“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 bike 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 observe 15 years later. So why is Ralph Dougherty, the rider who achieved that first sub-hour ‘25’, not a family identify?
TT dangerous boy
Britain is keen on its time trialling icons and their exploits. Many can 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 dangerous boy of the 70s who turned up at occasions in a fur coat and a Jaguar.
However Dougherty’s identify stays conspicuous by its absence from this corridor of fame – he’s not often 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 rivals flapped their method alongside sub-par roads carrying alpaca jackets and driving 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 right this moment.
100-mile report breaker Ray Booty
(Picture credit score: Future)
Whereas Dougherty’s identify will 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 journey with their ‘Rugby Flyer’ 25-mile time trial.
The most recent race content material, interviews, options, critiques and knowledgeable 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, after all, 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 What’s extra, Andy nonetheless owns the record-breaking bike, a fixed-wheel BSA, in addition to the Rugby Flyer’s outdated coaching diaries and certificates.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 report within the Solihull CC 25-mile time trial on 11 June, 1939, recording 59.29 to beat the earlier greatest mark by 43 seconds. It was clearly an excellent day for it, with the earlier report holder, George Nightingale (Charlotteville CC) additionally beating the hour with 59.36, simply 18 minutes after Dougherty ripped house.
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 line 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.
Gown to impress
Being in Eire, neither journey 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 listing of the Solihull occasion however had drained himself out by racing the day gone by, so didn’t begin, one thing he would presumably reside to remorse.
The newest Rugby Flyer occasion, held in September, Andy and Maurice Dougherty have been each in attendance, with Andy presenting the prizes accompanied by his grandfather’s outdated machine – recent 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 an adolescent when his grandfather gave him the bike, says: “There was no query I used to be in awe of him. I knew he was a superb bike owner, and I used to be at all times very impressed and really happy with him.
He wasn’t an enormous, loud, outgoing individual; he was fairly a quiet individual.” Was his grandfather happy with his achievements? “He did not make an enormous deal about issues. I can by no means bear in mind him truly boasting about stuff.”
Andy bear in mind’s how, due to his expertise as a tool-maker, Ralph might “flip his hand to virtually something”.
As a living proof, the elder Dougherty made a sledge that he christened the ‘Dougherty Flyer’ and offered 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 have been simply gobsmacked.”
All the time awheel
Ralph Dougherty joined the RRCC within the early Thirties, the place he made his identify, although he had joined the native Leamington C&AC membership by the point of his report journey. He was not often off his bike, in line with Andy.
“He rode just about day by day, for many of his life. He was a bike owner, that was it, he did not actually do some other sports activities.”
Andy references a neighborhood newspaper article, written “fairly late on” in Dougherty’s life, that data his grandfather as persevering with to journey 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 facet 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 acquired 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 damage, 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 lately making contact together 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 authentic British Racing Inexperienced paint. Gunn fitted a pair of Dunlop Particular Light-weight rims (in 27in slightly than 700c, after all), a Brooks Swallow saddle and the unique single brake lever linked to a rear brake – simply because the Rugby Flyer himself rode it.
“It is come out very well,” says Andy Dougherty. “There’s solely a few bits that weren’t commonplace on BSA, so it got here out fairly genuine.” Recent from wowing Rugby Flyer aficionados on the current time trial, the bike is now again in its standard place, displayed with satisfaction 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 driving it within the Rugby Flyer himself, however the body is not as robust because it was, and Gunn suggested in opposition to driving 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 driving it once I had it earlier than – it might be good to journey 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 identify.
He’d have been significantly moved to see his son and grandson in attendance, and other people admiring the freshly restored machine upon which he broke the report 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 Chook calls a “longish” hill.
Winner Sam Harding, of the marketing membership, recorded a formidable 54:54. He and the 5 different sub-hour riders acquired 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 Chook. “We’ll undoubtedly do it once more subsequent yr.”