Ian Steel

Died: October 20, 2015

GORBALS-born and brought up, Ian Steel, who has died aged 86, was not only Scotland's but Britain's best-known and most successful bicycle racer in the early 1950s.

He was in many ways the Bradley Wiggins of his time, though never world-famous because he rode in the early semi-professional days, long before TV brought the sport to the masses. Although he raced at the top level only during the first half of the 1950s, he was a massively important figure in the growth of bicycle racing and part of the first British team ever to compete in the Tour de France.

Mr Steel won the prestigious Tour of Britain in 1951 and the following year captured what was one of the biggest races of the era, the Peace Race, Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe's would-be answer to the Tour de France. Ridden between Warsaw, East Berlin (before the Wall went up but controlled by the Soviets) and Prague, the Soviets had launched the race mainly to unite and distract the peoples of its satellite states. They subliminally promoted the race as a sporting backdrop to the Cold War in which communists' mental and physical strength would be seen to triumph over "decadent" capitalism. Moscow was not therefore happy when a westerner, Mr Steel, failed to read the script and outshone riders from the communist bloc.

After his victory, the Soviet-controlled media throughout eastern Europe insisted the Scot had been sent as a spy by the West, to "keep his eyes open" around the countryside while pretending to be a bicycle racer. The British media, on the other hand, enjoyed writing that "Ironman Steel wins behind the Iron Curtain." In fact, the Glaswegian was the only English-speaking rider ever to win the race, which fizzled out in 1989 as popular revolt tore down the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union itself fizzled out.

"We (Britain took the team victory as well as his individual victory) were very unpopular winners," Steel recalled years later in his home in Largs. "There was supposed to be a (Czech-built) Tatra car for the winner and motorbikes for the rest of the team, but they never materialised. We were British and Britain was a member of NATO, the Soviets' nemesis. We got out of there quite quickly."

Mr Steel also recalled being welcomed in Warsaw before the race by a Soviet officer of Polish origin, Marshall Konstantin Rokossovsky, a Soviet Second World War Two. "He was very animated, but that was probably the vodka. All of the eastern European teams had greetings prepared for them but of course we didn't. So we chanted in unison 'B*****ks!'" Mr Steel said the marshall smiled and seemed impressed by the greeting, which presumably sounded somewhat Polish.

Another thing for which current British bicycle racers should be grateful is that Ian Steel's exploits helped end a long-standing feud between Britain's two cycle racing bodies of the time. His 1951 victory in the Tour of Britain brought together those organisations - the National Cyclists Union and the British League of Racing Cyclists - which then smoked the peace pipe to join together as the British Cycling Federation, now known as British Cycling, the governing body of the sport in the UK. Mr Steel can therefore claim a wee bit of credit for the successes of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, not to mention the new wave of lycracyclomania in the British Isles, love it or hate it.

John Steel was born in the Gorbals on December 28, 1928, quickly becoming known as Ian because there were several other Johns in his immediate family, including his father. His mother Jane had to distinguish who she was to call out to in the streets: and so it became, "come in, Ian, yer dinner's ready!"

Still at primary school in the Gorbals when war broke out, Ian was evacuated to Dunoon, where he continued his schooling, joined the Boy's Brigade and worked as a butcher's boy, delivering scarce meat on his bike, which immediately became his first love.

When he returned to Glasgow towards the end of the war, he became an apprentice patternmaker in the Clyde shipyards, making wooden patterns for what would become steel structures and eventually ocean-sailing ships. He was 17 when he joined the Glasgow United (Cycling) Club just after the war and began winning 25, 50 and 100-mile races, as well as 12-hour cyclathons.

His second place finish in the 1951 Paris-Lens race caught the eye of semi-professional team Viking Cycles with whom he won the Tour of Britain (billed as Le Tour de Britain) that same year. It was during the latter race that he first saw the "Welcome to Scotland" sign near Gretna Green and nearly fell off his bike with emotion. He knew then that he had to win it and he did.

Mr Steel rode the Tour de France only once, in 1955, but, as a Scot and natural-born winner, pulled out when his team told him to hold back and let a rival British team, Hercules, take the win. Letting other team members win is now a key part of the sport but it was difficult for Mr Steel to take. He retired from cycling the following year. Some would say that the sport has gone downhill since it became a team cocktail event rather than let-the-best-man-win.

After Mr Steel retired from cycling, he decided to turn to a sport which used similar muscles and so co-founded the West of Scotland Ski Club - before skiing took off in his country. During apres-ski drinks, he met folks who went skiing in the Alps in winter but sailed yachts around Scotland in the summer. He took up sailing, latterly piloting a Shearwater catamaran out of Largs Sailing Club, with his wife Peggy as crew and his son Roddy and daughter Nicola learning the ropes.

Ian Steel died in the Inverclyde Royal Hospital in Greenock. He is survived by his wife Peggy (née Stretch, originally from Newcastle-under Lyme), daughter Nicola, son Roddy, grandchildren Jess and Joe and his sister Margret Fairbairn.

PHIL DAVISON