Education
He finished third in the Anerley 12-hour time-trial.
bicycle racer association football player
He finished third in the Anerley 12-hour time-trial.
Davey originally played football. He also tried athletics. At 17 he came third in a 12-mile walk promoted by tradesmen in Addiscombe, Surrey.
He competed for East Surrey Harriers.
In 1910. he joined the Vegetarian Cycling and Athletic Club, moving to the Addiscombe Central Committee, a club he founded in 1906. In 1911. That qualified him to ride for Britain in the 1912 Olympic Games road race in Stockholm.
The race was run over 200 miles around lake Mälaren. The organisation was chaotic, riders bunching together instead of being separated, cars impeding the competitors and errors in the time-keeping.
War interrupted his career and he became a petty officer in the Royal Naval Air Service, forerunner of the Royal Air Force.
He was stationed in the Orkney Islands, where he swam two miles to a buoy in Scapa Flow and back again. He was selected for the Olympic Games in Antwerp as a reserve. He waited until the complete team had arrived at the ferry port in Harwich, then rode the Anerley 12-hour to finish second to Maurice Selbach.
His best year was 1921, the year of the first cycling world road race championship.
Davey was 34. Britain ran the world championship in 1922, again run as a time trial, in Shropshire. Davey turned professional the following year for the New Hudson bicycle company.
He beat the Land"s End to London record by 1hr 55m, then the 24-hour record with 402 miles and Land"s End to London again in 17h 29m. He went to Paris to ride the Bol d"Or marathon race on the Buffalo velodrome.
Davey"s last year was when he was 40.
He beat the London to Portsmouth and back record by 12 minutes and set the London to Bath and back record at 11h 47m 52s. In retirement he managed other riders" record attempts and arranged or scheduled many rides between 1926 and 1960. Addiscombe Cycling Club gave him a gold-plated spanner in 1959 for his work for the club
He was celebrated in Golden Book of Cycling in 1959.