Bob Thom

Robert "Bob" Thom (born June 18, 1917 in Wolverhampton ; † August 1, 2004 ibid) was a British cyclist and later a cycling official.

Cycling career

Bob Thom began cycling before the Second World War and was able to achieve initial success. So he finished sixth in the British Road Championship in 1938 and won the East Midlands Championship . During the war he was stationed as a soldier in Rhodesia , where he continued training and won the Rhodesian sprint championship. In 1948 Thom became a professional , drove for the Viking Cycles team and also worked as a salesman for the Viking company. In 1947 he won the Weston Super Mare race and in 1949 the Tour of the Peaks . In 1949 he was British road racing champion, and third two years later.

Professional

In 1951 Bob Thom ended his active career and became team manager at Viking Cycles , his place as a driver took his brother-in-law Ian Steel in the team. He also supported the British riders as a mechanic and team leader during the International Peace Ride in 1952 , 1954 , 1955 and 1961 and the Tour de France in 1955 . He later became manager of the English national team and held other offices as a functionary; he was involved in the six-day race at Wembley , called Skol-Six , and was u. a. involved in organizing the 1982 UCI Road World Championships in Goodwood . As a stuntman, he also appeared in a film. When the Viking company was taken over by US investors, he worked in California for a few years .

His son, Bob Thom junior , was also a racing cyclist and later manager of the English national cycling team.

Personal

Thom had taken the trouble during the peace ride in 1959 and recorded the entire cycling equipment of all teams. He presented the result in a book about the Peace Trip: “In 1959, the material wagons carried a total of one hundred and ten complete frames, three hundred and eighty front and rear wheels, one thousand two hundred tires, ninety handlebars, one thousand eight hundred sprockets for idling, one hundred and ten chainrings, one hundred and ten pairs of pedals , sixty pumps, two hundred and ninety pairs of brakes, two hundred and forty gears, seventeen thousand spokes, thirty saddles, one hundred and ten pedal axles, ten thousand balls, a thousand and one hundred rolls of handlebar tape, six hundred chains, nineteen pairs of toe clips and a few more things. "

Web links

• Bob Thom in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Bob Thom on localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk (Engl.)
• Bob Thom on classicvikingcycles.com (Engl.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Horst Schubert (Ed.): Friedensfahrt . Sportverlag, Berlin, p. 215-216 .