ESPADA HOUR RECORD, 1994

‘Forget about Bradley or anyone. Miguel is Miguel. Bradley is amazing, but for his Hour it was maybe six months’ preparation, but with Miguel, he won the Tour de France in the summer of 1994, then one month later he took the record d’ora,’ says Fausto Pinarello.

At 6ft 2in and 80kg, with a resting heart rate of 28bpm and lung capacity of 7.8 litres (a comparable male is around 60bpm and 5 litres), Indurain was the perfect specimen for the Hour record. But the perfect specimen demanded the perfect bike and, as he was with Bradley Wiggins, Fausto Pinarello duly obliged.

‘There was a guy from Florence University who worked with Lamborghini, and he sent me a letter saying, “Do you want to try the wind-tunnel and talk aerodynamics,” and I said, “Yes, why not?” I knew nothing of aerodynamics back then. Or carbon fibre. We made a frame in aluminium, went to the wind-tunnel with Miguel, did tests, then went away and designed the mould with a guy who made carbon fibre parts for Bugatti in Torino. We finished the bikes in July, went to the track with Miguel to test in August – you know how hard that was? Everyone in Italy goes on holiday in August – and in September he made the attempt. At the time Lamborghini had the Espada car, and Espada is Spanish for “sword”. It was the perfect name.’

At 9.25kg this bike wasn’t especially light, and it’s interesting that the ‘bars [from ITM] are unpainted to save weight’ while the rest of the bike has been treated to all manner of paint and graphics. It also cost €50,000 just for the mould and only two bikes came from it, making it a substantial outlay for the brand. But as Fausto remarks, ‘The cost is no problem, because we are interested only in development. This is my philosophy.’