Dave Rollinson

When he was 20-years-of-age Dave Rollinson finished second to Les West in the 1967 Tour of Britain Milke Race, having won the sixth stage at New Brighton, close to his Liverpool birthplace. Also that year, Rollinson made his début in the Tour de l’Avenir, the amateur equivalent of the Tour de France, and finished a creditable 33rd.

A member of the Liverpool Mercury club since he was 16, Rollinson followed his senior first season by finishing third in the National Road Race Championships in 1968, and finished fourth in the Milk Race after winning stage two. Rollinson went to the 1968 Mexico Olympics and was the highest placed Briton in the road race in 34th place.

Rollinson won a stage in the Tour de l’Avenir in 1969 and finished 19th in the World Amateur Championships in Czechoslovakia. The following year he won the first of two successive national road race titles and, despite being a favourite for a medal at the British Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh that year, could only finish fourth. Rollinson finished 19th (again) at the Worlds on home soil at Leicester that year.

Two years riding in France in the early-1970’s helped Rollinson’s career and in 1971 he became the first Briton since Dr. James More over 100 years earlier to win the Paris-Rouen Classic. Rollinson turned professional with Raleigh in 1972, and after two seasons racing abroad returned to Britain. Before turning professional, Rollinson worked in the Kraft cheese factory and later became a sales representative for Raliegh cycles. Thanks to his professional cycling career, Rollinson could afford to buy a chateau in France, not far from where Jacques Anquetil owned a property, before ultimately retiring to Spain.