{"id":468243,"date":"2026-03-10T18:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T18:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/468243\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T18:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T18:53:12","slug":"my-club-mates-keep-me-going-the-91-year-old-former-tour-de-france-podium-finisher-on-staying-motivated-to-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/468243\/","title":{"rendered":"‘My club-mates keep me going’: The 91-year-old former Tour de France podium finisher on staying motivated to ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shirley Hockridge picks me up from Kettering station in a Toyota SUV with no middle seat. She\u2019s removed it, she says, so she can roll her bike in easily after rides with \u201cthe Thursday Club\u201d. Yesterday, they went on a 25km coffee ride. When we get to Hockridge\u2019s home \u2013 a neat, pretty bungalow with a drawing of Lizzie Deignan<\/a> in the hallway and a shed in the garden for her bikes \u2013 there is a silver envelope sticking out of the letterbox. It\u2019s a birthday card, she tells me. She\u2019s turning 91.<\/p>\n

Cycling regularly into her 90s is just one remarkable thing about Hockridge. Another is her racing career: in 1957, Shirley clinched both the national road championships and a podium place in a pioneering race few remember today, an early women\u2019s version of the Tour de France<\/a>. Fellow Thursday Club member Dorothy calls her \u201cone of the most incredible people I\u2019ve met.\u201d Yet there is another side of Hockridge\u2019s life, too, which any club cyclist can relate to: being part of a community of riders and friends \u2013 a support network that matters far beyond the sport.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When Hockridge was growing up in post-war Northamptonshire, \u201ceveryone\u201d cycled. Already a runner and table tennis player, she was introduced to bike racing by her brother, who took her to watch meets on the gently sloped concrete track at nearby Wicksteed Park. She followed her brother, too, into the Kettering Friendly club, riding her first race on a second-hand bike which she bought for \u00a37.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEverything was amateur,\u201d Hockridge remembers. She was \u201cfirst and foremost\u201d a time triallist, a discipline in which the ban on sponsorship was so complete that well-known racers would tape over their bike\u2019s logos prior to competing. Training was 20 miles before work, and cross-training a weights programme a friend gave her for winter. As for nutrition, Shirley Mayers \u2013 as she was then \u2013 still lived at home, eating her mother\u2019s suet pudding. Races would start early, and Hockridge remembers out-of-town riders taking \u201cdigs\u201d with local cyclists, returning after the event for a cooked breakfast. (To this day, she has never eaten a gel.)<\/p>\n

By 1955, the year Brit Millie Robinson won the first women\u2019s Tour de France, Hockridge was good enough to appear in the local Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph under the headline \u2018Shirley\u2019s Wonderful Riding\u2019 in an article praising her speed on the famous 100-mile Bath Road course. Before long, she was riding with Robinson, making do with her fixed-gear time trial bike for her first road race. At one national meet at Handsworth Park the pair lapped the field. In 1957, Hockridge won the British National Road Race Championship.<\/p>\n

On the podium at the Tour <\/p>\n

Today, many regard the 1955 women\u2019s Tour, organised by cycling journalist Jean Leulliot, as a one-off. But newspapers from 1957 show people at the time saw the \u20183rd Criterium Cycliste Feminin\u2019 as a direct continuation. Starting in late July, not long after the men\u2019s Tour, the race was advertised by the French Cycling Union journal La France Cycliste as 600km over eight stages \u2013 longer than the 1955 race. There was a King of the Mountains jersey for the best climber, too. French scholar Romane Coadic points out that the organisers even invited Yvette Horner to provide entertainment \u2013 the same accordionist who played at the men\u2019s Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cEileen Gray was the instigator,\u201d says Hockridge. Gray, founder of the Women\u2019s Cycle Racing Association and future British Cycling President, pushed for two teams to go to France in 1957: an A and a B team, with Hockridge riding in the As. A sponsor company contributed brakes, gears and hubs, but not the wheels, which Hockridge had built \u201cat my own expense\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The \u2018Angleterre As\u2019 had a strong start. In the early stages, Hockridge\u2019s team-mates Joanne Poole and Sheila Clarke were near the top of the General Classification. They slipped in the GC \u2013 but Hockridge rose. On 6 August, under the headline \u201cBritish Girls Up With The Leaders,\u201d the London Evening News reported that Shirley Mayers [Hockridge] was in third place \u201cat the start of today\u2019s final stage in the women\u2019s Tour de France.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1957 GC was won by French rider Lyli Herse, with Luxembourg\u2019s Elsy Jacobs coming second. Hockridge rounded out the podium, but not before giving the French a run for their money. In their write-up, Le Parisien Lib\u00e9r\u00e9 praised Herse for battling \u201cles redoutables Anglaises\u201d \u2013 \u201cthe formidable English\u201d. The race was sponsored by a furrier, and Shirley\u2019s prize was a stole \u2013 \u201cit wasn\u2019t me at all\u201d \u2013 which she gave to a visitor from America: her new mother-in-law, who wore it on the voyage home on the Queen Elizabeth.<\/p>\n

