Британдық Велосипедшілер Лигасы: Тарих және Тартыстар

The British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) was an association formed in 1942 to promote road bicycle racing in Great Britain. It operated in competition with the National Cyclists' Union, a rivalry which lasted until the two merged in 1959 to form the British Cycling Federation.

With the BLRC now halfway through the door, Britain sent a team to the Tour de France in 1955. It was the first team ever sent since the previous riders, Bill Burl and Charles Holland had competed as private entrants before the war. To turn down the Tour was something the NCU wouldn't do and yet it couldn't select riders who were BLRC members. To leave out BLRC members, however, would be to send a weakened team and antagonise a wavering UCI. Yet the BLRC could not select a team because the Union Cycliste Internationale didn't formally recognise it. The conundrum was solved by asking a panel of newspaper reporters to do the job instead.

Running the BLRC was never easy and there were frequent rows within its administration. Stallard was a bright and energetic man with a vision for his sport. But he was not a man to tolerate argument or those with other views. Peter Bryan, editor of The Bicycle, later an associate of Sporting Cyclist and managing editor of Cycling said:
Stallard had the most abrasive nature that I have ever met. He could never believe that he could have a bad idea or make a bad decision. And sometimes he'd go berserk with those who disagreed with him. He didn't have, let us say, the delicacies of negotiation. Having achieved what he wanted, with the NCU's final acceptance of massed racing on the road, Stallard placed the continuity of the BLRC over the end of the civil war that the BLRC and the NCU had conducted. He said: "The NCU were running road races and we were running road races and there wasn't any need for amalgamation [of the NCU and the BLRC, to form the British Cycling Federation] at all." and until his death saw the new British Cycling Federation (BCF) as a reincarnation of the NCU. In 1989 he wrote:

I have often sat back and thought just how nice it would be if you could relive your life based on the experience gained. For myself, I would never again try to achieve the impossible by trying to change things. On the two occasions I have tried to do this [he tried to introduce age related racing for riders older than 40], I have failed, not because I lack followers, or because of the opposition of opposing bodies, but because of the activities of anarchists and those who are envious of your success and popularity.

To the question of whether Britain would have moved to massed racing anyway, without the BLRC, Peter Bryan says not, saying that the established cycling authorities had become entrenched in their positions, their own rivalry overshadowed by their joint fears and interests. The NCU and the RTTC were never friends. The RTTC were particular bastards and they had so many clever men in the top echelon, many more than the NCU. They were steeped in the tradition of time trialling and what it stood for and they wouldn't budge a jot or tickle. Stallard's success was that he alerted the UCI to a problem in British cycling which led the UCI to threaten Britain with exclusion from world cycling unless it sorted out the conflict between the NCU and the BLRC. Seeing the BLRC as closer to the UCI's interests, it suggested it would recognise the BLRC and not the NCU as the representative body. It was because of that that the NCU relented and agreed to license the massed races it had hitherto opposed. "You can never say that if it didn't happen then this wouldn't have happened, but I can't see what else [other than the BLRC] would have brought it [massed racing] about," said Peter Bryan.