 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.

He retired in 1957 to manage the Fallowfield Stadium where he’d cycled in his first competitive velodrome race more than 20 years before. Full details of Peter Kohler’s TI Raleigh SDBU 1976 Time Trial Special, including a comprehensive history of the machine and of the SBDU production facility in the period when Reynolds 753 frame tubing was introduced. During the late 1970’s and 1980’s the unit was not only supplying bespoke frames to the most successful professional teams it was producing frames for discerning British riders and complete bicycles handbuilt by one builder. Reg Harris left school without qualifications and his first job was as an apprentice motor mechanic in Bury, soon moving from the workshop to the salesroom. [3] During this period, at the age of 14, he bought his first bicycle, and entered a roller-racing competition organised by the Hercules bicycle manufacturing company. This machine was built for the reigning World Pursuit Champion Sid Patterson to contest the 1953 title. Raleigh had signed Patterson as it was more than a good bet that he would repeat the 1952 success – he did. They presumably decided to mount Patterson on a Rudge to promote this line as Reg Harris would be on his familiar Raleigh and expected to seal the Sprint event. 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.Born into a poor, working-class family during the Great Depression, Reg Harris left school early to help support his widowed mother working in a bicycle shop. But after winning a local cycling competition, Harris realised his natural abilities and began to train seriously. Working in a paper mill to fund his ambitions, Harris soon started winning enough races to leave the mill and went on to break the rules of amateurism and become the favourite for three titles in the 1948 Olympics. But Harris's dreams of gold were shattered when he was involved in a high-speed car accident that nearly left him paralysed. However, Harris's determination and drive meant he defied the odds and he went on not only to compete in the Olympics but to win two silver medals. It got that way that some of the other riders were saying 'When are you two going to shake hands?', because life was getting bloody tough every time we were engaged anywhere. There was crossfire and the other guys were getting caught in it." In the end, the anger couldn't last. It burned out after 15 months and the pair became grudging colleagues if not friends. "I've seen him two or three times in recent years," Harris said. "If I've been over in Holland, I'd give Arie a ring and we'd chat for perhaps an hour on the phone." Harris was curator of the Grant Museum collections for eight years. He left in 1956 to take up the post of experimental officer at the BMNH, now the Natural History Museum, London. Whilst at the BMNH, Harris set up the ‘experimental laboratory’ and, after listening to a lecture on specimen preparation by the Naval physicist Dr Meryman, began to experiment with freeze drying specimens. It is for this method of preparation that Harris is most well known and the technique was used by a subsequent curator of the Grant Museum to freeze dry a number of our specimens. Harris’ reputation for skills in this area spread such that ‘the arrangement of spring flowers buried in Westminster Abbey in 1977, as part of the Queen’s Jubilee Year celebrations, were freeze dried by Reg [Harris]’ (1). Harris and the other museum staff are shown here on the right in their open air lab. The lab comprised the roof of the Medawar building at UCL, and was used ‘as a preparation area for smelly procedures’. The horse skull at the bottom of the image was left to rot clean on the roof, and is highly likely the one on display in the collections today. By the time Harris won the world amateur sprint title in Paris in 1947, he was already employed and equipped by bicycle manufacturer Claud Butler and was testing the boundaries of amateurism. The cycling world expected that Harris would take three titles in the 1948 Summer Olympics: the sprint, the tandem sprint and the kilometre time trial, but three months before the London Games, he broke two ribs in a road accident. After hospital, with a few weeks remaining to the games, training, competing and winning, he fell in a ten-mile (16km) race at Fallowfield and fractured an elbow. [3] Completing the rest of his preparation in a plaster cast, he had to be satisfied with two silvers, being beaten by Italy's Mario Ghella in the final of the sprint, and partnering Alan Bannister to second place in the tandem sprint (timetable constraints meant Harris's place in the kilometre was taken by another rider, Tommy Godwin, who won a bronze medal). Two weeks later, he claimed a bronze medal in the 1948 world championships sprint in Amsterdam. He was named sportsman of the year by a poll in 1949, winning by 7,000 votes over the football player, Billy Liddell. [5] Professional career [ edit ] Plattner won the 1952 World Championship and on Harris’s instigation was signed up on the spot to the Raleigh team. Raleigh had won another World title! The frame was immediately painted in team colour and Plattner was contracted to them for another six years. He later had a least one other Harris Raleigh easily distinguished by its partly chrome plated forks.

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. 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. The 1952 catalogue has a line Due to scarcity of materials specifications are subject to alteration without notice. I acquired the frame last year still in its 1952 paint, which unfortunately was beyond keeping, but the colour match was there. As a complete bike it had a variety of parts fitted but has been returned to near 1952 specs.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