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Derailleur and IGH Competition in the 1930s

Copyright Tom Shaddox



1937 will be remembered by gear-head cycle historians as the summer the derailleur made a belated return to the Tour de France after a 25-year absence. While derailleurs ruled in France, across the Channel there was a completely different type of multi-gearing system that had been in use for over 40 years. These two approaches to multi-gearing had a unique meeting in the same competitions under the same rules just before WWII, with results that will surprise modern riders.



Unlike France, in the UK there was little massed start racing in those days. Cycle sport was by-and-large time trialing and point-to-point records, and because of its length and variation of terrain and weather, the Land’s End to John O’Groats record was the ne plus ultra event. Cyclists began tackling the big ride in the 1880s, and the Road Record Association was formed in 1888 to lay down rules for comparison and to document results. The RRA’s rules contained little in the way of equipment limitations.



Fast-forward to the 1930s and a dynamic time in UK cycling. Time/distance and point-to-point records, long the domain of athletic competition, proved to be an excellent vehicle for commercial promotion. The derailleur had been re-introduced after spending some 30 years exiled in France, and was challenging the ubiquitous Sturmey-Archer internal-gear hub for the enthusiasts’ market. Derailleur importers, utilizing the services of some of the best Commonwealth riders, began to have records set using their equipment. When world-famous Australian Hubert “Oppy” Opperman took the End-to-End record using a four-speed Cyclo derailleur in 1935 it was the final straw for the men in Nottingham.



Jared Diamond wrote about having just the right amount of competition for progress. Sturmey-Archer had experienced less-than optimum competition since the Great War, and these imported derailleurs prompted them to begin to innovate for the first time in over a decade. It also prompted parent company Raleigh to assemble a team of top British cyclists to test, prove – and market - these innovations on the road.



In 1936 Raleigh retained Charlie Holland, who had ridden on the U.K. Olympic team in Los Angeles and Berlin, to ride for them. They were rewarded when he won the inaugural massed start Isle of Man International Road Race on a Raleigh bike with Sturmey-Archer gears. In 1937 Holland moved on to the continent and was the first British rider in the Tour de France (using that year’s famous derailleurs, and with a result of DNF-mechanical). Back home, the torch was passed to Sid Ferris.



Sid Ferris came from a cycling family. His brother, H.E.G. “Harry” Ferris, set a number of time/distance records on three wheel cycles and later ran a bespoke cycle shop offering silver brazed frames. Sibling Sid didn’t really look the part of a lean and hard cycle racer; he had a big smile and, oddly for a speed and distance man, rather boyish cheeks. On the bike, period photos show Sid arched over his Lauterwasser bars somewhat asymmetrically, with his head turned to the left and his right shoulder a bit low. He had only one eye, and wore an eye patch on the left.



Lean and hard he proved to be, however, and while some of Raleigh’s other long distance men had used a medium range or even a wide range hub, Sid rode across the hills, moors and highlands using S-A’s new ultra-narrow range (+7.2%, -6.8%) AR three-speed. During the long summer days of 1937 he toppled all the RRA’s premier records recently set on derailleur machines: Edinburgh-London, 24hrs, 1000 miles. That July he rode the 870 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 54 ½ hours*, besting Oppy’s mark by two and a half hours and setting a record that would stand for a remarkable 21 more years.



While other riders would continue to race time trials and set time/distance records using internal-gear hubs into the 1960s, Ferris’ ride would be the last time a rider using Sturmey-Archer gears would lower the End-to-End record. With WWII, the curtain came down on Sturmey-Archer’s most impressive period of innovation, and their failure afterwards to keep pace with the ever-evolving derailleur would result in history being rewritten and the remarkable competition of the 1930s to be forgotten. Of all the records set using that company’s hub gears in the 1930s only Tommy Godwin’s one-year road mileage total (75,056 miles on a Raleigh bicycle with S-A AF hub, 1939, besting Ossie Nicholson’s 62,657 miles on a Cyclo derailleur equipped Malvern Star, 1937) has arguably never been bettered by a rider using derailleur gearing.



*16.0mph average. For reference, Hubert Opperman won the 726 mile 1931 Paris-Brest-Paris at a 14.7mph average.