This was a biography of sorts of Beryl Burton, an amateur cyclist who was an unstoppable force in national and international cycling in the 1960s and 1970s. I keep an eye out for these types of biographies, ever since I read Revolutions.

This was such an easy to read biography, the story was compelling, the people interesting and time so infuriating that it made my blood boil. Reading about how the women’s cycling team would only be given a pittance to get themselves to international competitions and win more medals than the men (who were of course, completely catered for), was infuriating. And the fact that they kept doing it, despite having the world champion in the form of Beryl Burton. Even just the snubs of women officials being turned away at the door for an officials’ dinner. The misogyny was a constant drum beat throughout the first half of the book, which just makes you realise how much the past was a different plant. Even though, we only got a women’s Tour de France race again in 2022 (I didn’t realise that the consequence of the doping scandals in cycling basically cratered many of the women’s teams).

Beryl herself is a complicated character. There was a chapter at the beginning that discussed makes the most elite of elite athletes. Not just people who win once, but those who are constantly at the top of their field for years. There’s an element of early life trauma, but also just being driven to the detriment of everything else. That was certainly Beryl. Her daughter was one of the people interviewed for the book and while she isn’t resentful (or not much) you can certainly tell she did not have a good relationship with her mother.

The tragedy of it all was that Beryl couldn’t just stop being or thinking that she could be an elite athlete in her 50s. She just couldn’t stop being competitive, to the ruin of her health, and most likely contributing to her relatively early death just before her 59th birthday (she died cycling to deliver invitations to her birthday party). You can imagine now, there would be psychological support to help someone transition away from that mindset.

What was also staggering about Beryl is that she was being internationally competitive while at the same time working manual jobs (like rhubarb farming) to support her amateur status. There was no state funding like there is now. Even then, some of the rules around amateur sports were different in Europe than the UK, which put her at even a greater disadvantage. However, it also gave her core and upper body strength that most likely helped her be so internationally competitive.

This is such a great read, I can see why it was an award winner for sports writer. I want to find some more books like this, even though I will get frustrated by the blatant sexism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Like, you can’t say women aren’t good at sport when some of them (like Beryl) could beat those amateur men (like she did for the 12 hour time trial, where she was the fastest for both men and women, and held the men’s record for 2 years). Anyway. It’s great. Beryl’s great, though complicated, and I want to read more about some of these fearsome women on wheels.