Phil Edwards

Phil Edwards started cycling competitively as a teenager, and at the age of 18 won the 1967 British National Junior Road Race Championship at Nottingham. He followed that with some good domestic successes including the 1968 Hereford Two-day race. He took part in his first Tour of Britain (Milk Race) in 1970 and finished a creditable sixth, and was the highest placed British rider.

The following year, Edwards won 14 races on home soil and won the sixth stage of the Milk Race. After winning the third stage of the 1972 Milk Race he became the first Briton since 1967 to be the overall leader of the race. Unfortunately he could only finish fourth overall. He spent the 1974 season racing in Italy after his Italian-born mother wrote to several Italian teams asking to give her son a chance to race abroad. It paid off, and Edwards won seven races that season before turning professional the following year with the Italian G.S. Mobigori-Perigano team, before joining the the crack Sanson team, led by Francesco Moser, at the end of 1975. Ironically, in the road race at the 1972 Olympics, Edwards finished sixth and Moser eighth.

Edwards won the 1977 London to York Elite Road Race and followed that with the National Road Race Championship, 10 years after winning the junior event. It turned out to be his last victory on British soil, but he continued to play his part in helping Moser win major races across Europe. A bad injury during the 1980 season, however, led to Edwards making the decision to quit the sport at the age of 31 and he went into business with his brother Mark. They imported Italian cycle brands into Britain and in 1985 they introduced specialist mountain bikes into the Italian market.

Phil eventually retired from business in 2010. He continued riding casually but on medical advice he gave up riding and took to walking around Monaco, where he had made his home. He would occasionally stop for a coffee at the La Grote pizzeria in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the mountains overlooking Monaco. He loved the place so much that he bought the restaurant and was still running it at the time of his sudden death in 2017.