PAST MASTERS
Unleash the power of memory to fuel future goals
For athletes who get such a thrill from forward propulsion, cyclists spend a surprising amount of time looking back. Nostalgia is woven into the fabric of the cycling world. It is stored in those golden memories of your first bike or Alpine climb, and in the jerseys and souvenirs gathered along the way. It fuels our lust for retro kit and vintage bikes. And it is the myths and legends of the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix that entice us to tune in each year, or make pilgrimages to ride the mountains and cobbles ourselves. From the wool jerseys and steel frames of the L’Eroica sportive, to our secret sock drawer shrines full of medals and race numbers, nostalgia is pivotal to the cycling experience.
Nostalgia develops organically – we can recall eventful rides or where we were when Bradley Wiggins won the Tour in 2012. But it is also marketed to us through events and brands. With its ritualistic return to famous cols, the Tour doesn’t just sell us a race; it invites us to explore over a century of heroic deeds and sacred geography. According to Professor Tim Wildschut – Professor in Social and Personality Psychology at the University of Southampton and keen cyclist – it’s a uniquely rich font of nostalgia. “Cycling provides a lot of fodder for conversations and ‘nostalgising’,” he says. “You could talk for hours about the equipment, clothing, nature, races and iconic racers. There’s so much to reflect on, like the LeMond versus Fignon time trial [the climax to the 1989 Tour de France] for my generation. It’s the diversity of it. It can be the changing seasons, the physical activity, the excitement of a race…”
Cycling is also a deeply sensory activity and this sensory input passes through the amygdala – the area of the brain responsible for emotion and memory.
A golden age
Nostalgia is the bittersweet emotion we feel when we think of the past – sweet because it allows us to relive good times, bitter because we know those times have passed. We can feel nostalgic about people, objects and places, and the emotion can be triggered by anything from the smell of oil to the sight of a familiar road. We feel personal nostalgia (a longing for our own past) and historical nostalgia (a yearning for a former era). “You could watch [post-war Tour winner Fausto] Coppi and long for the simpler days of cycling, but personal nostalgia is always more sensory and powerful,” says Professor Wildschut.
The word nostalgia – derived from the Greek words nostos (to return home) and algos (pain, longing) – was first coined by the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer in 1688 to describe the maladies of homesick soldiers. And until recently experts still regarded nostalgia as an enchanting but debilitating mindset that enticed people to wallow in an idealised past and hide from the reality of the present. But Professor Wildschut is one of a group of experts – including his colleague Professor Constantine Sedikides, and Dr Krystine Batcho and Dr Clay Routledge in America – who have turned this theory upside down. Nostalgia is now regarded as a powerful and positive psychological tool.
“We’ve shown that, contrary to being backward-looking, nostalgia inspires optimism, makes you want to do things and fosters inspiration and creativity,” explains Professor Wildschut. “To apply this to cycling, it may be that in your childhood you were part of a team, so when in adulthood you think back, you want to contact those people and arrange a weekend to go cycling together.” Remembering an epic sportive can
inspire you to do new ones. Reading about old cycling heroes can motivate you to train harder yourself. Some experts even suggest nostalgic reverie is a form of meditation that boosts our mood and motivation.
Nostalgia also helps people relate their past experiences to their present lives to enhance their sense of stability. “Nostalgia is good at meeting this need to feel continuity,” says Professor Wildschut. “To recognise yourself and say: ‘Yes, everything is changing, I am changing, but when I’m riding my bike, I am that same person I was when I was 14. And looking into the future, I’ll always be able to get out on my bike, whatever happens.’ That provides a sort of temporal unity and a narrative thread through your life.”
This is why we often feel nostalgic in times of hardship, loneliness or change. The Covid-19 pandemic has triggered a wave of nostalgia for old movies and classic sports matches. “The future is amorphous and unpredictable,” states Professor Wildschut, “but nostalgia provides a template for what it could be like – and what you hope it will be like.” Rather than trapping people in their own memories, nostalgia is actually a highly social emotion; telling a story about a race will inspire similar tales from friends. “We have a need for meaningful existence but what gives us meaning are often experiences with family or friends,” explains Professor Wildschut. “Cycling and the friendships that come with it imbue life with meaning. I raced with friends and we still get together every year. Those rides are a part of it but it is also about sitting around the table, telling stories and sharing memories.”
Cyclists can even feel nostalgic about objects, as the popularity of retro clothing and vintage bikes confirms. Of course, this is not unique to cycling. “It is what Hollywood does. It’s what car manufacturers do. It’s just a staple of marketing because people have a lifelong preference for whatever products were popular in their teens,” says Professor Wildschut. “My own Time bike is a little bit of nostalgia. When I was young we went on holidays to France and I admired the French bikes. They were so different from what we had in Holland. I thought, ‘I would like a French bike’. And 37 years later, now I can.”
