Barry Hoban obituary

The Guardian

22-04-2025

Barry Hoban, who has died aged 85, was one of the first generation of British cyclists to make a mark in European professional cycling, a prolific sprint winner whose UK record of eight stage wins in the Tour de France stood for 34 years until the greatest sprinter of them all, Mark Cavendish, reached his peak. His record of 11 Tour finishes from 12 starts stood until 2024 when it was eclipsed by Geraint Thomas.
Hoban's life was intimately entwined with that of the British star Tom Simpson, who died on the Tour in 1967; like Simpson he was based in Ghent, in Belgium, he married Simpson's widow Helen, and the complex resonances of Simpson's tragic demise remained with the couple decades later.
Hoban was more than just a sprinter when it came to racing. He was a clear-headed tactician – lucide, as the French cycling slang has it – and had a photographic memory for race locations. He was a natural for cycling's one-day classics, where tactical nous and knowledge of the race routes is a sine qua non. His best classic performance, a win in the 1974 Ghent-Wevelgem ahead of Roger de Vlaeminck and Eddy Merckx, has never been equalled by a Briton, nor has his 1966 win in the GP Frankfurt.
Barry was born into a mining family in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, one of five children, and followed his father Paddy – a bricklayer in the local colliery – down the pit, after leaving school aged 15. The family were Catholic, which, Hoban said later, set them apart somewhat. He used his father's old kit to begin racing with the local Calder Clarion cycling club, and by the age of 17 he had begun to model himself on Simpson, his senior by two years; he raced for Great Britain at the 1960 Rome Olympics and then moved to northern France to race as an independent – the now defunct category halfway between professional and amateur. Thirty five race wins in two years earned him a place in the Mercier team, led by Raymond Poulidor.
In his first professional season, 1964, Hoban set himself a target: to make £1,000. He showed early promise, taking two stage wins in two days in the Tour of Spain and then came within a few yards of winning a Tour de France stage at Bordeaux. In a more enlightened team that might have earned him preferential treatment, but the Mercier manager Antonin Magne had eyes only for Poulidor.
Hoban did not consider his first Tour stage win a real victory; it came the day after Simpson's death on Mont Ventoux, when the senior riders in the peloton decreed that a British teammate of 'Major Tom' should cross the line first. The precise circumstances of the stage were still being argued over 40 years later; one of the 'heads', Jean Stablinski, told me the agreement had been for Vin Denson, Simpson's closest friend, to take the win, but it was Hoban who rode away, and, as their team mate Arthur Metcalfe related before his death: 'Vin wasn't in a fit state [emotionally] to do it. Barry was a young, ambitious pro, and obviously a win is a win.'
A year later, Hoban took the Tour stage he really wanted: a solo victory in the Alps at Sallanches after a 75-mile escape through the Alps; among the prizes was a cow named Estelle. His tactical cunning and lucidité won him back to back stages in 1969, after he had the nous to forge brief circumstantial alliances with other riders in breakaways, and his sprint did the rest. His tactical acumen contributed to his stage wins at Versailles in 1973, where he was the only sprinter to read a technical finish correctly, and at Montpellier in 1974, where he was the one who recalled a corner 350m from the line. His final stage win, in 1975, at Bordeaux, came on one of the last occasions a Tour stage finished on a banked velodrome and relied on the track craft initially honed on cinder and grass tracks in Yorkshire 20 years earlier.
If Hoban ended his career with any regrets, they centred on relations with the cycling establishment in the UK. He never saw eye to eye with the small group of racers who then made a living racing the domestic calendar; in 1979, he was involved in a controversial finish to the UK national championship, when he was disqualified after judges ruled he had sprinted improperly against the best domestic racer of the time, Sid Barras. Hoban's application to become national coach was turned down, and he – rightly – felt he never achieved the recognition his achievements deserved.
Hoban took his last European win in a stage of the Four Days of Dunkirk in 1978, beating the best sprinter of the time, Freddy Maertens after having the foresight to fit a larger gear than usual for a tailwind finish. He completed his final Tour that year aged 38, and retired in 1980 after 19 seasons racing full-time, the last for the Falcon team in the UK; he later moved to Newton, Powys, to work for a bike-maker producing Barry Hoban bikes. To emphasise the Simpson connection, a portrait of his former friend and rival hung in the reception area.
He is survived by Helen, their daughter Daniella, his stepdaughters Jane and Joanne Simpson, and a brother and sister.
Barry Hoban, professional cyclist, born 5 February 1940; died 20 April 2025