In October 2024, I discovered a stack of old copies of The Bicycle from the 1930s, tucked away in my father's wardrobe. They had belonged to my great-uncle, Bill Mills, who founded the magazine 90 years ago. Intrigued, I began piecing together his life. In the course of my research, a chance exchange with cycling historian Feargal McKay revealed that, in 1947, Bill had organised an Anglo-French stage race. The first race to cross the English Channel and the first backed by a national newspaper, it was designed to pull British cycling out of the post-war gloom ahead of the 1948 London Olympics. A radical plan, then - so why had I never heard of it?
The race, like Bill himself, has been all but forgotten. By coincidence, or something stranger, I had cycled a route similar to the race, albeit in reverse, shortly before discovering Bill's magazines. The chain of serendipities seemed to beckon to me to uncover the story behind the lost race that could have changed the course of British cycling.
