Peter wrote: There is some splendid cine footage of Bill Bradley riding "at full tilt" for Harry Quinn-Castrol during the 1962 London-Holyhead race in the compilation video "British Cycling Classics of the 1950s-60s". It appears that the team bikes were painted red (naturally for Liverpool-made machines!) and white. I think he placed 4th in this race. And yes the jerseys are red-white-green.. perfect Italian colours for a British team! Bill told me an interesting story about a later London-Holyhead. In 1965 Bill rode London-Holyhead for the Falcon team. There was a bunch of continental pros riding including Tom Simpson. The Falcon leader was Albert Hitchen. During the race Simpson told Hitchen that the best he could have was fifth place. This didn't please Albert and when the race reached the Nant Frachan pass (sic) in North Wales he told Bill to ride hard. At the summit Simpson told Albert he could have third on condition that he controlled Bradley! A photo of the finish shows Simmy winning, a braking Shay Elliott second and Albert Hitchen third. Bradley can be seen sitting up to check that the deal had been kept. Incidentally Peter comments that the bikes were naturally painted red being a Liverpool team. In fact they could just as easily been blue as the city's other both soccer team Everton play in this colour. Both grounds are within a mile or two of Harry's old shop.
Re: Paris-Roubaix. The very same crossing features in the race in the eighties. It stopped the lead group while a train passed but they had such a good lead that they weren't caught. Yer Man won. Not referring to any particular race but what kind of team would use a component that had not been designed for racing for the first time in major race? A nutty one in my opinion. Ray Green, Brighton, England.
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