In 1977 I was a very short 3rd year at Kettering Grammar School. I was just old enough to be starting to visit record shops on my own and the very first album I bought for myself was Rattus Norvegicus by the Stranglers. The previous summer, my team, the mighty Southampton FC had upset the form book by beating Tommy Docherty’s all conquering Manchester United in the FA Cup with a peach of a goal by the late Bobby Stokes (no, it wasn’t offside). I was starting to rove further and further afield on my bicycle around the lanes of Northamptonshire.
I loved my bike, it represented freedom and I regularly visited my friends in nearby Kettering and villages around to play wargames with Airfix tanks and toy soldiers. Every July, though, my attention would turn to the sports pages of the Guardian (our family newspaper) to read about the Tour de France.
Quite why I started to follow the Tour I have no idea. Back then, there was no TV coverage and names such as Zoetemelk, Van Impe and Hinault were just names in newsprint. It may have been due to the fact that every summer we drove all the way through France to visit my grandparents in Spain and I would see huge numbers of tanned cyclists on skinny steel-framed bikes zooming around the French countryside wearing colourful trade team jerseys. It certainly wasn’t due to there being a great British hero in the Tour at the time, Barry Hoban having won his last stage back in 1975. Perhaps it was the fact that, like many young boys, I’d always be striving for the unobtainable, and every visit I made to a bike shop I’d spend ages looking at the immaculate Italian frames by the likes of Colnago and Bianchi. There is something timeless about the appeal of a classic steel frame and my desktop image today is that of a Colnago Master frameset in red – a pipedream project of mine. It didn’t seem to occur to me that even if I had saved every penny I owned I still couldn’t have bought one as they didn’t produce a frame designed for the shortest kid in the year.
Channel 4 started broadcasting in 1982 and prior to that the only way I knew how to follow the Tour was to read the short stage reports in the back pages of the Guardian. The names of the great summits like Tourmalet, Galibier and L’Alpe d’Huez were known to me only through photos of the greats on the pages of magazines. I distinctly recall Hinault’s victories in 1978 and 1979 in which the Dutch rider Joop Zoetemelk finished runner up and elated in Zoetemelk’s victory at his 13th attempt in 1980 when Hinault abandoned with a knee injury.
As things turned out, Channel 4 started broadcasting the Tour just as things started to get interesting from an English speaking point of view. Sean Kelly was in his pomp, winning the green jersey in ‘82, ‘83 and ‘85 and my first real cycling hero, Robert Millar, became the only Brit to ever win a “classification” by pedalling up to Guzet-Neige and taking the polkadot jersey to Paris. His 4th place became a highwater mark for Brits in the Tour until Cav’s exploits over the last two tours and Wiggins’ epic ride last summer. I saw Millar race in the twilight of his career (must have been about 1990) when he raced in the Kellogg’s series city centre race in Manchester. He crashed right in front of me tearing his lycra shorts quite badly but carried on regardless.
My next Tour hero was obvious. Lemond had already finished on the podium twice by the time he won in 1986 and to add spice to the brew, there was a bitter internecine struggle going on in his team between him and Hinault. Lemond’s subsequent win in 1989 was nothing short of incredible. The 8 seconds by which he beat the inscrutable Freanchman, Fignon on the Champs Elysee was one of sport’s epic transcendental moments. The fact that he won again in 1990 was almost incidental. Greg Lemond had that killer combination of fighting against the established order by innovating (think Oakley sunglasses and tri bars) and being the all American kid.
The early 90s lacked a true hero for me as it was difficult to warm to the dominating Indurain, however these years were enlivened more than somewhat by the Tashkent Terror, Djamolidene Abdoujaparov, whose sprinting must have terrified his opponents.
Next we entered the “Dark Years” and although there was some classic TV coverage, nobody could really believe in the now discredited victories of Riis (‘96), Ullrich (‘97) and Pantani (‘98). Despite the furore of the Festina affair and the dominance of Armstrong for 7 tours I still watched the coverage religiously, and in a somewhat unlikely move, my next Tour hero became the Aussie hardman Stuey O’Grady. This happened accidentally as I had purchased a Cofidis team jersey in 2003 while visiting a Decathlon superstore near Paris to show my support for David Millar. To my disgust, Millar got busted for EPO the following years and Stuey was the other English speaker on the team. He was the classic underdog (something that always appeals to me as a Saints fan), perenially finishing in the top ten (he was second in the green jersey competition 3 times) his win in the 2007 Paris Roubaix is one of my all time favourite sporting moments. I’m still a big fan, and although Stuey now uses his experience to direct his team on the road rather than go hell for leather in the sprints, watching him put in massive turns on the front of the peloton for his team mates is still awe inspiring.
Stuey wearing "my jersey"
I finally got to watch the Tour live in 2007 at the “Grand Depart” in London. Bradley didn’t quite bring home the bacon and Stuey crashed while setting the fastest time leaving the day clear for big Fabian Cancellara to grab the Maillot Jaune, but, like everybody else who went for those two days, the sights and sounds will remain indelibly etched.
Funnily enough, despite the last 2 years being the greatest ever in terms of British involvement, I can’t class Mark Cavendish or Bradley Wiggins as true heroes of mine (I do enjoy Brad’s Twitter stream, though). You can’t help but admire the incredible way Cavendish uses his speed to finish off stages having been set up by his Columbia sprint train, or the way in which Wiggo suffered on Mont Ventoux to hold on to 4th place, but I find neither character particularly appealing. Perhaps also the successive drug scandals (note to M. Proudhomme, we really don’t want to see Rasmussen, Vinokourov or Ricco in the Tour peloton ever again) have taken their toll. Nevertheless I still love the race and I hope that I can find a new hero this summer. Maybe Roger Hammond who refused to compete in a three week Tour until we had completed a whole race without a drug bust (he rode for Cervelo Test team at the Vuelta Espana last year after the Tour de France ended without any positive tests) will finally get a chance to ride. I’ve seen Roger win twice in the Tour of Britain (Blackpool and Liverpool – where he scalped Tom Boonen amongst others) and would love to see him given an opportunity. Or perhaps, Russell Downing? Russell is the classic “home grown” talent who has been signed by the Sky uber team. Only 5 months to go…
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