Simpson vs the World

Sixty years ago, Tom Simpson became the first British rider to win the Men's World Championships Road Race. It was the crowning moment for a man who six years previously had crossed the English Channel in search of cycling success

- Words Giles Belbin

On 22nd November 1954, a 16-year-old cyclist from Harworth, Yorkshire, wrote a letter to Charles Pélissier, a great of French cycling and multiple Tour stage winner. The ambitious young rider was seeking advice for the 1955 season.

‘I have raced on the track and also massed start road races, competing in between in time-trials,’ he wrote. ‘I would like to know if you think it is advisable to compete in so many different events and what type of training I should do. What do you think is the greatest mileage I should race? I have been told that if I race often I will burn myself out and will be no good when I get older, do you think this is true? Yours in Sport, Thomas Simpson, Harworth & Dist CC.’

Much would soon change for the Tom Simpson who penned those words. Born into a mining family in County Durham, the Simpson family later moved to Harworth, where Tom discovered cycling. The ‘four-stone Coppi’ was quickly serious about his craft and set about educating himself on training techniques, learning about riders beyond Britain.

He proved to be a talented racer and, after medalling on the track at the 1956 Olympics and the 1958 Commonwealth Games, he set his sights on Europe’s road racing scene.

In April 1959, with £100 borrowed from the director of Carlton Cycles, two bikes and a spare set of wheels, Simpson boarded a bus. ‘Twenty-four hours later he’s in Saint-Brieuc in Brittany,’ Simpson's nephew, journalist Chris Sidwells, tells Cyclist.

Simpson quickly prospered in France - ‘By the end of the month he’d won enough to pay the £100 loan back,’ says Sidwells - and in June 1959 he signed for Saint-Raphaël. He made his mark in 1960 when he struck out alone with 45km remaining in Paris-Roubaix.

‘I thought it was 40km to go [when I attacked],’ Simpson would tell French TV reporter Robert Chapatte. ‘I thought, “I'm very good for 40km.”’