3 PEAKS CYCLO-CROSS HISTORY
1961 - THE FIRST RACE [23 finishers. Winner: John Rawnsley 3:21.35 - new record]
History Homepage • Origins • 1962

CYCLE RACE WAS THEIR IDEA AND...
Bradford men win on three peaks
Newspaper report shortly after the race.

FIRST two places in the first Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross were taken appropriately by the two men who took over the idea of the event from a Skipton schoolboy, nurtured it to official record status, and persuaded their club to organise it.

A laggardly motorist interrupted the sprint finish at the end of 25-mile course over Penyghent (2,273ft.), Whernside (2.414ft.) and Ingleborough (2,373ft.), and Harry Bond, 22-year-old Eccleshill plumber, may feel a little disappointed at finishing two lengths behind his Bradford R.C.C. colleague, 21-year-old John Rawnsley of Bradford. But they were still close enough together to be credited jointly with the new record of 3hr. 21min. 35sec., 33min. and 31sec better than their old joint record, established without competition.

Equally important, to them, was that they had come within 24min. of the foot runners' record over the three peaks. Many spectators were mystified by the fact that cyclists take longer than runners, but the answer is not merely that the cyclists have about 3 miles farther to go, but that what they gain on the 10 miles of metalled road is more than lost by carrying a 23lb. machine up slopes of up to 45 degrees.

Before the race started It was labelled "the most severe event in the cyclo-cross riders' calendar." Nobody quarrelled with that claim when it was over. Cramp-stricken Rawnsley said: "Each step up Ingleborough was agony."

There were riders from Cumberland who nursed gashed limbs, one from Manchester who looked at a ruined frame - value £16 - and Southerners who had looked at the Dales peaks for the first time and found it all "very odd". Among the latter was third-prize winner Martin (Ginger) Garwood, a 27-year-old Clapham (London) plumber, who said: "We do a bit of riding down there you know, but this is different. It's more of an endurance test." Ginger, who had made a round trip of 480 miles to compete, flew over the handlebars a few times, and said: "It'll need a bit of thinking about" when he was asked if he would be back for next year's race.

Everyone who took part hopes there will be another Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross next year.

PEDALLING OVER 3 PEAKS - 27 complete 25 mile course.
An article in a National Newspaper the day after the first race

The first cycling race to be held over the Three Peaks of Yorkshire was won yesterday by John Rawnsley of Bradford RCC. He completed the 25 mile course in 3hrs. 21mins.35secs.

This was a cyclo-cross race - "the most severe event in the calendar," as the programme so rightly described it - in which riders cycled up mountains until the going became so rough that they were forced to carry their machines.

The three peaks of Pen-Y-Ghent (2,273ft.), Whernside (2,419ft.), and Ingleborough (2,373ft.) have long been a Yorkshire yardstick for courage and endurance. Men have walked over them, run over them, and even driven or lugged a field car over them. And now they have submitted themselves to what seems to be the ultimate refinement in mans inhumanity to himself - running up a mountainside with a 23lb. bicycle on his back. As a physical punishment this is perhaps best understood only by any army defaulter who has been forced to march at the double, holding aloft a 7lb. rifle.

Rawnsley said he covered the course half on foot, half riding, and carried his machine for a total of about five miles out of the 25, grabbing at tufts of grass with his left hand to haul himself up. He suffered three times during the race from attacks of cramp, and once after it, from an attack of hiccups.

The 35 starters began the race in Horton-in-Ribblesdale with the assault on Pen-Y-Ghent. They were sinewy men, trained until they were as bony and lean as drawn chickens. Winds on the peaks stung colour into their pale city cheeks and mud from the streams splattered their legs up to the thigh. Many of them fell on the helter-skelter of descent; one retired with a gashed elbow, another with a badly buckled machine.

They rode or ran over 10 miles of road and 15 miles of unmade roads, tracks and fells, bent and pouched like kangaroos with their jerseys stuffed with chocolates, bananas and oranges. The going was worst on Ingleborough, according to Rawnsley "a 45° climb, and each step was agony".

Twenty seven completed the course. Harry Bond, also of Bradford RCC, led for much of the way and was unlucky to be baulked by a car in the final sprint. He finished only two lengths behind Rawnsley. A Londoner, Martin Garwood was third, only 35sec. after the winner - a remarkable performance for a man taking part in his first mountain race.

But in cyclo-cross over mountains, the men who do the best are surefooted and have an eye for the lie of the land. The race sorts out the sheep from the mountain goats as well as the men from the boys.

History Homepage • Origins • 1962