4th

Born on this day in 1904, British racing cyclist and cycling engineer, John “Jack” Jacob Lauterwasser. He won a bronze and silver medal in the same race at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.  The son of a German who emigrated to France in the late 19th century and then to England, his parents ran a pie shop near Oxford Street in London. His father was returned to Germany at the outbreak of war in 1914 and Jack lived with his mother and the rest of his family until they moved to Highbury where Jack worked as a cycling delivery boy for a grocery store. He once recalled – “We lived above a greengrocer’s and the shopkeeper let me borrow the bike.”  Jack joined Finsbury Park cycling club in 1924 and won his first race, his club’s 25-mile time trial for novices,when he was just 13. He began riding longer races, including time-trials that lasted 12 hours.  “I really was a novice, a greenhorn who knew nothing, but in my first season I progressed to being club champ and winning some good time-trials,” he said. He broke the Road Records Association 50-mile record in 1928.

Jack was picked for the 1928 Olympic Games and cycled to Amsterdam from London. He won a silver medal in the 160km road race event, which was run against the clock as an individual time trial, a British speciality, with riders starting at two-minute intervals. Jack finished fifth in 5h 2m 57s. He and his team-mates, Frank Southall (second) and John Middleton (26th),were originally judged third best team but were promoted to second after Italy was disqualified. Jack had already returned home with his bronze medal. He was then sent the silver medal and was never asked to return the bronze, he said. It took him a further two years to get the silver medal from his club; “Our club secretary’s wife considered it belonged to the club,” he said – he kept both medals in a biscuit tin.

In the same year as the Olympics, Jack broke the Road Records Association 50-mile record by almost three minutes with lhr 54m 47s and the 100-mile record by more than 18 minutes, in 4hr 13m 35s. He won the Polytechnic CC 12-hour race with a record 237.8 miles. Jack and others believed he had ridden further, that he had been first to cover 240 miles. Seven years later the course was remeasured and he was credited with 240m 76 yards, making his total distance 240 miles 76 yds, the first rider to exceed 20 mph.

Jack opened a cycle shop in Holloway Road, London, in 1929, he built lightweight bicycles to order and created a design of handlebar named after him. His business was not altogether successful as it coincided with the advent of the moped and cheaper motoring. Jack closed his shop and  Rudge, moving to BSA during the Second World War and made folding bicycles for parachutists. He moved to Raleigh when peace returned and worked as a sales rep in the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1965 he joined Alex Moulton at Bradford-on-Avon, making bicycles with suspension. He continued working until he was 90. He died after a fall at home which broke his leg on 2nd February 2003.

 

5th

Another Briitsh cyclist Frederick Henry “Harry” Wyld was born today in 1900 in Mansfield, England. One of four brothers – Ralph, Percy and Leonard or Lew being  the other three, who were successful cyclists, each of the three years prior to the 1928 Amsterdam Games the quartet won the National Team Pursuit, however on 5th August 1928  Harry,Percy (see 7th June) and Leonard were joined by Frank Southall, , broke the Olympic team pursuit record by 9.2 seconds, in 5:01.6. They were the third team to hold the record since it began on 10 August 1920. It was broken by 10.2 seconds next day before standing for nearly eight years. It’s likely the record was broken in the quarter or semi-final as they won a bronze medal; they would have proceeded to the final had the record been broken in qualifying round. Four years earlier in Paris in 1924 Harry claimed the 50km individual bronze. He died in Derby on 5th April 1976.

 

6th

Jenny Rissveds, Swedish cross-country mountain bike rider was born on this day in 1994. Born in Falun, Jenny won the gold medal in women’s cross country at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.  In March 2017 she rode the eight-day Absa Cape Epic stage race in South Africa for the first time. Together with manager Thomas Frischknecht they won the Mixed category comfortably after covering the 641km route. Jenny also won the gold medal in the under-23 mountain bike race at the World Championships in 2016 and in July 2017 was awarded the Victoria Scholarship. She has been affiliated to various clubs including Bizkaia-Durango (Spain), Disdora-Pasts Zara (Italy) and BTC City Ljubljana (Slovenia).

