I'm plugging Cycling Weekly which is one hundred and thirty years old this year and to celebrate they are featuring many of the individuals who have significantly changed the sport in that period.

 

It's a great read and I know I'm biased, having worked for them once upon a time, after answering an ad for a lad to clean the editor's bike and empty his ashtray. They also gave me a pen and a notebook and  sent me out to report.

There are many people who have helped make the sport successful. 

I nominated Alan Rushton for bringing British television into cycling when he promoted the city centre pro criteriums in the 1980s, followed by the Pro Tour of Britain and World Cup road races featuring the Continental stars and in 1994, bringing the Tour de France to Southern England for two stages. 

Also listed is Chris Boardman (above) whose gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 set British Cycling on track to becoming a top cycling nation two decades later.

For his success helped seal the bid to build the Manchester Velodrome which was key to everything which followed in the New Millennium, as British cyclists began to dominate the  Olympics thanks to the  pioneering sports science of Peter Keen. When he handed over to Dave Brailsford he took Olympic success to another level and also drove Bradley Wiggins to that historic first British Tour de France victory in 2012.

The issue is packed with great stories about remarkably talented individuals who have shaped the sport not just in Britain, but across the cycling world.

Of course there is always room for more nominations and I would like to give an honorary mention to John Potter, creator of the famous  London to Brighton bike ride in the 1970s for this big ride became the daddy of them all, raising money for the British Heart Foundation. The London - Brighton was the first big charity cycling event in the UK and it inspired many other charity rides and brought tens of thousands of people into the sport.