Career
He was inducted into Canada"s Sports Hall of Fame in 1955 and the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 1966. As a youth, Peden was a natural athlete, participating in several sports, and was nationally ranked in swimming. He took up bicycle racing in 1925 and trained intensively for the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.
He was selected for the Canadian team and competed in three Olympic events.
Afterward, he remained in Europe to join the cycling circuit. In 1929, he returned to Canada.
After winning five titles at the indoor Canadian championships in Montreal, he turned professional. He discovered and excelled at six-day racing.
During the Great Depression, the sport was cheap for spectators and very popular.
In 1932, he set a record that still stands: 10 victories. He also coached the 1932 national cycling team and the 1936 track team He was a showman, popular with the fans.
He would grab a scarf or hat from a spectator and ride around with it for a few laps before returning it to its owner.
The redhead acquired the nickname "Torchy" when a journalist described him as a "flame-haired youth leading the pack like a torch". He was rumoured to have earned $50,000 a year, an enormous sum at the time.
(Foreign comparison, Babe Ruth made $80,000 in 1930)
During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He participated in his last six-day race in 1942 and his last professional cycling race in 1948.
He moved to the United States in the 1950s and opened a sporting goods store.