Chris Boardman describes 'horrible irony' of his cycling-enthusiast mum's bike death
Olympic cyclist Chris Boardman has spoken about the "horrible irony" of his mother's death in a bike accident as he called for safer cycling routes across Britain.
Carol Boardman died in July after being knocked off her bike in a collision with a car in North Wales.
Speaking on ITV's Good Morning Britain, Boardman paid tribute to the lifelong cycling enthusiast.
"She cycled since her early teens all the way through to her 70s," he said. "She rode a bike more than I did, actually."
Boardman added: "She used it for transport to get around the local village and was out exploring in North Wales when she was hit by a car.
"It's a horrible, horrible irony that it's one of the things that I feel passionately about. It's just a great form of transport."
Boardman, who won individual pursuit gold at the 1992 Barcelona Games before performing annual heroics at the Tour de France, is fronting a campaign to encourage more people to cycle to work.
The father-of-six said safer routes are needed to help establish cycling as a preferred mode of transport, citing the Netherlands where he said more than half of the nation's children ride to school.
Boardman said he wanted to see cycling become "normal people in normal clothes doing normal things" as people remembered the "freedom" of riding a bike.
"Those new people who don't ride a bike now will only ride to the shops (or) ride to work if you give them safe space to do it," he said.