Tour of Britain: Iconic photos from 69 years of the British stage race

From the post-war Victory Marathon to today's high-profile Tour of Britain, take a look through the Cycling Weekly archives at some iconic photos from the country's greatest race

Bill Seggar (left) struggles to get going in the 1960 Milk Race, while Alex Dowsett punishes himself in a breakaway in the 2014 Tour of Britain.

The Tour of Britain has been around in one form or another since the end of the Second World War, when the Victory Cycling Marathon ran from Brighton to Glasgow. Later it became the iconic Milk Race, which spanned the majority of the tour’s history, before its current incarnation as the Tour of Britain, sponsored by Friend’s Life.

The Victory Cycling Marathon began in 1945, and only one year was missed from then until the last Kellogg’s Tour in 1994. In 1998 and 1999 the race ran as the PruTour, and then became the Tour of Britain in 2004.

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