Laidlaw raced as an amateur in Scotland and 1957, he served with the 7th Royal Tank Regiment in Catterick and rode for the Army Cycle Union, when winning the Scottish Road Race title.[2] Riding for Hawick, he won the Tour of Scotland in 1957[3][4]
Laidlaw raced the European pro circuit during his professional career between 1961 and 1962. In 1961 he rode for Margnat – Rochet – Dunlop, and in 1962 for Margnat – Paloma.
Laidlaw's most famous moment came in the 1961 Tour de France, when he led Stage 16 until about 7km to go. The stage took in a climb from Luchon to the summit of the Superbagnères, an ascent of 4000ft in 11 miles. For his effort he was awarded £145 for the most aggressive rider of the day award. The stage was won by Imerio Massignan who won the mountains classification in that year. Laidlaw finished the Tour in 65th place.
the pack begins the climb out of Luchon, Radio Tour announced; "attack by number 90….LaidLaw! He went past the pack, moving at a good rate with the French tri colour jerseys, and Anquetil in the race leader’s yellow jersey at the front……and out 100 yards ahead of them was the unmistakeable figure of Ken Laidlaw thrashing away for all he was worth" sporting cyclist
Post-cycling
Following disillusionment with professional cycling, Laidlaw moved to New York in 1964 to continue working as a carpenter and later spent many years living in Savannah, Georgia after his cycling career.
↑ "Scotland Cardiff 1958". Commonwealth Games Federation. Archived from the original on 27 October 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
↑ "Short list for Empire Games". Belfast News-Letter. 3 February 1958. p.8. Retrieved 2 November 2025– via British Newspaper Archive.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
