The Devil Within

by Barry Ryan
The Ascent: Sean Kellty, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling's Golden Generation
Gill Books

Patrick Valcke was the only member of the entourage Roche brought with him from La Redoute to Carrera at the beginning of 1986. It was a lonely kind of existence, especially as Roche had picked up a knee injury after a crash during the Paris Six-Day track event over the winter, and scarcely raced in the opening months of the season as he searched for e remedy. Though this big money acquisition was a statement of global ambition from Carrera, the team, sponsored by a Verona-based jeans manufacturer, remained resolutely local in feel. Team manager Davide Boifava, star rider Roberto Visentini and the bulk of the staff all hailed from the hinterland of Lake Garda. Outsiders were few, or at least it felt that way. If Carrera was a family, then Valcke was its black sheep, viewed with a mix of suspicion and contempt. ‘Carrera was a big machine, but at the same time, virtually the entire staff lived in the same town,’ says Valcke. “There I was, all alone in the middle of a team where people were looking at me and wondering, “What are we going to do with this guy here?” It was hell.’

Roche’s long absences only accentuated Valcke’s alien status. Without a word of Italian, he would work in silence on bikes as his colleagues jabbered merrily around him, pricking up his ears every time he heard them speak Roche’s name, and straining to decipher the dark murmurings each mention elicited. ‘I taught myself Italian using cassettes. For hours on end, I’d repeat words of Italian to myself, and bit by bit, I started to understand snatches of what everyone was saying. Eventually, I understood enough to get that they were constantly badmouthing Stephen,’ Valcke says. ‘They were saying, “He’s the phantom rider, he’s never here! He’s paid as a leader and we never see him!” It was a complicated year.’

After initially attempting to train through the injury, Roche was eventually diagnosed with crushed knee cartilage, and though corrective surgery performed in Italy in April provided temporary respite, the consequent muscle imbalance would have knock-on effects for years afterwards. Under pressure to salvage something from a disastrous campaign, Roche competed in both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, abandoning the former and finishing an anonymous 45th in the latter, and he ended the season without a win or a significant placing to his name, prompting Boifava to seek a renegotiation of his contract ahead of 1987. Carrera had, after all, made a commitment to Roche that went beyond his salary or the hiring of Valcke. As part of the settlement to Roche’s contract dispute with Peugeot, Carrera had agreed to print the car manufacturer’s name on its shorts for two years even though it was not contributing anything to the sponsorship of the team. Roche, however, stood firm and refused to alter his contract, punting any possible review forward to the following April. ‘I said to them, “When you get married, you get married for better or for worse,”’ says Roche.

The year 1987, mercifully, proved rather more promising, even if he didn’t mine as many victories as he ought to have done from a bountiful seam of early season form. After he won the Volta Valenciana in February, Roche was undone by an untimely puncture at paris-Nice, where he lost another all-Irish duel to Kelly, and he missed out to his fellow countryman again at the Critérium International two weeks later. More traumatically, Roche frittered away victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège when he indulged in an ill-conceived game of cat and mouse with breakaway companion Claude Criquielion, and world champion Moreno Argentin stole past them on the Boulevard de la Sauvenière to snatch the win. ‘Anyone would think tehre’s a curse on me,’ Roche lamented afterwards, bitterly aware that he had only himself to blame for the fiasco. ‘It must be written that I’m not going to win a big race this season.’

Roche needn’t have worried. He restored confidence by winning the Tour de Romandie for the third time shortly afterwards, and April passed without any further attempts from Carrera to downsize his salary. Emboldened by his spring campaign, Roche was now starting to think of how much more he could earn on another team. During the Tour of the Basque Country, Fagor had sounded him out about signing for 1988, but Roche was in no hurry to put pen to paper – not when he could bolster his price tag further by winning a Grand Tour. His condition was humming, his confidence was soaring, and the Giro was fast approaching. The was one problem: defending champion was on his team.