Still Pedalling

Brian Robinson, recipient of our first Lifetime Achievement award, talks through the highs and lows of an extraordinary career

“I wasn’t a great champion but I was a bloody good bike rider,” says Britain’s first ever Tour de France finisher Brian Robinson when we ask him to summarise his extraordinary career. It’s the only time in our half-hour conversation that the amiable and humble Yorkshireman really bigs up his own reputation.

At the age of 88, Robinson cuts the figure of someone at ease with himself and not in the least bit starry-eyed about his achievements in the sport, which are numerous. Most notably, he was the the first Brit to finish the Tour in 1955, finishing a respectable 26th. After a return to the UK over the winter, he went back to Europe the next year and bagged a top-10 position at the Vuelta a España. The year after that he stood on the podium at Milan-San Remo. He then went on to win a stage of the Tour in 1958 and then another the following year.

Perhaps even more impressively he won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 1961, in a somewhat unlikely manner. “We had the jersey and I was on police duty protecting it. I sat on the back of these guys that had gone off the front until about halfway through until the director came through and said you can work, we’re gaining time. And we got a lot of time, about nine minutes; they never saw me again.”— he was building his reputation then, he was a time triallist. It’s a feather in my cap.”