Sports Poets Society

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1621857173277538&set=a.417935973669670 Welcome to Day 1 of Tales of the Tour by Chris Sidwells. Each day we will be sharing a story from the past that connects to the current stage. Read on for Day 1... The team time trial returns to the Tour de France today with new rules , but its essential meaning remains the same. It is a public examination of collective strength in cycling; eight riders, one rhythm, one line, one sponsor’s name repeated until it becomes a moving billboard of power. Few teams understood that better than one in today’s photo, Peter Post’s legendary TI-Raleigh squad, and few teams performed it with such chilling authority. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, TI-Raleigh owned Tour de France team time trials, winning all 8 between 1978 and 1982 . When they lined up in perfect file, they carried more than speed, they carried menace. Their rivals knew they were not just racing against the clock, but displaying order, strength, disc...

Photo: Cycling Legends Collection https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1598663752263547&set=a.417935973669670 The new wave of English-speaking pros entering the European peloton in the early 1980s caused ripples. They were winning, but they were different. To the eyes of the Peugeot team manager, Maurice De Muer , the young Stephen Roche didn’t even look like a pro bike racer. They met at the 1981 Peugeot training camp in the South of France. Roche travelled with Robert Millar , who’d been with Peugeot the previous year . When they arrived D e Muer asked Millar if his driver was staying for dinner. The ‘driver’ was Stephen Roche. Millar explained the mix-up and De Muer looked Roche up and down, and told him; “You might have been able to win amateur races carrying that much weight, but you won’t as a pro.” Roche’s baby face had misled De Muer, which he quickly proved by winning the Tour of Corsica and Paris-Nice . That was incredible. Peugeot was stuffed with established talent, b...

https://x.com/CyclingLegends1/status/2041033160553549934/photo/1 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1538524158277507&set=a.417935973669670 Cycling Legends Media Stephen Roche was a professor of cycling. He studied and perfected every aspect of it from aerodynamics, as you can see from this shot of him in the final time trial of the 1987 Tour de France, to the psychology of competition. This time trial decided the 1987 Tour.  It was the penultimate stage; Roche was 2nd overall, 21 seconds behind Pedro Delgado at the start. He’d been 39 seconds behind the previous day, still a manageable gap to close against the clock because he was better than Delgado, but a bit of insurance wouldn’t hurt.  “I attacked on the descent of the last climb of the Tour into Morzine to put Delgado under pressure. I wanted to take a few seconds from him before the time trial. He chased desperately but finished 18 seconds behind me. They were important as they reduced my deficit, which was psycho...