Nostalgia is so powerful it can make us do extraordinary things. In a study of cycle tourists at the Tour de France, Australian researchers Dr Sheranne Fairley and Dr Matt Lamont found that nostalgia for places and social experiences was a major motivation for attendance. “People really want to visit that hallowed ground,” explains Dr Fairley. “We grow up watching sports and we want to emulate what people do. Along the way everybody was re-watching things at a pub or on the bus, then riding up mountains and thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is when they did this particular event, and this is how they must have been feeling.’”
Tour tales
The tourists were inspired not by past personal experiences but by what they had read in newspapers or seen on TV. “Most people I interviewed could recall particular performances in the mountains that had sparked a narrative of myth or aura that drew them to these places,” says Dr Lamont. Visiting sites imbued with nostalgic meaning, like Alpe d’Huez, was particularly important: “To be physically co-present with a sporting amphitheatre so rich in Tour de France history was profoundly satisfying for them.”
The Tour is laced with rituals and traditions, from the famous publicity caravan at the head of the race to the colourful village decorations, and the sight of fans in fancy dress. “We have nostalgia for the culture of the sport as well as for the sport itself,” explains Dr Fairley. “Everyone knows the norms, the values, the beliefs, the symbols - everything that encapsulates that particular culture or subculture.”
The Tour’s obsession with nostalgia is partly the result of marketing. The organisers celebrate anniversaries, revisit famous climbs and lionise previous champions. “There’s some very clever stuff inside marketing and you don’t even realise that they’re trying to use nostalgia, but it’s just pulling on a memory that you have,” says Dr Fairley. But we are also active participants in the creation of nostalgia. Dr Lamont found that fans collected memorabilia, autograph cards and summit photos to aid nostalgic reflection. “Visiting the Tour was described as a once
“THE FRIENDSHIPS THAT COME WITH CYCLING IMBUE LIFE WITH MEANING… IT’S ABOUT SHARING MEMORIES”
in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he says. “They wanted to gather a critical mass of material to enable nostalgic memories of their experience into the future.”
Nostalgia has motivated many pro riders too. When Mark Cavendish read cycling books as a boy he yearned to see his own name alongside the greats. Sir Bradley Wiggins is an avid collector of bikes and jerseys. Ten-time Tour winner David Millar’s early nostalgia was more historical than personal. “I had no nostalgia [as a child] because I come from a zero cycling family so I discovered it in real time in the 90s,” he says. “I was in Hong Kong and discovering this European sport gave me nostalgia for a Europe I didn’t know. It seemed quite an archaic sport – purist, gentlemanly and old-fashioned. And that was one of the driving forces for me getting into it.”
Over time he carefully selected the elements he most admired. “Nostalgia is built on a very personal view of what you are aspiring to, what you want to remember, and how you want to do things,” he reflects. “I chose to idolise [five times Tour winner] Miguel Indurain and [1988 UCI World Road Race Champion] Maurizio Fondriest and I based a lot of my style and position on them. In Hong Kong the only way I could find out about cycling was by reading stories or looking at old videos. So my love for cycling was about that history and the nostalgia. I wanted to be one of those stories.”
Millar’s most potent experience of historical nostalgia came at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 2009 when a doctor who had known five-time Tour de France winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) told him: “You would have been great friends with Jacques because he saw it like you see it.” In that moment, time slipped away and Millar felt an invisible thread between himself and the French cycling legend. “That was a lovely kind of nostalgia,” he reflects. “When you meet somebody who can tell you a firstperson story, so you can live it vicariously, you can get a glimpse of a former time.”
Making memories
Since retiring, Millar has founded the CHPT3 clothing brand, which is heavily influenced by vintage style. “It was inspired by nostalgia and a concept of clothes that I had never been able to wear as a racer,” he explains. “So my collection had buttons, which bring nostalgia for a time when you had the time to button up a jersey. But I do think it is important to try to create something that is special and that you can eventually be nostalgic about.”
Whether you’re admiring old photos, reading about Tour heroes or remembering epic rides, looking back is good for you.
Nostalgic reflection inspires positive moods and motivates you to achieve new things. Think of it like the revolution of a pedal stroke: we have to pull backward as well as push forward to progress faster. But if nostalgia is so positive and powerful, how can we create more vibrant memories to tap into? Experts call this creative process ‘anticipatory nostalgia’. It involves consciously creating memorable moments by doing something special or different, like riding a beautiful route or a famous col, then actively savouring the experience to cement it into memory.
“I do this all the time, with cycling and my family,” reveals Millar. “I read a book called The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. It explains how when we have first or extreme experiences, we ‘label’ that memory so we can store it and recognise it in the future. Nostalgia is based on this kind of ‘peak end’ theory – remembering that intense or first experience. Your active recognition during that moment is really important: if you label something, you help create nostalgia. That’s why cyclists do big adventures and crazy long rides. You’re actively creating nostalgia so you can tell stories afterwards. And really that’s what cycling is for many people: a vehicle for creating memories and moments.”
NOSTALGIC REFLECTION INSPIRES POSITIVE MOODS AND IT CAN MOTIVATE YOU...