Celebrating the Tour of Britain 1945 - 2021

As the Tour of Britain continues north to the Aberdeen finish in Scotland this Sunday, time to look back at the early turbulent years which spawned Britain’s premier cycle race. 

We have a bunch of rebels to thank for creating Britain’s tour, the British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) in the post-war years. The BLRC were a breakaway group defying the National body, the National Cyclists Union, by promoting road races on public roads. 

Racing was confined to time trials and track, although closed circuit road racing was permitted.

The NCU remained venomously opposed to this form of racing on public roads, which was so popular on the European continent. It would lead to conflict with the authorities, they feared, ignoring the fact that the BLRC had sought and gained police permission.

Nevertheless, the reactionary NCU tried all the tricks in the book to stop road racing until brought to heel by the international cycling union, the UCI who backed the rebels. In the beginning, the first Tour was the Brighton to Glasgow in 1945 - named the “Victory Marathon”, to celebrate the end of the War.

In the following years the Tour was sponsored by the Sporting Record, then most famously by the Daily Express. In 1954 it was the Quaker Oats tour. In 1958, it became the Milk Race, the longest running sponsorship in UK cycling history, lasting until 1993. 

All of this can directly be attributed to the BLRC, who handed the Milk Race on a plate to the British Cycling Federation formed in 1959, when the warring factions of the BLRC and NCU were forced to amalgamate to bring stability to the sport. 

During the final years of the Milk Race it overlapped with the new week long Kellogg’s pro tour (1987-94); this became the Prutour 1998-99. 

After a five-year break the Tour bounced back again in 2004, organised by Sweetspot, the current organisers. It began as a five-day and is now run in an eight-day format. 

Here are some of the famous home names who carried off victory. Scotsman Ian Steele won in 1951. 

He was followed by Ken Russell (1952), Gordon Thomas (1953) and Tony Hewson (1955). Party pooper who interrupted the party was France’s Eugene Tamburlini who won in 1954. As the Milk Race Bill Bradley won it twice, 1959 and 1960; Bill Holmes won it in 1961; Peter Chisman in 1963; Arthur Metcalfe in 1964; Les West in 1965 and ’67; Bill Nickson in 1976; Joey McLoughlin in 1986; Malcolm Elliott in 1987; Chris Walker in 1991; and Chris Lillywhite the final Milk Race in 1993.

 (Thanks to John Oxnard for the above details, provided for the Milk Race Reunion he organised in 2005). 

The Dutch won the Milk Race five times between 1969 and 1974, their Fedor Den Hertog winning twice. He made life a misery for the rest by setting such a high tempo whenever he hogged the front the acceleration killed off any conversation.

The Soviet Union became equally as dominant, and Poland and Czechoslovakia also took the laurels. The Milk Race was the big showcase race for the home riders. As well as the GB team fielding the best, there would be Wales, Scotland, while the Regions fielded the second best, giving youngsters a taste of the big time. In the mid-1960s very few police were involved and those who were had limited powers – there was no formal road closure order available back then. 

It took a death to prompt a police safety review of cycle road racing. The poor soul who died was Czech Zdenek Kramolis who was killed when he hit a lorry head on in the 1969 Milk Race. 

In the early days of the Milk Race there was no national escort group, and each police region the race past through provided only a few police to shepherd the race. Usually two of them. They had very little understanding of how fast a road race moves. Just as they were getting the hang of it, they’d reach the border of their region and hand over to new guys – who very often were new to this game, too. 

Riders could never sure if oncoming traffic would slow down, still less, stop for the race, and riders were instructed to keep to the left side of the carriageway, as per the Highway Code. There were static police at junctions to make the sure the race sped on its way. In theory! 

But one such officer, noting the race organiser’s car approaching from the slip road, put up his hand to hold the race while he cleared on-coming traffic from the main route! Phil Liggett, the race organiser driving the lead car, had a breakaway group up his bumper doing 35mph. He wasn’t about to stop. “Don’t stop me, Officer. Stop the traffic,” Ligs voice commanded over the PA. “I’m coming through.”

 And to the astonishment of the officer, Lig drove straight past him, followed seconds later by a breakaway group going full gas! At the stage finish a little later, Milk Race Controller Bill Squance tore a strip of the police inspector in charge of that section. It wouldn’t happen again, he was assured. 

Some of the police were more helpful than others. But then there was the Wrexham Kid in, er Wrexham!  His idea of control was to place his motorbike hard up alongside the peloton, making sure their wheels stayed on the left-side of the white line in the centre of the road! 

Policing improved dramatically in the 1980s, when Traffic Inspector Andy Relf of West Sussex was appointed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to improve police planning for the national cycle racing scene. Relf cut his teeth on cycle race policing at the 1982 World Road Race championships at Goodwood, in Sussex. 

And in 1994, he ran the police security for the Tour de France’s two day visit to Southern England. But even with vastly improved police control of the modern Tour, there are still risks. 

In 1998 there was the tragic death of PC Dave Hopkins when escorting the Prutour of Britain. How terrible that a man looking after the safety of others should lose his life doing so. Hopkins was a member of the 35-strong Police National Escort Group which brings oncoming traffic to a halt to allow the race through using both sides of the road. He received fatal injuries when in collision with a car 35 miles into stage five from Birmingham to Cardiff. An experienced motorcycle escort rider, he worked on cycling events and royal visits. The stage was cancelled. 

 As we can see, today’s Tour of Britain merits a huge police motorcycle and national (civilian) escort group operating a rolling road closure. 

 The one niggling doubt I had about safety when I was reporting the Tour of Britain a decade ago concerned the absence of static marshals at many of the side roads. Major and some minor junctions were usually covered but small roads often left exposed. 

I felt static marshals were essential, especially as the race uses the full width of the carriageway, often on the “wrong” side. The race back then relied almost totally on the police and national escort group rolling road closure to halt traffic. Is this the case today? 

I’ve been following the Television coverage and where the cameras have picked up side roads or car parks I have yet to spot a marshal. Am I being alarmist? Some roads were coned off. 

During my years covering the Tour de France I cannot recall seeing one side road without a marshal to hold traffic. And Le Tour is run on totally closed roads, not a rolling road closure. The possible consequences of leaving junctions unguarded doesn’t bare thinking about, with riders going flat out around blind bends! 

High profile winners of the Tour this past decade include Briton’s Bradley Wiggin (2013) and Steve Cummings (2016). Recent Continental stars to win include Mathieu van der Poel (2019) and the current world road race champion Julian Alaphilippe (2018), bidding for to win again this year.