7th

Percy Wyld, one of the talented Wyld brothers, was born on this day in 1907 in Nottinghamshire. See his brother Harry’s entry on 5th June for more details. Percy died in 1972.

 

8th

Canadian Lorne Charles Atkinson, nicknamed Ace, was born today in 1921.  The son of a Scottish professional cyclist, Lorne grew up in the era of the Six Day cycling races and began competing in his teens. He earned his nickname after a newspaper headline declared “City ace triumphs in Province Cup” after one of his many victories. He won his first provincial title, the British Columbia Junior, in 1939, and would follow it up with four senior B.C. titles and two national championships. In 1946 he founded Ace’s Cycles in Vancouver, a business that he ran for over 60 years. He began to compete internationally for Canada in 1948 and attended that year’s Olympics in London, placing 15th out of 21 competitors in the 1000m time trial, and also participated in the individual and team road races, as well as the 4000m team pursuit. Two years later he placed eighth in the road race, ninth in the 1000m sprint, 15th in the track time trail, and competed in the 10 miles scratch at the 1950 British Empire Games while simultaneously managing and coaching the cycling squad. He improved upon this feat four years later when the British Empire and Commonwealth Games came to his hometown of Vancouver. Not only did he help establish a cycling track and organize the cycling events, but he captained the Canadian team and placed 4th in the 10 miles scratch event. As the car began to overshadow the bicycle, Lorne’s local fame grew as he worked to preserve his passion in Vancouver by organizing events through the late 1950s and early 1960s. His efforts culminated in the presidency of the Vancouver Bicycle Club in 1962. Also active as a mentor, he was selected to coach the Canadian cycling team at the 1967 Pan American Games and the British squad at the 1982 Canada Championships. He continued cycling up until a few years before his death at the age of 88, and kept busy by documenting the history of cycling in British Columbia. He was inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 1997 as a builder, received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal for his contributions to Canada in 2002, and was honored with a British Columbia Community Achievement Award in 2006. Two months before his death he was presented with the Olympic torch as it made its way through the host city for the 2010 Winter Olympics. He passed away on23rd April 2010 at the age of 88.

9th

Julie Bresset was born in Saint-Brieuc, France on this day in 1989. A mountain bike cyclist, who won the cross-country mountain bike race in the 2012 Olympics. She was the overall winner of the World Cup mountain bike cross-country series in 2011 and finished top of women’s elite cross-country ranking at the end of 2011. She won the French national cross-country mountain bike championships in 2010, 2011 and 2012. At her first Olympics in 2012, she took the lead, which she never relinquished, from the second lap. By the third lap, the gap between her and the chasing group was already twenty seconds. This was her first international individual title at the senior level.

10th

Andy Raymond Schleck, a Luxembourgish former professional road bicycle racer was born on this day in 1985. He won the 2010 Tour de France, being awarded it in February 2012 after Alberto Contador’s hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. He has also been the runner-up at the Tour twice; in 2009 and 2011. He is the younger brother of Fränk Schleck, also a professional rider between 2003 and 2016. Their father Johny Schleck rode the Tour de France and Vuelta a España between 1965 and 1974.  Andy joined the VC Roubaix cycling club in 2004, and caught the attention of Cyrille Guimard, a sports director who became famous as the directeur sportif for several Tour de France winners, who described Schleck as one of the biggest talents he had seen and compared him to Laurent Fignon. Still an amateur, Andy won the 2004 Flèche du Sud stage race at 18. He abandoned the 2014 Tour de France, suffering with injuries sustained as a result of a crash during stage three. In October 2014, he announced his retirement, citing a knee injury. In March 2015 Andy made public his plans to open a bike shop and café in Itzig. The shop opened in February 2016, and also includes a small museum with souvenirs from Schleck’s racing career.  Having riden professionally for Team CSC and Leopard Trek his record in Grand Tours include winning the Tour de France GC in 2010, the young rider in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and three stage wins in 2010 and 2011. He won the young rider at the Giro in 2007 and has won the National Time Trial Championships in 2005 and 2010 as well as the National Road Race Championships and the Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2009.