FAVOURITE PRO CYCLISTS OF ALL TIME
Every issue, Cycling Plus staffers will take a subject and debate their top five. This month, Paul Robson, John Whitney and Rob Moxon talk about their favourite riders
JOHN: Right, let’s hear your all-time favourites...
ROB: Alberto Contador, for the way he could ignite a race. He rode how I wish I could ride.
JOHN: Did you prefer early Contador or later Contador?
ROB: There were times later in his career when he was winning less where he was going for ridiculously early attacks, which were incredible. But in those early years (2007-2009), he made it look effortless. And anyone who sticks it to Lance Armstrong, like he did at the 2009 Tour de France, is good for me.
PAUL: Even in 2010, with the Tour win that was later taken away, he might have been on the defensive but they were battles. I never felt like he strangled a race. But Contador was at his peak when he bridged both divides, like the 2012 Vuelta a España when he was winning the race and hunting stages.
JOHN: Does his doping violation [for clenbuterol in 2010] take anything away?
PAUL: Rightly or wrongly, doping doesn’t affect my appreciation of any riders on my list. Any accusations, or proven examples of doping... cycling is a sport where you go in with your eyes open. If you see the world
“Pheasant and cognac. I’m not sure how true it is but it’s such a beautiful story”
in black and white, then cycling isn’t the sport for you.
JOHN: Which brings me to Marco Pantani, who was ground zero for me in cycling. I had no interest in the sport when I read a BBC article announcing his death in 2004. So I went backwards back from there. There was no Y YouTube back then, but there was n no shortage of things to read and watch about him.
P PAUL: My favourite is Claudio Chiappucci. He was my childhood hero, and that is the sort of thing that lives with you. I’ve seen lots of great footballers since Glenn Hoddle but Hoddle remains on his own for me. Chiappucci is the guy whose photos I’d take from Winning magazine and stick them on my wall.
JOHN: Let’s talk about favourite moments...
PAUL: Stephen Roche was the guy who I first saw when I watched the Tour de France as a kid in 1987, the year he won the Triple Crown [Tour, Giro, Worlds]. The finish in La Plagne where he emerged from nowhere was extraordinary. I’d go out on my bike and ride around our estate, pretending I was Roche. I like to think my cycling pleasure derives from aesthetics and for people to make it look effortless, like Contador. But I like to see riders fight and when you combine the two…
ROB: I like Jacques Anquetil for saying, ahead of the 1961 Tour de France, that he’d take the yellow jersey on day one and carry it to Paris.
JOHN: You’d be chastised in the press for such cockiness if you said that now.
ROB: I know it was a different landscape back then with teams not as strong as today, but for that to happen and it be your stated intention was incredible. JOHN: The Anquetil biography Sex,Lies
andHandlebarTape was one of the first cycling books I read and I was impressed by the rich meals he’d digest during the Tour – moules a la crème and all that… PAUL: Pheasant and cognac. I’m not sure how true it is but it’s such a beautiful story. JOHN: It’s a struggle to look beyond the previous day with questions like this. Watching Peter Sagan signing autographs on the final climb of stage 15 of the Tour, and coming in second last, might be my favourite thing I’ve seen this year. PAUL: Speaking of Sagan, do you have any current riders on your lists? I’ve got Marianne Vos. Her finish at La Course in July was sensational. She’s so beautiful on the bike, but has that ‘never say die’ spirit. Again, it’s that winning combination: classy riders with a steely spirit. JOHN: I’m not sure he’d make my top 5, right now anyway, but I enjoy watching Simon Yates. Talking about all these older riders, with a death or glory style, he’s a bit of a throwback. He has a self-assuredness bordering on cockiness, which is quite an uncommon trait for British sports stars. PAUL: And while we’re on British riders, we can’t finish without mentioning Tom Simpson. Everything that has happened since Tom Simpson is because of Tom Simpson. He made it possible for British cyclists to race abroad. Before Team Sky, everyone had to go on their own journey to get there and they were inspired to do it, and it was possible for them to do it, because he blazed a trail in the 1960s.