Bicyclopedia

[elevenpointfive]

Does anyone know what happened to it, or where on the web it might have relocated? Or if you can get it as a CD-ROM or something? It had some awesome information on women's cycling. I miss it. It's where I first learned about Beryl Burton. :cool:

[pedalfaster]

Sorry, I don't know anything about Bicyclopedia...but I am also a Beryl Burton fan. Would be interested in any tidbits you have on her. :cool:

[elevenpointfive]

Oh, I don't know anything exclusive. Got it all off the 'net with Google searches so far. Do you know if she's represented well in cycling books? I haven't looked for any such yet, but if she's in print I want to read it.

I love this pic: link (http://www.classicrendezvous.com/British/kitching_b_burton.htm)

And here are my favorite quotes from her obit from The Times in 1996 (if this isn't cool, mods, please edit or let me know and I'll edit):


DETERMINED in her aims, but modest in her claims of success, Beryl Burton reigned over women's cycling in this country and on the international stage for more than a quarter of a century. Indeed she could compete with men on more than equal terms as her beating the British men's record for a 12-hour time trial in 1967 testifies. This pre-eminence over such a long period in a field of activity which makes relentless demands on physique surely has no parallel in any other branch of sport.
Burton was five times world 3,000-metre pursuit champion and twice world road racing champion, besides winning innumerable national titles in pursuit, bunched road racing and road time trials. Had women's cycling been an Olympic event during her career it seems inconceivable that she would not have added Olympic Games medals to her other trophies, so complete was her dominance of cycling at her peak. But women's Olympic cycling was not introduced until 1988 (and the 3,000 metres pursuit not until 1992) by which time she was in her fifties, and inevitably some way past her best. Men's cycling had been part of the Olympic Games since their modern reincarnation at Athens in 1896.

Her life was steeped in cycle racing. Her husband Charlie gave up a promising cycling career of his own to nurture hers.

In 1957 she came second in the national 100-mile championship, a feat which immediately announced to the world that a young cyclist of quality had arrived on the scene. Two years later she won the first of her five gold medals for the 3,000 metres individual pursuit, a feat repeated in 1960, 1962, 1963 and 1966. In addition she was three times a silver and three times a bronze medallist in this event.

Even though technology has improved the performance of machines, no woman has ridden faster than Burton at 25 miles (1976, 53 min 21 sec), 50 miles (1976, 1 hour 51 min 30 sec), 100 miles (1968, 3 hours 55 min 05 sec) and 12 hours (1967, 277.25 miles), and no British woman has won a world track pursuit title since Burton's last championship victory 30 years ago. Her 1967 assault on the 12-hour time trial was the more remarkable for the fact that she was pitted against men, and the distance she covered in that time was 5 3/4 miles further than the British men's record at that time. Cycling folklore has it that as she passed the leading man she offered him a stick of liquorice as "the poor dear seemed to be struggling a bit".

In this competitive atmosphere it was hardly surprising that her daughter Denise, born in 1956, received her introduction to cycling from the rear seat of her mother's bicycle. Burton always said that during the pregnancy she "only gave up cycling for the three months that the bump stopped me from squeezing behind the handle- bars".

She's SO IMPRESSIVE. *dreamy sigh*