Angela Mills-Bannon

This has got to be a rare photo - Marguerite Wilson, Billie Dovey and Lilian Dredge - the top female trailblazers of the 1930s in the same frame taken from an article in The Bicycle.
#InternationalWomensDay

Latest eBay purchase - I think I’ve got a new obsession 🤣 Another book recommendation from @cycologies.com - a nice add to the growing collection.

Research often feels like two steps forward three steps back. But today is a lunge forward- this miraculously appeared on eBay last week and I was quick to get my bid in!!!! And there some amazing photos of Paris to London @cycologies.com

🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Although women’s cycling is on the up- I’m still the only female who cycles in our club socials. I’m tentatively trying to wheel into a new path - cycling history - but this is just another space mainly occupied by guys! So, it is nice to discover female cycling historians. Any others?

Maybe someone should write one!

Your book review is what made me buy it!!!

Half-term playing with AI. A family photo of Bill Mills (on the right) with my Dad and my Aunt as the kids. My granny and grandad (Bill’s brother) not forgetting Rex the dog. Taken outside their pub. It was a well known stop over for cyclists back in the day. Rex later got killed chasing a car!

Wadley’s book finished ✅ Next on the list is this one. Does anyone know of any books about Henri Desgrange? I’m keen to discover more about his background and what drove him. One that’s factually accurate would be good as I’m beginning to learn that a lot of TdF cycling lore is like Chinese whispers

Picture of Petronella in the Bicycle. “I have wondered how many girls there are who have given up the game, feeling that they are physically unsuited for it, when it is, perhaps, only their machines and equipment that are unsuitable.” 1930s thoughts still relevant today

A photo of Bill with the legendary record breaker Oppy and an article from The Bicycle 1937 about his ride across OZ

Add this one to the list! #ManxInternationalTT - and this is brilliant read by Curwen Clague - Bill features!

Missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle - proof the Bill and the Bicycle were involved in the first international cup race at Crystal Palace June 1937. Won by Jean Aerts.

Stumbled across this in the pages of The Bicycle. Ernie Mills and George Pilkington Mills, famous names in cycling lore. On the left is my Great Uncle - a Mills who’s been forgotten in time.

I’m avoiding using AI for my writing in the hope that the more I use my own words, the better I’ll get at it! I’m also inspired by my Great Uncle who wasn’t a trained journalist yet decided to launch his own cycling newspaper in 1936!
I enjoy using AI to bring The Bicycle’s cartoons to life!

Antique photo featuring five women in bloomers and puffy sleeves racing bicycles on a track. There is a crowd in the stands behind them.

First women's cycle race in Brittany at Brest Velodrome, June 1897

The Bicycle’s photo scoop of a big crash from the 1939 event. It’s a shame that the 6 day racing format has been shortened to accommodate modern day lifestyles and attention spans.

Cartoons from The Bicycle - pre WII Wembley Six days when the races were filled with thrills and spills. Cyclists would cycle to watch the event after their club runs, stay up all night to watch the racing, go to work and repeat for 6 days.

Late 19th century sdvertisment for the Hub Two-Speed Gear, Made in Manchester.

Did you know that the first hub gear was a two-speed. William Reilly's The Hub (1898). The higher gear was a freewheel, the lower gear was fixed. Which makes a lot of sense, if you think about it.

🤣That’s filmed near me

The old Comic was rattled by the Bicycle and even started a ‘Let’s Be British” campaign against the continental movement that Bill and co were advancing- a snippet from Wadley’s book!

For the 1955 Tour I think Syd Cozen was the coach and took the British team off to train in France for 3 months? So maybe that was also Bill’s idea?

French text. Summary: Only BLRC riders are capable of putting up a respectable fight in the Tour, but they can't do that as only NCU riders can represent the UK in the Tour.

Continued: "Bill Mills is ready to move to France or the Italian Riviera with four British riders, who would train at the Continental level for three months. But then what? They won't be able to prove their worth in French classics since they won't be able to participate as long as they are registered with the BLRC. And if they apply for affiliation with the NCU, they would then have to race professionally in England." Making peace between the BLRC and the NCU would be like reconciling the Montagues and the Capulets. "If things work out, the British team in the Tour would consist of four Englishmen, including George Lander and Dave Bedwell, and four Australians, led by Jack Hoobin, this year's amateur world champion, and H. Sutherland, British Empire champion. Other possible candidates: J. Fowler and P. J. Pryor."

Back to Bill Mills and his role in trying to get Brits into the Tour.

After his own failed attempt to ride the Tour in 1932, Mills worked toward getting others into the race and was instrumental in Holland & Burl riding the 1937 Tour.

This is from Route et Piste in 1950 (see alt txt)

Nearly finished The Rider (I enjoyed Krabbé’s unique style of writing) - next on the list is this book ‘My 19th #TdF’. I couldn’t resist a peak at the Forward by Rene de Latour and his tribute to Bill Mills and his protégé Jock Wadley. I want to revive their legacy #goldenageofcycling

“From bruised beginner through the stages of serious riding, club life, racing at home, racing abroad…how that humble hack altered the pattern of my life.” It became his obsession and towards the end his friends were worried about the extent he’d go to report on races at the detriment of his health

One of 2 family photos I have of Bill as a boy. In a 1941 issue of The Bicycle he talks about his first bike - snatched from a scrap heap as an initial training mount after WWI - which I’m guessing is around this age shown in the photo (he was born in 1906).

Piecing together history- I found this advert for the brochure ‘Brooks Saddle-Comfort’ in the pages of the Bicycle 1939. Then found someone selling it on eBay (front page in a sorry state) - and low and behold inside is the article I only had a poor scan of written by my Great Uncle, W.J Mills

Pearce puts the multi into multi-hyphenate sportsman: baseball, jockey (probably), pedestrian, cyclist, runner, boxer. And one of the first, if not the first, Black pros racing in England (I've found only one other Black cyclist in the UK then, a lad from Jamaica riding with a club near Newcastle.)

Join us (and SIR MICHAEL PALIN) at the British Library 18-19 April! Go go go for tickets. £35 for a full day (four talks / panels) or £55 for both days. Or all online too >>

histfest.org/histfest-2026

More speakers to be announced soon.

@rebeccarideal.bsky.social is SO GOOD at this!!!

📜🏳️‍🌈🗺️🛶🤰🏽

The Wembley Six days - shame they’ve disappeared from the British calendar as they thrilled & entertained 1930s cycling fans. Here’s a photo scoop from The Bicycle 10/6/1939.