Russ Mantle, the Million Mile cyclist
Mon, November 11, 2019 
This past week Russ Mantle an 82-year-old English cyclist completed a million miles on his bike. Russ started cycling in 1952, that is 67 years, averaging 14,925 miles a year, 287 miles per week.
His achievement reminded me when I started cycling about the same time. The British “Cycling” weekly magazine, at the beginning of each year would print a mileage chart that you could save and create a graph of your weekly mileage throughout the year.
At the end of each year Cycling Magazine would publish some of the reader’s charts, along with any stories about specific rides that year. How did one measure mileage back then, you might ask? In the 1930s, Joseph Lucas, a company that made bicycle lights and automobile electronics, made a little mechanical mileage counter, called a “Cyclometer.” (See magazine ad below from 1936.)
A simple inexpensive little device, costing 3 shillings and 6 pence, in 1936. About 17.5 UK Pence in today’s money. 22 cents US. It attached to the front wheel spindle on the right side, and it was easy to glance down and read your mileage as you rode. It had a little pin that attached to a spoke, so it struck a five-point star-wheel each wheel revolution. Thus, five-wheel revolutions turned the star wheel one complete turn.
It was calibrated to measure miles and tenths of a mile with a standard 27-inch wheel. If one wanted to be super accurate, you could ride a measured mile, take a reading to calculate the mileage for any size tire.
Its only drawback was, it made an annoying tick, tick sound. I used one when I started cycling but gave it up as I got into riding seriously. The Cylometer disappeared from general use sometime in the 1960s as I remember, and there was not another simple device until the electronic ones appeared some years later.
One can also calculate mileage on a map. British Ordinance Survey maps are extremely accurate, especially the larger scale one inch to the mile, which mark detail like field gates and old growth trees. I was never into keeping accurate records of my mileage, and there were long periods when I was too busy running a business to even ride a bike.
Russ Mantle however, kept meticulous records of not only his mileage but towns he went through and cafes he stopped at. On occasions, he even recorded the temperature and wind direction. He rode time trials with success and toured extensively in the UK and in Europe, USA and Canada.
It must be nice to read through his old notes and remember some of those rides in detail that would otherwise be long forgotten. What a tremendous sense of achievement to travel a million miles under your own power. All done for the simple joy of riding a bike. Only another true cyclist could understand and appreciate the enormity of such a feat.
I read a few online comments made by sceptics like “If it didn’t happen on Strada, it didn’t happen.” Back in 1952 when you sent your yearly mileage chart off to Cycling magazine, there was no glory, No one even read your name, let alone remember it. No one gave it a thumbs up, or “Liked” it.
You did it for your own personal satisfaction, and where is the personal satisfaction if you lie or cheat? It is a sad world when we have become so desensitized by corruption, and lying, we can’t allow an 82-year-old man to share his moment of glory in attaining a lifetime achievement, without saying “Prove It.”
Hats of to you Russ, I look at your picture at the top of the page and I see a man who looks like he rode a million miles, and that is good enough for me.
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Reader Comments (12)
There's a lovely piece on the BBC website about Mr Mantle. He say's that he'll still be cycling at 100 years of age and hopefully will have reached 2 million miles by then! He has averaged over 14,000 miles a year, big respect to the fella, very inspirational.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-50338617/aldershot-cyclist-russ-mantle-rides-one-million-miles
Great story and on to the next million.
I don't use Strava and use Garmin Connect instead with rides shared only with my wife. Strava is just so much about bragging. I have a friend who cannot do anything on his bike without posting the stats. The other day it was that he was KOM up some hill for his age group. He can't go riding without strapping on a heart rate monitor. How sad is that? My heart is either beating or not. Different motivations, I guess
I had a few cyclometers and may still have one in a box somewhere. The clicking tended to soften with use. I'm not sure the currency conversions above are explained in a way others can understand. 3 shillings and 6 pence is about £9 in today's money (still pretty cheap) and that would be around US$12
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/
SteveP,
So true, it is all about look at me. Sad really, because while bringing the act to more people's attention by bragging, it actually devalues the achievement,
I wasn't allowing for inflation, but stating the actual amount. 20 shillings to a pound or 5p = 1 Shilling or 1/20 of a Pound. Now readers have both comparisons, so thank you.
