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Robinson rode with the [[Huddersfield]] Road Club at 13 and joined when he reached the club's minimum age the following year. His elder brother, Des, and his father were already members. His father, however, would not let Robinson start racing until he was 18. <ref>Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992</ref> His first race was a hilly 25-mile time-trial in March, which he completed in 1h 14m 50s. His ambition was not to ride against the clock but in massed road races. Opportunities were limited. Views on British [[road bicycle racing|road racing]] were polarised between the [[British League of Racing Cyclists]] which wanted road racing open roads and the [[National Cyclists' Union]] which feared police and public reaction and confined racing to closed circuits.
Robinson rode with the [[Huddersfield]] Road Club at 13 and joined when he reached the club's minimum age the following year. His elder brother, Des, and his father were already members. His father, however, would not let Robinson start racing until he was 18. <ref>Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992</ref> His first race was a hilly 25-mile time-trial in March, which he completed in 1h 14m 50s. His ambition was not to ride against the clock but in massed road races. Opportunities were limited. Views on British [[road bicycle racing|road racing]] were polarised between the [[British League of Racing Cyclists]] which wanted road racing open roads and the [[National Cyclists' Union]] which feared police and public reaction and confined racing to closed circuits.


Robinson was an NCU member<ref>For more details of the civil war, see [[British League of Racing Cyclists]]</ref>. He worked for the family building business, trained before and after work and frequently raced on roads in the park at Sutton Park, [[Birmingham]], where races had to end bfore 9.30am so the public could use it.<ref>Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992</ref> In [[1948]] he went to [[Windsor]] to watch the [[Olympic Games]] road race in [[Windsor Great Park]] "little realising that four years later I would make the next Olympics in [[Helsinki]]". <ref>Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992</ref>
Robinson was an NCU member<ref>For more details of the civil war, see [[British League of Racing Cyclists]]</ref>. He worked for the family building business, trained before and after work and frequently raced on roads in the park at Sutton Park, [[Birmingham]], where races had to end by 9.30am so the public could use it.<ref>Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992</ref> In [[1948]] he went to [[Windsor]] to watch the [[Olympic Games]] road race in [[Windsor Great Park]] "little realising that four years later I would make the next Olympics in [[Helsinki]]". <ref>Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992</ref>


He was fifth in the NCU massed-start championship and third in the [[Cycling Time Trials|Road Time Trials Council]] (RTTC) hill-climb championship in 1950. The following year, he was equal 7th in the Isle of Man International, 10th in the NCU massed-start championship, and second in the RTTC hill-climb championship. In 1952 he was fourth in the NCU title race, won the hill-climb championship, and was fifth in the Isle of Man International.
He was fifth in the NCU massed-start championship and third in the [[Cycling Time Trials|Road Time Trials Council]] (RTTC) hill-climb championship in 1950. The following year, he was equal 7th in the Isle of Man International, 10th in the NCU massed-start championship, and second in the RTTC hill-climb championship. In 1952 he was fourth in the NCU title race, won the hill-climb championship, and was fifth in the Isle of Man International.

Revision as of 09:35, 8 October 2008

For other uses, see Brian Robinson (cyclist) (disambiguation).
Brian Robinson
Personal information
Full nameBrian Robinson
Team information
DisciplineRoad
RoleRider
Major wins
2 stages Tour de France
Dauphiné Libéré (1961)

Brian Robinson (born 3 November 1930[1] Huddersfield, Yorkshire[2]) is an English former road bicycle racer of the 1950s and early 1960s.

He was the first Briton to finish the Tour de France and the first to win a Tour stage. His success as a professional cyclist in mainland Europe paved the way for other Britons such as Tom Simpson and Barry Hoban, and later Robert Millar, Chris Boardman and David Millar.

Background

Robinson's teen years came in the second world war, which began in 1939 when he was eight. His family lived in Ravensthorpe and moved to Mirfield in 1943 Both his parents worked at a factory producing parts for Halifax bombers, Henry at night and Milly by day. The family had a small area of land, known as an allotment, where they kept rabbits and two pigs.[3]. Robinson had a brother, Des, and a sister, Jean.

Career

Early cycling career

Robinson rode with the Huddersfield Road Club at 13 and joined when he reached the club's minimum age the following year. His elder brother, Des, and his father were already members. His father, however, would not let Robinson start racing until he was 18. [4] His first race was a hilly 25-mile time-trial in March, which he completed in 1h 14m 50s. His ambition was not to ride against the clock but in massed road races. Opportunities were limited. Views on British road racing were polarised between the British League of Racing Cyclists which wanted road racing open roads and the National Cyclists' Union which feared police and public reaction and confined racing to closed circuits.

