At the end of June, it’s 70 years since Brian Robinson rode his second Tour de France. His first was 1956, the first for any British riders. Robinson was one of the 2 Great Britain team’s finishers; the other, Tony Hoar was 69th overall. He was the last rider out of 130 starters, but Robinson was a whole lot better in 29th.
He could do it, but season 2 in Europe got off to a shaky start. “I must have made some impression in 1955 because I received 30 contracts for post-Tour criteriums, but once they ended I had nowhere to live so I came home,” Robinson told Chris Sidwells during one of their many conversations.
“I didn’t have a team for 1956, but I was determined to go back, so I sold my car and contacted a rider manager called Raymond Louviot. He got me in the Tour of Spain, which started in April then, with Hugo Koblet’s team.
I ended up 8th overall, the team’s best rider, and Koblet didn’t finish. They signed me up again for the Tour of Switzerland, and I did well enough there to get a full contract with the St Raphael team. That was it, I was in.”
St Raphael was one of the best, but Robinson was still living in a caravan. “It was a good caravan though; we parked it just behind Nice. My wife was with me, although she came home when I did the Tour de France. It was a nice place to live; we thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Robinson rode the 1956 Tour with a mixed team of riders from different countries, so it was no team at all really. But everyone for themselves is an environment in which intelligent, self-contained riders like Robinson can flourish; he finished 14th overall.
“I went back to France in January 1957, and that’s when I beat Louison Bobet to win my first big pro race, the GP de Nice. A few weeks later I was 3rd in Milan-San Remo.”
Brian Robinson was the first British rider to mount the podium of a monument, the first Brit to make it to the top echelons of European racing, and in 1958 the first to win a stage in the Tour de France. He will always be remembered as the number 1 British cycling pioneer.
Photo - Chris Auld
