ROB Jebb is a classic case of ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again’.

The 47-year-old from Gilstead received Yorkshire’s most prestigious cycling award – the CA Rhodes Memorial Trophy – for his dominance over the years of the iconic and gruelling Three Peaks Cyclo-Cross race.

He has won the gruelling event, which takes in Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent, an incredible 13 times in 23 years, but his was not a tale of instant success.

Before his initial triumph in 2000, Jebb had finished third in 1997 and second in 1998, first competing in the Three Peaks as a junior in 1992.

Jebb, who picked up the CA Rhodes citation at the Yorkshire Cyclo-Cross Association’s annual dinner and prize presentation at Shipley Golf Club at the end of last month, takes up the story.

He said: “It is a great honour to pick up this award, but you don’t go into sport to pick up awards, though when I found out I was made up.

“My first bike was welded together by Pennine Cycles, and I finished third in the Three Peaks when I was 22 and then second, but when I was 23 I fell in love with the sport as I had a lot of patience.

“I had run for Great Britain in Malaysia and came back to do the Three Peaks when I was 25.

“Tim Gould had a puncture and a buckled wheel and asked me for my bike, but that was not allowed, and I got a letter of apology from Tim which I kept in my drawer for years.

“We were drugs tested in those days and I went to see my mum and dad after the race and then went to the pub, and the drugs tester came with me and told me that I could drink bottled beer but not draught beer because that might be contaminated.

“I represented Great Britain in two World Championships and went to France to race against Tour de France professionals like Tommy Voeckler, and I have raced in Belgium in front of 60,000 fans.

“The rivalry between the Belgians and the Dutch was a bit nasty, and I was racing there one day when I got booed.

“My mum was there and said ‘You can’t boo him. He is my son’, so after that I got massive cheers."

Jebb also won the Three Peaks in 2002-06, 2008, 2010, 2012-14, 2019 and 2022, last year finishing 1min 48sec ahead of the runner-up in a field of 343 competitors.

The race starts in Helwith Bridge and involves 5,000 feet of climbing over 38 miles.

Jebb undoubtedly gets his stamina from fell running, in which he was tutored by his father, with son reaching international standard, winning several national championships.

Mountain biking also helped, while Jebb also competes in cyclo-cross, representing Hope Factory Racing, regularly taking part in Yorkshire Points Series events and the National Trophy, and has also represented Great Britain in the World Championships.

Former winners chosen by the CA Rhodes Memorial Trust’s board include such luminaries as Otley’s Lizzie Deignan, Leeds’ Tom Pidcock and Bradford’s Mandy Parker (in 2021), plus the late greats Brian Robinson and Beryl Burton.

The memorial was instigated in 1961 as a tribute to the memory of Charles Arthur Rhodes, who died that year and was a doyen of the Yorkshire Road Club and co-founder, in 1932, of the Yorkshire Cycling Federation.