Robinson was an NCU member[5]. He worked for the family building business, trained before and after work and frequently raced on roads in the park at Sutton Park, Birmingham, where races had to end by 9.30am so the public could use it.[6] In 1948 he went to Windsor to watch the Olympic Games road race in Windsor Great Park "little realising that four years later I would make the next Olympics in Helsinki". [7]

He was fifth in the NCU massed-start championship and third in the Road Time Trials Council (RTTC) hill-climb championship in 1950. The following year, he was equal 7th in the Isle of Man International, 10th in the NCU massed-start championship, and second in the RTTC hill-climb championship. In 1952 he was fourth in the NCU title race, won the hill-climb championship, and was fifth in the Isle of Man International.

International experience

In spring 1952 Robinson rode the Route de France, amateur version of the Tour de France, in a joint NCU/Army team. Robinson was at this time doing his National Service. He rode well and was fifth with three days to go, but poor days in the Pyrenees saw him slip to 40th. "I had never seen mountains like that before," he said.

The following August, he represented Great Britain at Helsinki in the Olympic Games road race. Robinson finished 27th, one place behind his brother, to André Noyelle of Belgium. The future Tour de France winner, Jacques Anquetil, was 12th, and Robinson raced against him again in the world cycling championship in Italy in September 1952 where they tied for eighth.

The new professional

In 1953, Robinson left the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and joined the Ellis-Briggs team as an independent, or semi-professional. He rode the Tour of Britain in 1952, wearing the leader’s yellow jersey before finishing fourth. He said: "I came back from the army to turn independent, but it didn't happen until halfway through the season. I really had a sabbatical in the army and I was in effect, a pro. I didn't do anything but just ride a bike. It got me disciplined, which was of benefit later.[8]

The following year, 1954, he improved to second, and second in the mountains competition.

The British cycle industry, fighting in a dwindling market, competed for sales by sponsoring riders. Hercules and BSA had supported long-distance record-breakers when there was no other professional racing on the road and now wanted to have road-racing teams.

I talked to both BSA and Hercules about a pro contract for 1955. Syd Cozens, who represented BSA, said I had to sign there and then or the deal was off. I told him I would probably sign, but next day Hercules put in a better offer so I signed for them, but by the end of the week BSA had folded. Yet, lo and behold, Syd Cozens became team manager for Hercules. He was a bandit. [9]

Robinson said: "Hercules was good. They paid a good wage. It was about twice the average wage a manual worker would get. And of course, they paid all the expenses, so the wage went into the bank. It was solid and good. It was a really good year."[10]

Tour de France

Hercules planned a team that would be the first from Britain to ride the Tour de France, then based on national teams. The riders in its colours grew season by season until in 1955 it had Robinson, Bernard Pusey, Dennis Talbot, Freddy Krebs, Clive Parker, Ken Joy, Arthur Ilsley, Derek Buttle (the founder of the team) and Dave Bedwell. [11] The team raced in France, the Netherlands and Belgium in preparation. Robinson was 8th in Paris-Nice), fourth in La Flèche Wallonne and led the Tour of the Six Provinces to the sixth stage. The eventual Tour team was a mixture of Hercules riders and those from other sponsors.

The Tour de France proved tough and only Robinson and Tony Hoar finished, Robinson 29th and Hoar lanterne rouge or last. They were the first Britons to finish the Tour, 18 years after Charles Holland and Bill Burl were the first Britons in the race in 1937. Robinson said:

Those first Tours were like a small club. You were always coming up against the same riders. We were like racing cars competing against Concorde... I rode like an amateur, attacking three or four times instead of making one big, powerful effort. I was never short of having a go. Three or four years into pro cycling you learn your métier. You become craftier and learn how to read a race. I didn't sleep from start to finish in that first Tour. And with rider after rider going out of the race, the tune of Ten Green Bottles kept passing through my mind. I wondered who would be the next. You just live for another day. You learn little tips, like nipping back to the hotel to get into the bath first, which also means that you get your massage first. The lads who were late would be getting their massage after the meal and at midnight sometimes. [12]

Robinson told Jock Wadley of Sporting Cyclist that it was easy for an English professional to get into the Tour de France in 1955. "Indeed, when it came to selection time there were hardly enough riders available to fill the places." Hercules and other British sponsors dropped their sponsorship at the end of 1955. Robinson, who had married the previous October, set up at the start of 1956 at Les Issambres, the area that Hercules had used for its training the previous year and which was close to the spring criteriums. He and another professional, Bernard Pusey, suffered because the first races were cancelled because of the weather. Robinson said:

When racing did start we both had more than our share of punctures and other troubles. When our rides were trouble-free, we rode well - but did not earn enough money to offset our expenses. At first we were riding unsponsored; then Georges Coupry took us into his newly formed La Perle team; no wages - just the bike and the chance of a bonus in the case of a win. By the time Paris-Roubaix came, my morale was beginning to drop. Expenses were very high and I began to wonder if it were worth carrying on.[13]

In 1956, the Tour allowed mixed teams. Robinson joined a squad which included Charly Gaul. He took third on the first stage, and by the end of the Tour was 14th, Gaul 13th. He also rode the Vuelta a España in Hugo Koblet's Swiss-British team, and was second after the fourth stage. He punctured on a climb on the 10th stage when in a break with Italy's Angelo Conterno, the race winner, but managed to recover from 11th to eighth.

