Vin Denson

Vincent Denson (born 24 November 1935) is a former professional racing cyclist who rode the Tour de France, won a stage of the Giro d'Italia and won the Tour of Luxembourg in the 1960s.

He was a team-mate of Rik Van Looy and of Jacques Anquetil and, in the Tour de France, of Tom Simpson.

He was the first British rider to win a stage of the Giro, before finishing 40th overall.

Denson was born in Chester, England.

He had his first bike at 12, a black Hercules Falcon borrowed from his brother and with wooden blocks fitted to the pedals to make it smaller.

He began riding to Helsby Hill, Rhyl and Prestatyn and went youth-hostelling.

At 17 he joined Chester Road Club, initially for touring but then to race.

He was inspired by his French teacher at school, who had lived in France, whose hero was Jean Robic and who gave his class Miroir du Cyclisme to study.

Denson's first race was an evening 25-mile time-trial, which he finished in 1h 4 m 30s.

He said:

My best memories of those days are of the club runs in Cheshire and Wales – loading someone's saddlebag with horseshoes at the Bangor-on-Dee blacksmith's, fording rivers then lighting fires round which we singed our socks and shrivelled our shoes; riding out to races on Saturday afternoons through busy Liverpool and getting digs on say the L1 or L6, then going to the Green Man [pub] for a singsong pint.

Those early racing days were often pretty boozy but we were all as keen as mustard and trained and raced hard so that alcohol consumed the night before was quickly eliminated the next day.

Denson finished four times in the top 12 of the British Best All-Rounder competition, which aggregates rides over 50 and 100 miles and 12 hours.

He came seventh in the Milk Race in 1959 and fifth in 1960.

He finished the Peace Race of 1960 and 1961 in 17th and 27th.

The Peace Race, which linked Berlin, Warsaw and Prague was run over roads often still wrecked from the Second World War.

It was always keenly contested by riders from the communist bloc.

Denson said:

The lessons I learned from those Peace Races [included] learning how to avoid hitting heaps of fallen riders... I was leading one charge down one side of the tram lines and looking across I saw Ken Hill leading the other.

Suddenly we merged into one group as we flashed down a narrow street and into the tunnel entrance to the track.

I kept well to the left, so as to ride as straight as possible, but Covens, the Belgian, decided to chop the corner and pip me for the lead.

His speed on the loose shale spun the back of the bike round and took my front wheel.

I remember folding my bike up and taking a few inches off the top of a concrete post.

I finished, running round the track, carrying my bike and a sore head, nearly two minutes down on the winner – Covens!

Then, when my wounds were healing nicely, on the eighth stage, in Poland, dozens of riders fell in front of me at a tramway junction where the lines seemed to go in all directions.

I rode up on to a heap of men and bikes, it seemed like four feet high, and then down the other side intact.

My wheel disintegrated into a dozen pieces, my forks dug into the cobbles and I was ejected like a jet pilot at 30mph.

Denson failed to make the British team for the Olympic Games and took out a licence as an independent, or semi-professional, for Temple Cycles in 1961.

He and three other riders, Ken Laidlaw, Stan Brittain and Sean Ryan, moved to Donzenac, near Brive.

Denson rode for Britain in the 1961 Tour de France, which was for national teams.

Only three of the team – Laidlaw, Brian Robinson and Seamus Elliott got to the finish.

Denson dropped out on the col de la République, also known as the col du Grand Bois, outside St-Étienne.

Denson returned to York, where he and his wife, Vi, were buying a house.

In March 1962 they decided to return to France, travelling to Paris and then to Troyes, where Denson joined the UVC Aube club, sponsored by Frimatic.

He was paid £24 a month.

He won the GP Frimatic by four minutes and then the eight-day Vuelta Bidasoa, in Spain.

He won a stage of a professional race, the Circuit d'Aquitaine in France and came sixth in the Grand Prix des Nations despite being led off course and twice losing his chain.

Of his Circuit of Aquitaine ride, he said:

On the second stage I was away with Baldassaroni, the independent champion of France, and one other, and I could see that [professional] contract waiting for me.

Baldassaroni told me it was all right, he wouldn't be contesting the sprint, and maybe he genuinely meant it, but I said to myself 'I've heard that one before', and on the final hill I jumped away – and stripped my sprocket.