Records
He broke his first record on Easter Monday 1925, when he won the Etna 50-mile (80 km) time trial on the Bath Road course in 2h 8m 31s, beating the record by five minutes. He followed this by breaking the one-hour record at Herne Hill Velodrome on 26 May by almost 1400 yards to record 25 miles 1520 yards.
He then improved the 50-mile record in the same event the following year and broke the world amateur hour record with 26 miles and 838 yards at Herne Hill in June 1926. Southall was selected by the National Cyclists' Union to represent Britain at the 1926 world road race championship, where he finished eighth.
In 1927, Southall again broke the 50-mile (80 km) record in the Etna event, recording 2h 5m 7s. On 24 July, he broke the RRA London-Brighton and back record by 13 minutes, with 4h 53m 20s.
On 5 August 1928 in Amsterdam, with Harry Wyld, Percy Wyld and Leonard Wyld, he broke the team pursuit Olympic record in 5:01.6, beating the previous record by 9.2 seconds. They were only the third team to hold the record since it began on 10 August 1920. It was broken by 10.2 seconds next day before standing for nearly eight years.
In 1930, Southall finished seventh in the world road race championship (an individual time trial in Denmark) and broke the national 100-mile (160 km) time trial record with 4h 32m 46s.
In 1933, Southall and Stan Butler rode the Oak Tandem 100, winning in 4h 1m 3s, beating the record by two minutes. Southall now held six single and tandem competition records (25, 50 and 100 miles (160 km) single and 30, 50 and 100 miles (160 km) tandem).
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