Cycling Career
Lewis represented Britain in the Tour de l'Avenir and the world championships at San Sebastian. He came 25th, the best British rider, in the Olympic Games road race in Tokyo in 1964.
After racing in France he received offers to join the AC Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris, often a stepping stone to professional teams and especially to Peugeot or to ride for a smaller British team, Mackeson-Condor. The sponsors were a brewing company and a London bicycle shop. He turned pro for £4 per week. Average weekly pay in Britain at the time was about £25. In 1967 he finished the Tour de France 84th and won the national road championship. Mackeson-Condor doubled his pay. In 1968 he won the road championship again, the only rider to win in successive years. He moved to another team, Holdsworth-Campagnolo, in 1969 and stayed there until he retired from professional racing in 1975.
In the 1967 Tour de France, Lewis rode with and shared a room with Tom Simpson, who died during the race while climbing Mont Ventoux. Lewis said:
| “ | "On the climb, I heard that Tom had fallen off about a kilometre from the summit, then I saw a commotion and saw him lying on the ground. I shouted to Alex 'What's up?' but he told me to go on and that everything was all right. I was expecting him to catch me on the descent and that we would work together. I was tucked up in bed after the stage, feeling pretty rough, when I heard the news. Barry (Hoban) came into my room and said 'Tom's dead.' I couldn't believe it, he was so lighthearted before the start." | ” |
The biggest lesson he learned on the Tour was that the ability to suffer for prolonged periods, Lewis said that this was the difference between British and Continental professionals at the time.
Lewis was the last Welshman to ride the Tour de France in 1968 until Geraint Thomas in 2007.
He said British professional racing scene was good but there were too few hard races and too much "chasing round straw bales all the time", a reference to races held up and down straight roads, often on seafronts. Lewis said the promise of development exited with compainies such as Yellow Pages, V&G Insurance and Redifusion sponsoring races, although the deals never lasted long, frequently sending them back to square one looking for new sponsors.
Lewis had 250 victories, 38 professional, including the Golden Wheel Trophy and the Linz am Rhine.
Read more about this topic: Colin Lewis
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