Picture story: Meet the woman racer who made the men look stupid

Meet Marjorie Cottle (1900–1987), racer on road and off, until in 1925 the ACU banned women from road racing (imagine if one got hurt!), forcing her to concentrate on trials.

Marjorie won an individual gold medal in the 1925 International Six Days Trial (ISDT), and took outright victory as part of an all-female Vase team in 1927 (the official, all-male, GB team was third). She continued to win medals in ISDTs well into the thirties. In 1939, when the ISDT was held in Nazi-controlled Austria in the last few days before England declared war on Germany, Britain sent both civilian and military teams to compete.

After four days, when it seemed that war could break out at any minute and the route took competitors into recently occupied Czechoslovakia, British officials told the civilian team to return to England. Cottle refused and instead competed alongside the British Army team. She gave up racing after war and worked for BSA selling bikes instead.