The attempt of Walter Greaves
Greaves started his ride five days late because of the delay in delivering his bicycle. He rode in one of the hardest winters for years, with snow and ice lying until the end of February. He covered 500 miles in the first five days but fell off 19 times, including eight times in a day while riding through snow on high roads. A report in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, written by a reporter who followed him by car, records that Greaves fell twice in the first 10 miles of the day as cars forced him off the road. In Leeds, he was blinded by a cloud of steam from a steam-powered vehicle, slipped on tram lines and fell off. He got up, left the city into the lying snow and maintained his average 15mph.[7]
The Telegraph and Argus report was headlined Persistence on a bicycle and began “W.W. Greaves, the one-armed Bradford cyclist, is a hero.”
Greaves averaged 120 miles a day by the end of February. The snow and ice were replaced by gales, hail and rain but Greaves increased his daily rate to 134 miles. It rained through the summer and then turned foggy all November.
The cycling importer and patron, Ron Kitching, said:
Walter used to ride over to Harrogate and I asked him how he was managing with all the ice and snow. Apparently he just kept riding round and round the streets until they were cleared in order to get the miles in. I remember he used to ride with a feeding bottle with milk in it, and eat apples. He was a true vegetarian. And tough![11]
Greaves collided with a car[12] at Yarm in July and an abscess developed as a result. Greaves lost two weeks in hospital. He rode 160 miles a day while recovering from the operation. From 20 September to 8 October he rode 180 miles a day. He rode into Hyde Park, London on 13 December and rode laps of the Serpentine to match Nicholson’s record. He was joined by thousands of other cyclists.
A reception was held in a hotel that evening. Greaves had been a vegetarian since he was 20 and was a fervent teetotaller. Journalists at the reception offered him champagne to celebrate, making comments such as “Go on… We won’t tell!” Greaves said:“ “When I want to poison myself, I’ll do it with arsenic.”[7] ”
Greaves rode from 8 October until the end of the year to push himself further ahead Nicholson. He nevertheless rode 130 miles a day, finishing his year at midnight on New Year’s Eve at the steps of the town hall in Bradford. The Telegraph and Argus reported “astonishing scenes reminiscent of those associated with the public appearances of famous film stars.” The mayor gave him cheques and two trophies.