The third annual Keighley Festival of Cycling Weekend took place over the weekend of the 4th and 5th of October 1969. It was staged in Victoria Park and was organised by the Keighley & Craven Cycling Association. It included criterium racing, cyclo-cross and the notorious Thwaites Brow hill climb. Riders came from all around the UK to compete.
From the programme for Saturday: “At 5.00 pm, the second annual Thwaites Brow Hill Climb will be promoted by Keighley Velo R. C. (under R. T. T. C. rules) on the dreaded, cobbled, Thwaites ‘wall’. The start is at Thwaites, Worth Village, Keighley (1/2 mile from Victoria Park) and the finish is at Moss Carr, Long Lee, Keighley. Come along and see these boys defying gravity!!”
Across the weekend, amateur riders from Keighley included C. Grayson, D. Tate, J. Cuthbert, D. Horsman, A. Knowles, G. Fox and J. Wray from Keighley Velo, P. Kennedy, J. Holmes, G. Halls, T. McDonald and P. Loftus from Keighley St. Christopher’s C. C.
The programme for the event was loaned to the History Society for scanning by Derek Bown in 2020. The full programme is available to view on the History Society’s Flickr site.
