Tom Simpson Print, Vintage Cycling Poster, UK Retro Wall Art, Sports Gift, Black and White Sports Print

TOM SIMPSON — a LostTeams editorial print telling the existing story of Tom Simpson, 1962-1967.

Before Tom Simpson, British professional cycling on the continent barely existed. He went to France in 1959 with almost nothing, learned the language, learned the politics of the peloton, and won.

He wore the yellow jersey in 1962, the first Briton ever to do so. He won the Tour of Flanders, Milan to San Remo, the Giro di Lombardia and Paris to Nice. In 1965 he became world champion, and was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year, which tells you how far outside the national frame of reference he had gone.

In London he was photographed in a bowler hat with a rolled umbrella, playing the English gentleman for the continental press. It was a performance and he enjoyed it.

In 1962 he finished sixth overall at the Tour and held the yellow jersey for a day. He was riding for the British national team in 1967, under the format that ran national squads rather than trade teams, with a group of riders who mostly had far less continental experience than he did.

On 13 July 1967 the Tour crossed Mont Ventoux in temperatures above forty degrees. Simpson was thirteenth overall and needed to attack.

He went with the leaders, then began to weave across the road about a mile from the summit. He fell. Spectators put him back on the bike, at his own insistence, and he rode a few hundred metres more before falling again.

He died on the mountain. He was twenty-nine.

The autopsy found amphetamines in his system and tubes of them in the pockets of his jersey. Heat, dehydration and alcohol taken during the stage were all contributory.

The honest account is that Simpson was doing what a large part of the peloton did in 1967, that the sport knew it, and that the consequence became visible on one mountain on one afternoon. Drug testing began at the Tour the following year.

A granite memorial stands where he fell. Riders who climb the Ventoux stop and leave bottles, caps and gels on it, which is a strange kind of tribute and the one that has lasted.

Hang it. One day someone will ask you what it is, and you will know where to begin.