Cycle Race - anyone know where?

[Fresh Fields]

Well done.

Five years and five months - perseverance pays a dividend.

Alan.

[arthurk]

Just wondering if we can pin a date on this. In reply #12 I mentioned a site with details of some of the major tour events of the 1950s (the page has links to other decades as well):

http://www.tour-racing.co.uk/html/1950s_tours.html

From that the only one I could see that mentioned a route that might have gone through South Elmsall was the 1955 Tour of Britain, but the reports for some years don't give details of all the stages, so there could have been others. The exact location of the photo appear to be where Barnsley Road becomes Doncaster Road, at the junction with High Street, with the riders heading SE.

However, I'm not sure this would fit with 1955: the route description for Stage 4 indicates 12.5 miles from Pontefract to Ardsley (near Barnsley); Google's most direct route between them now is 14.4 miles, and more like 20 miles if you go through South Elmsall. From Trish's links, I also thought the best matches were other photos dates to the 1960s.

Any thoughts, anyone?

[Trish1908]

Wow Trish18! I cannot believe this is solved. Its certainly the longest running photo I've been unable to identify - think the previous record was 2 years!

I'm not too far away from South Elmsall (about 30 miles) so will be driving over to take a 'now' picture from as close to the original standpoint as possible

Many thanks to you (and everyone that tried to assist!)
Trish1908

[arthurk]

From a bit of searching in old newspapers, it appears there was a South Elmsall Vikings cycling club which staged road races in the mid-1950s, some of which attracted big names of the day. The event which I've seen most mention of was their Spring Classic, which in 1955 started in South Kirkby, with laps of a circuit through South Elmsall, North Elmsall, Ackworth roundabout, Hemsworth and back to South Kirkby. I didn't find a mention of the exact finish point.

The 1955 event was on 3 April, and next day's Yorkshire Post describes it as dominated by the Hercules professional team: Dave Bedwell won in a sprint finish with his 3 team mates (F Krebs, RJ Maitland and B Robinson), with the rest of the field three quarters of a mile behind. Could this possibly be what we're seeing here? Did the Hercules team wear those colours?

[Treetotal]

What a surprise after all this time  Once again, well done Trish. 
Carol

[Ruskie]

Well found Trish. I’m amazed you managed to find it after all this time.