Originally Posted by peterbe

They were certainly time-trialling in California by the mid-1950s - people I knew were training for the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Olympics, but I only got involved in cycling myself in 1959. As another poster mentioned, time trialling had been the only type of road racing allowed in the UK for many years, due to motorists complaining about large packs in road races blocking roads.