Long Sutton man Frederick Osmond was early champion of cycling

It is not unusual when out and about on the roads of south-east Lincolnshire to come across a group of cyclists clad in their lycra and streamlined helmets riding swiftly along our country lanes.

The earliest cycles appeared in the early years of the 19th Century but it was not until the 1860s until the first commercially successful design emerged – the ‘bone-shaker’!

The 1870s and 1880s saw the introduction first of the high-wheel bicycle – the Penny Farthing – and then the ‘safety bicycle’, the forerunner of today’s designs.

A Long Sutton child of this time was one Frederick John Osmond, who was born in the town in 1867, a year before the first ever cycling race was held – in Paris. Osmond was to become a cycling man through and through taking on and dominating this new sport and later manufacturing bicycles under his own name.

A local resident recently brought this bit of unknown local history to our attention when she came across an article in a motorcycle enthusiasts publication referring to a couple of unusual motorised bicycles manufactured by the Osmond Cycle company of Birmingham.

Frederick John Osmond was the managing director and works manager of the firm, which employed about 120 people.

Osmond trained as an engineer joining the institute of Mechanical Engineers as a junior draughtsman in 1888. Three years later, he joined the Whitworth Company in Birmingham as manager of the cycle department. In 1894, after apparently being demoted to make way for the owner’s son he left and set up his own company with his brother Ernest.

By now the name Osmond would have been legendary amongst the growing numbers of bicycling enthusiast, no doubt contributing to sales. Osmond had started cycling competitively this the age of 19 in 1886, winning his first major title on a tricycle the following year.

By 1890, now on two wheels, he dominated the one-, five-, 25- and 50- mile championships. Osmond also held the record for the quickest mile for a while.

In a magazine article of 1895, it is suggested that he was a…’cycling lion’ and..’will be the greatest English amateur racing cyclist ever’.

Modern day (professional) cycling champions with their high tech racers, clothing and training regimes have pushed the distance that can be travelled in an hour on a track to 55.5km or more. FJ managed 36,167km in 1891 holding the record for a year.

He is also credited with holding the record for distance travelled in an hour on a penny farthing – some 21 miles 180 yards (33.97km). This record held for 127 years, finally falling to Mark Beaumont in 2018 on a modern machine.

So the celebrated amateur sportsman, Frederick, went into business with his brother Ernest as Osmond Cycles in Birmingham manufacturing pedalled bicycles, light motorised bicycles and a two-seater 3.5hp motor car.

Sadly, the Osmond brothers did not go on to be giants of manufacturing, their business being bought out in 1911, though the Osmond name continued in the business until the late 1920s.