"burtthebike" wrote in message
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"suer" wrote in message
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Hands up who among the rest of us young girlies spent the rest of the
1984 season sleeping on mattresses-on-the-floor, or even straight on the
floor, in the hopes of raising our game to her level. Ha, I did.

Great story suer, thanks. Beryl was one of the all time women greats, and
it seems incredible that she had a serious debilitating illness when young
(polio?) but came back to beat everyone for a very long time indeed.

The story I love best was when she was doing a 24 hours time trial, and
passing one of her male rivals, reached into a pocket and offered him a
liquorice allsort! Rumour has it that he retired from the ride.

It was a 12 not a 24. the other rider was Mike McNamara Rockingham CC

In that event Mike McNamra broke the 18 year long standing men's record of
Owen Blower

Beryl Burton set the womens record about 1 mile further than the mens
record!

I remember a local girl, Christine, getting into the GB team as the third
sprinter
behind Jean Dunn and Val Rushworth to go to the world champs at Rocourt
Belgium.
Our training for her 1st World Track Champs was to find a 180 degree bend in
a road
draw a chalk line go back 200m another chalk line then go back further then
sprint the bend for the chalk line! We could not afford to go to Fallowfield
or Nottingham to practise. The local track league on red shale tracks was
out as women were not allowed to race men at that time.