Racing Is Life - The Beryl Burton Story [DVD]

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Disley’s methodology was fairly straightforward. By mounting a bike inside the wind tunnel and then blowing air through the area as a rider pedals, he can calculate how efficiently a bike and rider are moving, which is known as their drag coefficient (CdA). Disley specifically needed to know Beryl’s CdA once Rhodes-Jones had replicated her positions and fired up the two bikes to a speed of 45kph (which equates to 21min. 30sec. for 10 miles). Burton is considered by many as the ‘best ever female cyclist’. She raced for Morley Cycling Club and later on Knaresborough CC. Despite being arguably the greatest woman cyclist ever, Beryl Burton, remains little known outside of Yorkshire and the cycling fraternity.

I spoke to a journalist called Sue Mott who interviewed Beryl in the early 80s … and she said that she had never met a sportsperson who was so driven and focused as Beryl even having known those sorts of people as well [like Steve Redgrave and Andy Murray],” he says. Beryl used to work on a rhubarb farm, even when racing, which was run by cyclist Nim Carline. She worked 12 hour shifts every day during the winter. It's a blast ... A really good yarn and four wildly talented actors. What's not to like?” – Camden New Journal We all know Maxine Peake is one of our country’s best stage actresses, but can she write? Absolutely.

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Beryl Burton’s cycling success reads like the script of a Hollywood film. Five times world pursuit champion, thirteen times national champion, twice road-racing world champion and twelve times national champion. Her accolades include time trials, former world record holder, former British record holder, numerous sports awards, an MBE and an OBE. The Beryl Burton film is called ‘Racing is Life: The Beryl Burton Story’ and it’s available on DVD.The 130-minute film is an 88-minute documentary of unique archive film footage from the late 1950s to the 1970s with 42-minutes of bonus features, including interviews with her daughter Denise, brother Jeffrey and sister Maureen and we hear from Beryl herself, who in her spare time loved knitting, as she had no television or radio in her home. You can also watch an 8-minute documentary of Beryl Burton on YouTube. Beryl Burton Memorial Garden Many of the participants – such as Jean Smith, Barbara Conway and Pauline Hunter – have since been largely forgotten, although the Croucher sisters, Brenda, Maureen and Carol, of the East Bradford Cycling Club, are perhaps better remembered. Valerie Rushworth was national road race champion in 1964 and won 11 British Championships between 1959 and 1966, going on to represent Great Britain internationally, as a rider and later as coach and team manager. Women weren’t included in the Olympic cycling program until 1984, when one event, a road race, was introduced in Los Angeles. Beryl Burton was 47 when that happened, still racing but well past her best.

Actress Maxine Peake wrote a play to celebrate Beryl Burton’s extraordinary achievements. Simply called ‘Beryl’, it was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the 27th of November, 2012. If you think the life of an obscure female cyclist from the 1960s sounds a bit niche, join the club. Forget your preconceptions; it’s an evening of relentless fun, committed to teaching its audience something, whilst simultaneously never taking itself too seriously and maintaining a fierce respect for its heroine. Beryl Burton and her daughter Denise both set a record for a British 10- mile ride on a tandem bicycle which took them only 26 minutes and 25 seconds! Beryl Burton also holds the women’s bicycle tandem record for the 10-mile distance, set with her daughter Denise, it took them just 21 minutes, 25 seconds. Beryl Burton Play

Maxine Peake, a British actress, wrote and starred in ‘Beryl: a Love Story on Two Wheels’, a radio play based on her life, with contributions from her husband Charlie Burton throughout. As her powers declined and her dominance waned, Burton refused to retire. In 1984, when Burton was 47-years-old, the first women’s Tour de France was held and women were allowed to compete in the Olympics for the first time. She lobbied for a place in both teams but was ultimately not selected. Beryl Burton and her daughter Denise didn’t even shake hands on the podium after Denise won against her in the 1976 national road race championships. A show full of energy and enthusiasm ... that will leave you with a smile on your face” – West End Wilma

Burton worked on a rhubarb farm, cleaned houses, and worked on the biscuit counter at the local Co-op supermarket alongside her record-breaking exploits.Dave Russell, ‘Mum’s the Word: the cycling career of Beryl Burton, 1956–1986’, Women’s History Review Beryl Burton with her daughter Denise in 1963 (Image credit: Getty Images Sport) ‘She just kept going and going’

Peake's writing is full of funny and caring moments, which are all realised by the cast with dedication ... it is impossible to puncture the play's warmth” – BroadwayWorld UK With that in mind, my only gripe is that ‘Beryl’ is sometimes in danger of becoming mawkish in its level of reverence for its heroine; when we’re told a record she broke remains unbeaten today, the audience break into applause, and the actors do too. The play ends with a roll call of her achievements, the stage laden with trophies. It’s astonishingly formidable, but we’ve just spent two hours learning what an incredible woman she was – we don’t need to have it, quite literally, spelt out to us. She set a women’s world record for a 12 hour time trial in 1967 which has not yet been beaten at 277.25 miles. As she passed her fellow male racer Mike McNamara in the 12-hour time trial, she casually offered him a liquorice allsort. The cast of four, who play multiple characters, have great comedic skill and excel under Rebecca Gatward’s creative, physical direction, even if this theatre sometimes feels a little too big for such a character-driven homespun yarn.Her first play is about the life of cycling legend Beryl Burton, which is great news for fans of underappreciated women from the north with the name Beryl who had previously only heard of Beryl Bainbridge. The National Cyclists' Union was formed in 1883 – in a merger of the Bicycle Union and the Tricycle Association – ­and soon after, in 1890, they banned road racing out of fear of the reaction from the upper classes to the sudden increase in working class mobility – to become law in 1896 (H G Well’s novel of that year, Wheels of Chance, indicated the danger). A new body, The Road Racing Council – later to become the Road Time Trials Council (RTTC) - promoted time trial races, done in secrecy, instead. In 1942 a leading rider of the time, Percy Stallard, defied the ban and formed the rival, and dissident, British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC). This was to eventually merge with the NCU in 1959 to form the British Cycling Federation (BCL), who lifted the ban, although Stallard apparently remained disgruntled. Thus the ban on road racing had only recently been lifted when this was filmed in 1962; the year when Tommy Simpson became the first Briton to wear the yellow jersey on the Tour de France. Take everyone to hear her story. It’s so exhilarating, hopeful and heartening and Peake’s script is superbly funny” – Everything Theatre Her career is well summed up in this extract from the Times obituary: “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.”