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Barry Hoban in 1970 - Colorsport/Shutterstock
Barry Hoban, who has died aged 85, was, until Mark Cavendish sprinted into view, Britain’s record Tour de France cyclist, winning eight stages between 1967 and 1975; he also took two stages of the Tour’s Spanish equivalent, the Vuelta a España, and remains the only British winner of the one-day Classic, the Gent-Wevelgem.
He finished 11 Tours out of 12, a British record that was only surpassed last year by the Welshman Geraint Thomas when he completed his 12th. Hoban was also the first Briton to win two stages at one Tour, a feat later emulated by Cavendish and Thomas.
Hoban’s first stage victory in the Tour de France, in 1967, came in emotional – and somewhat controversial – circumstances. The previous day Tom Simpson, his compatriot, friend and rival, had collapsed and died on Mont Ventoux, and out of respect the peloton decided to give the next day’s stage win to a British rider – Vin Denson, according to most accounts.
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Hoban at the 1965 World Road Championships with, left, the Australian Neville Veale, and Tom Simpson - Smith Archive/Alamy
As the uncontested stage reached its conclusion at Sète, however, Hoban – inadvertently, he later insisted – found himself out in front, and assumed that it had been left to him to cross the line first, which he did, in tears.
Years later, Denson recalled to William Fotheringham in the book Roule Britannia: “Suddenly Barry went from behind, [the Frenchman Jean] Stablinski came crashing up and said, ‘Get him back, get him back, this is not what we want.’ I said [chasing him down] would be like fighting for someone’s gold ring after they had died, and we would be the laughing stock of the press.”
But given his closeness to Simpson it seemed entirely appropriate for Hoban to take the win, and in the post-Tour criteriums – a series of short races that allow the Tour riders to show off and make a bit of extra money – Hoban felt he was carrying the Simpson torch. In 1969 he married Simpson’s widow, Helen.
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Hoban on his way to a stage victory in the Tour de France in 1967, the day after Tom Simpson’s death on Mont Ventoux - AFP via Getty Images
Barry Hoban was born into a Catholic mining family in Wakefield on February 5 1940; the family soon moved to nearby Stanley. His father Paddy, a miner, had been an amateur racer, and young Barry recalled watching a stage of the 1954 Tour of Britain which passed by the family home.
That year he began his own career with the local Calder Clarion club and began his rise through the amateur ranks, soon inspired by the exploits of Simpson, who was two and a half years older. He competed in the team pursuit at the 1960 Rome Olympics, then in 1962, aged 22, he moved with another rider, Bernard Burns, to Lapugnoy in northern France and gave himself two years to make the grade as a professional.
Thanks in part to his rapidly developing sprinting prowess, in those two years he won 35 races with the Mercier team, including a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir (“Tour of the Future”), for up-and-coming riders, and in 1964 they duly gave him a pro contract as a domestique in the service of the team leader, the great Frenchman Raymond Poulidor.
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Hoban on the road at Plymouth during the second stage of the 1974 Tour de France, which began in Britain - PA/Alamy
A perfectionist who prepared meticulously, Hoban made a splash in his very first season, winning two stages of the Vuelta a España on successive days, but despite also coming close to winning a Tour stage that season, over the next couple of years he came to feel overlooked by the team’s mercurial manager, Antonin Magne, who refused to pick him for the Tour team again.
He got his chance in 1967, when the Tour was raced by national outfits rather than trade teams, and had his moment at Sète.
Understandably, he did not consider that to be a “real” victory, but that came in the following year’s Tour, when he had a masterly victory in the Alps at Sallanches, riding solo for 75 miles over three mountain passes. His cash prize was augmented by the presentation of Estelle the cow: he asked the organisers to sell her and give him the money, but he did keep her collar and bell.
In 1969 he pulled off the rare feat of winning two Tour stages in a row, but Magne remained unimpressed and sacked Hoban when he defied his orders by taking part in a track race. He rode for the Sonilor team for two seasons, then returned to Mercier when Magne departed.
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Hoban at Montpellier after winning stage 13 of the 1974 Tour de France - PA/Alamy
His peerless race management brought the nickname “the Grey Fox” later in his career. In 1972 he finished third in the daunting Paris-Roubaix – “the Hell of the North” – a British achievement matched only by Roger Hammond in 2004, and there would be four more Tour stage victories.
In the 1973 Tour he won twice, then in 1974 he had one of his best years. He took the Tour stage into Montpellier, as well as beating Roger De Vlaeminck and the great Eddy Merckx in a sprint finish to win the Gent-Wevelgem and taking the points classification in the Grand Prix du Midi Libre stage race (in which he finished second overall).
His final Tour win came in 1975 at the velodrome in Bordeaux, and he carried on racing, unusually, into his late thirties. In retirement he applied for the job of British Cycling’s national coach, but was turned down. He moved from Belgium to mid-Wales to run a bicycle factory.
Barry Hoban is survived by his wife Helen, by their daughter and by two stepdaughters.
Barry Hoban, born April 5 1940, died April 19 2025
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