Stephen’s recently published autobiography is a great read. If you want to know what pro bike racing was like before the sterile production line cyclists that we have today, when riders raced on intuition and not through an earpiece; then this is the book for you.
1987 dominates of course, and Stephen’s account of the clash with Visentini in the Giro together with the fight with Delgado in the Tour really hits you between the eyes; especially the legendary stage finishing on La Plagne. Roche used a lot of psychology in formulating his tactics for dealing with his opponents and is quite scathing of the way that riders now try to take seconds on mountain stages rather than minutes.
Bring back the days before helmets and sunglasses so that we can see some suffering and stick that 1000km back into the route that was taken out in 1988!
Ban radios immediately!
Bring back “la moutarde”….
What is”la moutarde” and does Colmans of Norwich make it?