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\"Hockridge\n<\/p>\n

Hockridge (right) finished third in a 1957 proto version of the women\u2019s Tour de France<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

Hockridge had met Mick, another racer, through her local cycling scene. After her exploits in France, she was a local celebrity: a gossip column in the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph that November wrote about her missing a bus and arriving late to hand out the prizes at a Nene Valley Wheelers dinner. Raising two sons put a pause on her riding, but by the 1960s, Hockridge was racing well enough again to be picked for the international Liberation Races in Belgium. In 1966, she had a daughter, but again soon returned to cycling proper.<\/p>\n

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Golden memories <\/p>\n

When Hockridge wheels out her bike from the shed for Cycling Weekly to photograph, there\u2019s no disguising the racing intent of the low bars and the steeply angled saddle. At 91, Hockridge still talks like a racer, too. \u201cI\u2019d dropped back, then when I got over the top, I was going to close the gap,\u201d she says, recounting a recent Thursday Club ride. She pauses. \u201cMind you, the person I was trying to catch was in his 80s.\u201d<\/p>\n

With husband Mick, Hockridge raced into her 60s: a 1999 race report shows the couple side-by-side under the headline \u201cOne-two for the Hockridges\u201d, and a cabinet in the corner of the living room holds his-and-hers trophies from a race in France. A photo from the trip shows them standing together in front of a car with licence plates reading \u201cHOCKRIDGE\u201d, and Shirley recalls the post-race celebrations that went on until 2am.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always on the front,\u201d she says, remembering the hours she spent training on Mick\u2019s wheel. After they retired, the pair would ride together several times a week \u2013 \u201cconstant companions\u201d. One of their final races was near Leeds one Christmas. \u201cI\u2019d ridden a \u201810\u2019,\u201d Shirley recalls, using the shorthand of a seasoned time triallist. \u201cI did 26 minutes. Mick came in with 28. It was one of the few times I\u2019d beaten him.\u201d A few months later, he was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s.<\/p>\n

It was the Thursday Club \u201cwho kept us going\u201d. After Mick could no longer ride, he and Shirley would go walking with clubmates. When that too became impossible, Shirley would organise club runs which allowed her to ride 10 or 15 miles before joining Mick in his wheelchair. They still went every Thursday. \u201cEven though he began to lose his speech, the other riders knew him and they\u2019d come and chat to him \u2013 right up until he went into hospital.\u201d Mick died in 2018, aged 86, and Hockridge has continued to find solace among her clubmates. \u201cThey\u2019ve kept me going since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from my family, cycling has been most of my life,\u201d Hockridge says. Her home is a celebration of both. One full wall of her living room is covered in family photos: photoshoots with grandchildren; her 50th and 60th wedding anniversaries. Opposite her bed is a photo of Mick on his bike. Every morning, she sees him race. When she gets out more photographs from every stage of her cycling career, wherever she is on a bike she is beaming. \u201cI find myself riding on my own now when I go out on a Thursday,\u201d Hockridge says. \u201cI average about 12mph now, but when I get to a hill, I\u2019m down between five and six [mph].\u201d Clubmate Carol puts it down to the big gears she still runs. For her part, Hockridge doesn\u2019t mind if she has to climb alone. \u201cI\u2019m out riding my bike, and that\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Shirley\n<\/p>\n

Hockridge, now 91, still cycles regularly with her local club<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Richard Butcher)<\/p>\n

Hockridge on modern racing<\/p>\n

On the Tour de France Femmes:
\u201cIt\u2019s double what we rode. Now, they\u2019re doing the big cols and everything. You\u2019ve got to be fit, you\u2019ve got to really, really know what you\u2019re doing, and you\u2019ve got to be keen.\u201d<\/p>\n

On watching the pros race a local climb:
\u201cI expected them to come up in ones and twos. I\u2019d never, ever ridden up Rockingham hill and made it to the top. These girls came up in a bunch. I couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the professionalisation of women\u2019s racing:
\u201cI would have liked a manager or a coach. There\u2019s all sorts of things they advise [today\u2019s riders] on: food, drink and all the rest of it. I had to do everything. It\u2019s a different world. I envy the girls of today, but you\u2019ve got to be very fit and very dedicated to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This feature was originally published as part of the ‘Where are they now?’ series in the 29 January 2026 print edition of Cycling Weekly magazine \u2013 available to buy on the newsstand every Thursday (UK only) while digital versions are available on Apple News<\/a> and Readly<\/a>. Subscriptions through Magazine’s Direct<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shirley Hockridge picks me up from Kettering station in a Toyota SUV with no middle seat. She\u2019s removed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-468243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}