An Evening with Chris Sidwells
By James Fox on Mon Oct 24 2022.
Sitwell Cycling Club is delighted to welcome back local cycling journalist, author and friend of the club Chris Sidwells talks about his latest book; Cycling Legends 02 TI-Raleigh.
The TI-Raleigh professional cycling team, sponsored by the iconic Nottingham bike manufacturer, is one of the most famous teams in the sport. It was the first superteam, a team like the best teams are today; well-funded, well-equipped, a team that could shape-shift with leaders becoming helpers and helpers winning races. The story of TI-Raleigh is one of ambition, larger than life characters, vision, determination and relentless drive to deliver success. A story of heroes and villains, sadness and glory. A story of endeavour and testing the limits of what was possible. It is told in English for the first time in Chris Sidwells’ book, which follows the team from its creation in 1971 as a marketing tool to sell Raleigh bikes in Europe, to winning the world’s biggest bikes races, including the 1980 Tour de France. Raleigh is still the only British bike manufacturer to have done that.
Cycling Legends 02 TI-Raleigh is the second of Chris’s illustrated book series. He visited us back in in 2019 to talk about his first, Cycling Legends 01 Tom Simpson, and like that book this is lavishly illustrated with more than 150 photographs, many of which have never been published before, and the story told with the help of TI-Raleigh riders, its manager, and by others who played a part in it.
Chris has worked as a cycling journalist for over 15 years now, writing thousands of articles for newspapers, magazines and websites worldwide, as well as 25 other books. Cycling Legends is his sports media business, comprising of book publishing, event promotion and his podcast www.cyclinglegendspodcast.com, a monthly cycling magazine you listen to with features, interviews, tech, fitness, news, opinion and history shows.
Please come along and join us for what promises to be a fantastic event. Entry is £5 with all profits from the evening going to our club charity partner, Bluebell Wood Childrens Hospice.