Dave
We used to track our training mileage using maps, then the electronic stuff came along. I don't bother anymore. I ride for my pleasure the exercise and little else. Strava is kind of like FaceBook. I believe we may have been better off without it.
Aaron
I had a cyclometer of similar design (mid-late 70's ?) but instead of the little star wheel, it had a pulley wheel and another that attached to your spokes with several thin strips of metal. The two wheels were joined with a small rubber belt. Same effect for measuring distance without the annoying click. (a quick internet search indicates that it was perhaps manufactured by sachs-huret, as shown at http://bikelovejones1.blogspot.com/2012/11/on-user-friendly-technology.html?_sm_au_=iWVZs4RZTDkjsZ5HLG66HKHssVTL3 )
I had one of the little star-wheel cyclometers on my Raleigh 3-speed in the 1970s. The pin caused the device to deflect a little bit, and on really fast descents, the pin would come around before it bounced all the way back to position, making for some really loud noises. Nothing horrible ever happened, though. I had my eye on that belt-drive Huret cyclometer, but it was not in my budget, and belts can be fussy. At some point (late '70s?), someone made a performance-oriented version of the cable-driven speedometers usually associated with Schwinn Stingrays, but 40 years later, I do not recall the manufacturer, and of course it was displaced by the much superior electronic versions.
In more recent times, I thought I was a geek for writing down my mileage. I did not anticipate Strava-mania, which still seems strange to me.
I like his bike! Old school all the way. He managed all those miles without clip less pedals, index shifting or even aero brake levers! Too late today but tomorrow I'll get some Guinness and raise a Toast!
I remember those mileometers from primary school. Some 10 year-old kids would boast about having clocked up thousands of miles, even though they just cycled round their housing estates. At a distance of 40-odd years, I now suspect their dads simply connected the mileometer to an electric drill… (Or am I being too cynical?)
Had one on me boik for years, drove me bonkers.But seemed to work. I figure that over the 70 plus years I have been riding I have done about 400 thousand miles no were near what Russ has done. Dave you must be up around that by now also I would think, I have done 4k this year down a lot from previous.
Wait, was that the same Joseph Lucas that is known as the inventor of the short circuit? There are lots of jokes like "Lucas headlights have three settings: DIM, FLICKER, and OFF", "Lucas wipers have the intermitent setting in the ON position".
Jokes aside, it's amazing Mr. Mantle had the discipline to keep track of every ride all this time. And to think he did it just for fun!
Way to go! So inspiring! I'm way too far behind to hope to make a million, but I hope at 82 I'm still riding like him.
Tried to pause that BBC video to analyze some closeups of his bikes.
At about 29s there's a decent closeup that shows an apparently non-professionally painted lugged steel frame, and hand-lettered 'HOLDSWORTH'. 'Socks' on the forks, as well as a right-fork lamp-mount (I have a Falcon from my dad with that same mount). Very small crankset, looks almost like just a single, but there's still a downtube shifter with a cable, so maybe that's a granny ring I can't quite see in there. Vintage pump, fenders. Clips and straps.
Then it pans to a 2nd bike, white with light blue accents. That's the bike he's riding near the end, about 1:37, can't get a good look at it. And then it pans left and a 3rd bike is seen, is that silver or stainless or titanium?
Rick,
I had one of those mileage/kilometerage counters: as I recall, it felt sophisticated 'cos it had a total distance display *and* a daily display that could be reset easily. Plus nifty looking red highlighted tenths of miles/kilometres. My memory is that they were indeed made by Huret.
BTW, I'd be interested to know Mr Mantle's Eddington number ("the greatest number of days that you've ridden that distance … if you've managed 30 or more 30-mile days, then your number is 30" John Swindells, https://swinny.net/Cycling/-4687-Calculate-your-Eddington-Number).
Strava is a pernicious app, however, if you link it to a site called veloviewer.com you can calculate not only your Eddington number but also get an "Explorer score" which roughly speaking shows how many squares of c.4 sq km you have cycled through. It's arbitrary & silly, but so long as you don't get caught up in competing to see who can get the most or most adjacent squares, it's a good way of seeing how far afield you go and encouraging yourself to try new routes. I imagine Mr Mantle has filled in many a square! Of course, the best fun is when you just get lost all by yourself.