On a still summer’s evening in June 1974, Maurice Burton rode away from an elite field, on the broad concrete loop of Leicester’s Saffron Lane Velodrome, to become Britain’s first ever Black cycling champion. The event was televised; his parents were watching at home. For his Dad, it was a moment of intense pride; Rennal arrived in 1948 from Jamaica and made his home in South London, a member of the Windrush generation. Now he watched as his 18-year old son climbed onto the podium to receive his flowers and the red, white and blue striped national jersey. Boos rang out around the stadium. The crowd’s response to Burton in 1974 was symptomatic of the treatment meted out to him by the cycling establishment and wider society: racism, calculated indifference, and exclusion. This is a vivid account of a life lived to the fullest, in the face of huge challenges.