Members of the Veteran-Cycle Club thank Chris Sidwells and his team from Cycling Legends for letting us be part of The Tom Simpson Cycling Festival held in September 2025 at Harworth, Nottinghamshire. It was a wonderful event enjoyed by all who attended and special reference must be made to Chris’s nephew Sam and his partner Natalie who helped may the event so memorable. A real family event!
The week-long festival started on Sunday, 7th September and culminated with a weekend of talks, a market, tribute ride, retro display, kids’ cyclocross racing, social evenings and the Simpson Retro Ride at two distances, 64km Chemin de Simpson and 80km La Grande Classique.
The first event of the festival was the Simpson Sportive on offering three routes: ‘The Memorial’ 94km which closely followed the route of the Tom Simpson Memorial Race, which was for professionals from 1968 to 1999; ‘The Chain Gang’ 202km which traced Tom’s formative training roads, including his daily commute to Retford; and ‘The Champion’ 253km looping into the flatlands west of the river Trent. All routes started from the event village at Harworth. During the week that followed there were many free events, including a cycle safety and maintenance session, a talk by Chris Sidwells and the official re-opening of the Tom Simpson Museum with special guest Helen Hoban. At 6pm on Friday, 12th the Cycling Legends Podcast hosted an episode with Tom Simpson’s daughter, Joanne when they explored the impact Tom had on their lives; this was followed by a meal and social event.
On Saturday 13th, the Tribute Ride explored Tom’s life in Harworth passing his childhood home and school and visiting his memorial and museum. At lunch time there was a Retro Display in the Event Village where Dave Marsh of Universal Cycle Centre, and Chris Sidwells presented some of the finest retro bikes, including those ridden by Fausto Coppi, Beryl Burton, Laurent Fignon, (all three made by Raleigh), Tom Simpson, and Jan Ullrich, memorabilia and team cars.
Beryl Burton’s machine has an interesting story attached to it! One day, Dave Marsh was flicking through Facebook Marketplace and recognised the number on the bottom bracket as BB. He called the owner immediately and said he would see him in 3 hours (length of the journey) with cash. Laurent Fignon rode his Raleigh machine to second place in the 1989 Tour de France losing to Greg LeMond by only 8 seconds. A special reference must also be made here to the display of TI Raleigh team-issue machines from the 1970s/80s each one with its rider identified by having his initials included in the frame number similar to the one ridden by Beryl Burton.
The afternoon’s presentations included ‘Remembering Barry Hoban’ with Steve Jones and Constantina Chiotelli; ‘Memorial Ride Winners and Players’ by Sid Barras, Mark Walsham, Hugh Porter and Chris Walker; ‘Six Decades, Ten Photos’ by John Pierce of Photo Sport International and ‘Chris’s Very Special Guest’. During the evening there was live music, BBQ and cyclocross racing for the local children hosted by the Harworth & Bircotes Sports Pavilion which is the home of the museum.
The Veteran-Cycle Club stand sported a display of lightweight machines through the ages with a c1905 fixed wheel bicycle with BSA fittings, 1923 Raleigh made for that year’s racing season by the Raleigh Specials Department and the V-CC’s own Selbach Taper Tube from 1930. The Selbach is one of a collection of machines owned by the Club which are available on loan to members. As well as these pre-war machines there was a 1952 Carlton Super Python, 1953 Cinelli, and a 1964 Rotrax.
We were also selling books from the V-CC’s own Veteran-Cycle Publications including the latest edition of “Raleigh – Past and Presence” by Tony Hadland. In this book you can find out more about Raleigh and the company’s effect on the cycle industry of the past. If you would like to find out more see: https://v-cc.org.uk/product/raleigh-past-and-presence-of-an-iconic-bicycle-brand/.
Again, we must thank Chris Sidwells and his team for a very memorable weekend at Harworth.