Milan-Sanremo

In 1957 he scored his first professional win, in the GP de la Ville de Nice, beating Louison Bobet by 50 seconds. Then he finished third in Milan-Sanremo to Spain's Miguel Poblet, whose 29th birthday it was.[14] Cycling called it "by far the greatest achievement by a British roadman in a single-day race since the halcyon 19th-century days of George Pilkington Mills and the Bordeaux-Paris It said:

Then into the picture came Robinson. On Capo Berta, with 18 miles to go, he attacked. He failed. He attacked again and failed again. Anyone but a Yorkshire Robinson would probably have called it quits. But he had the strength, and yet again he attacked. This time only two men could go with him, the Belgians Fred De Bruyne and Joseph Planckaert... In the peloton behind only two men saw the danger - or at least could do something about it - Poblet and the young Belgian Julien Schepens... Every observer who knew of Poblet's presence at the head of affairs would have written his name against No. 1 after the descent. But there may have been some erasing power lower down the list, because it was Robinson whose great lack up to now has been a last dash who beat Schepens (a powerful sprinter who beat Louison Bobet in the third stage of Paris-Nice to take a magnificent third place behind De Bruyne. [15]

There was commercial intrigue behind the result, however. Robinson said:

My manager, Raymond Louviot, had a tie-up in the cycle trade with Poblet. He told me that if Poblet was anywhere near me it was my job to get him over the line first. I buggered off up a hill, then my manager came up and told me 'Remember what I told you.' Poblet won, I was third, that is my biggest regret. If I had won I would have been made for life. [16] Poblet was riding one of our bikes. I think my manager was trying to get Poblet into our team. I was never a sprinter, but given the right conditions - I had been enjoying that Milan-Sanremo! Just think what a difference that would have made to my contract![17]

Robinson crashed on wet cobbles early in the 1957 Tour de France, injuring his left wrist. He recovered to finish 15th in the world championship won by Rik van Steenbergen.

First Tour stage win

In 1958, Robinson won stage seven of the Tour de France, to Brest. (Arigo Padovan crossed the line first but was relegated to second for his tactics in a hot sprint), though he retired during the 20th stage. Robinson said:

Ten kilometres from the end of the stage, when the three of us [Robinson, Padovan and Jean Dotto] were 2½ minutes up, I made an attack which, from Padovan's difficult response, proved that my chief opponent was tired... After snaking round the hairpin, I switched from my 52 x 14 to the 16 sprocket. Padovan went over to the left side of the road, hard against the spectators. With the wind coming three-quarters from the right, that was a good move, because it meant I would be forced to come at him from the right and therefore meet some of the wind. But the pace at which he led me out for 250 metres made an absolute sitting duck of himself. Had he been a team-mate, he couldn't have given me a better preparation for the sprint. The last 200 metres of the sprint, though, were anything but chummy!

As I went to make my attack on the right, he went over with me so it was impossible to get by. Then I tried to go by on the left, but in another zig-zag we were over on the left again. With time getting short I tried again on the right. Some newspapers say that I shook hands with Padovan and then protested. That is not so. I did not shake hands, and I only protested on the insistence of several journalist friends. Our team manager, Max Bulla, had already prepared the way for me with the commissaires.[18]

Robinson showed his victory was no fluke by winning the 20th stage (from Annecy to Chalon-sur-Saône) of the 1959 Tour by 20 minutes. Next day paid the price. He trailed far behind the field with his Irish team-mate, Seamus Elliott, beside him. William Fotheringham wrote:

In hot weather, these are some of the toughest roads in France, constantly rising and falling. Elliott remained with Robinson, chivvying him, pacing him, pouring water on his head as the Tour's doctor, Pierre Dumas administered glucose tablets. It was the kind of heroic spectacle the Tour reporters loved. Robinson en perdition ran the next day's headline in L'Équipe, which described Elliott's efforts as "attentions de mère poule" - the solicitousness of a mother hen.[19]

Both finished outside the time limit and expected to be sent home. But the team's manager, Sauveur Ducazeaux, insisted the judges apply a rule that no rider in the first ten could be eliminated.[20] Robinson had started the day ninth: it was Elliott who was sent home. "The mother hen was cooked; the chick avoided the pot", Fotheringham said.

