Chris Davies 1936 - 2021

Members of Portsmouth CTC are amongst those saddened by the recent death of Chris Davies, a great promoter of cycle touring and enthusiast of all things cycling. 

In 2010, Chris set an English record when he reached 906,900 miles of cycling, at age 74.  He eventually reached 916,791 miles before he became ill and was forced to stop cycling. He rode over 10,000 miles every year for more than 50 years of his life!

Chris was born in 1936 and in 1954 joined the Portsmouth District Association of the Cyclists’ Touring Club, now Cycling UK and did more and more cycling. As a schoolboy he kept a record of all the miles he cycled and continued to do this throughout almost all his life. 

Chris loved cycle-touring holidays and visited many countries by bike, including France, Spain, Cyprus, Israel, Argentina, USA and New Zealand. Many of his Easter Tours were with the late Neville Chanin, another well-known English cyclist.

Chris and Nev used cycle to France every summer to cheer on riders in the Tour de France. In France Chris came across audax rides; long distance rides which must be completed in a limited time. Chris was one of the first English cyclists to complete the Paris-Brest-Paris audax ride of 750 miles in 90 hours. He then went on to become a founder member of the Audax club in the United Kingdom, AUK.

Chris was always keen to encourage others to cycle and gave useful tips and advice. He was also a cycling campaigner and published a cycling column in the Portsmouth News.

He was also a competitive cyclist and from his 20s he competed in 25, 50 and 100 mile time trials and then 12 and 24 hour time trials. In the 1960s he achieved a career best distance of 438 miles in 24 hours. 

We miss his chirpy voice, forthright comments and almost boyish enthusiasm for cycling.