Robinson finished the Tour 19th, having at one time been ninth. That year he helped get his professional Rapha Geminiani team to sign Tom Simpson. Within weeks, he was watching Simpson win two stages of the Tour de l'Ouest.

Robinson finished 26th and 53rd in the Tours of 1960 and 1961. In between he won the 1961 Critérium de Dauphiné Libéré, winning two stages. He was part of the winning team in the team time-trial, then third in the individual time trial at Romans. He won the following day's stage at Villefranche. He kept control of the race as it passed through the mountains and won the race.[21]

Retirement

Robinson retired when he was 33, not having made much money from cycling despite his successes. He said:

I was just fed up with all the travelling. I had three children growing up, and although I was 33 when I retired I felt that my best was still to come. I could have carried on for another couple of years, perhaps more if I was living in France, but there was nothing to keep me in cycling. With hindsight I would have been better off building houses than riding a bike but it was what I wanted to do at the time. The travelling kills it. When you are older you look to the comforts. The time was due to make decisions, but it was not a difficult decision to make. I didn't make a lot of money, and at the finish of each season I could put a 'grand' in the bank, which in those days was the price of a saloon car. I spent a lot of money travelling and subsisting on what I could get. The reason why I rode so many stage races was that you were looked after at no cost to yourself.'[22]

Assessment and later years

The magazine Cycling placed Robinson ninth best British rider of the 20th century.[23] The cycle-parts importer and patron of the sport, Ron Kitching, said:

Brian was a quiet lad, what you might call gentlemanly. He never seemed to be aggressive in any way. He was politeness itself. One might have got the impression that he would never be aggressive enough to be a success, but the potential was obviously there and he did extremely well when he went to race on the Continent. But even so, I don't think the aggression was there to the same extent as with Tiny Thomas, for instance. There was ability without doubt, but not the temperament to be a winner. I think Brian did well on the Continent because, over there, ability shows itself better in the style of riding than in this country [Britain] which is probably more cut and thrust. Some people said that Brian's older brother, Des, was actually the better of the two. I think that Des was more aggressive but the fact remains that it was Brian who went to France and became a major player in races like the Tour de France and, of course, the Dauphiné Libéré, which he won, probably his greatest victory. I believe that given the right set of circumstances, Brian could have won the Tour de France.[24]

Robinson, at 74, helped organise a dinner in August 2005 to mark the 50th anniversary of the first British competitors in the Tour de France. The event aimed to attract all British riders who have raced in the Tour since 1955.

Palmarès

1954
Stage win, Tour d'Europe.
1955
1st Tour of Pennines
1957
1st Grand Prix de Nice, La Forteresse
1958
Tour de France:
Winner stage 7
stage win Tour du Sud-Est
1st pursuit and omnium, de Guecho, with Jacques Anquetil
1959
Tour de France:
Winner stage 20
1960
Stage wins Tour de l'Aude and Midi Libre
1961
1st Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré
Stage win Circuit d'Auvergne

References

  1. ^ http://criterium.ledauphine.com/criterium08/fiche-coureur,robinson-brian,249.html
  2. ^ http://www.velo-club.net/article.php?sid=28274
  3. ^ Fotheringham, William (2005), Roule Britannia, Yellow Jersey, UK
  4. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  5. ^ For more details of the civil war, see British League of Racing Cyclists
  6. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  7. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  8. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  9. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  10. ^ Bill McGann, US, interview 2007
  11. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  12. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  13. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, 1957
  14. ^ Cycling, UK, 28 March 1957, p239
  15. ^ Cycling, UK, 28 March 1957, p239
  16. ^ Cycling, UK, 25 April 1992
  17. ^ Cycle Sport, UK, June 2002
  18. ^ Sporting Cyclist, UK, undated cutting
  19. ^ Fotheringham, William (2005), Roule Britannia, Yellow Jersey, UK
  20. ^ The rule was created in 1926 when a single rider, Lucien Buysse, eliminated the entire field. He finished so far ahead that everyone else was outside the limit. The organiser, Henri Desgrange, extended the day's limit to 40 per cent of the winner's time and ruled that nobody in the first 10 could be eliminated.
  21. ^ http://criterium.ledauphine.com/criterium08/fiche-coureur,robinson-brian,249.html
  22. ^ Cycling, UK, 9 May 1992
  23. ^ Cycle Sport, UK, June 2002
  24. ^ Breckon, Michael (ed) (1993), A Wheel in Two Worlds, privately published, UK

External links

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