First Pro Cycling memory

mm1

The best pro racing books thread has prompted me to think about first contact with the sport. My first was something on BBC news about Tom Simpson - it may have been the report of his death, but it definitely showed him riding on a steeply banked track, possibly Gent I guess.

2nd in the early 70's was seeing a race (possibly the Giro) pass my Aunt's flat in Tuscany.

takethehighroad

Indurain getting dropped at Les Arcs in 1996.

Then I remember disliking Jan Ullrich because he took the Yellow Jersey off Cedric Vasseur.

An early staple of those Tours was the adverts on Eurosport were in various languages, including one in German for a beer (which I may be misremembering as Warsteiner)

Dorset_Boy

ITV's World of Sport showing about 30 mins of highlights on a Saturday in the Merckx era. Then going out riding my bike outside pretending to be him! Then then same with Robert Millar in polka dots.

First live tour stage was 1993 (I think) from Perpignan to Andorra. Watched roadside early on to see the peloton flash by in about 30 secs, but got a photo that included big Mig.

above_the_cows

1986 Tour de France. I was four. I developed a weird attachment to Greg Lemond because he looked like my dad and a real dislike of Hinault (children are canny things).

Later memories are built around the Channel 4 theme tune, which I have as my ring tone, and the ability to say seize cent soixante quatre in my first every French lesson.

tailwindhome

Sitting with my Grandad watching Roche ride into Paris.

Watching Sean Kelly in the Tour holding all the jerseys in the race and how he deliberately 'lost' the jerseys to his teammates*

Chiapucci's mad ride to Sestriere


*I remember this, but it may never have happened.

tailwindhome

...

No_Ta_Doctor

Racing round the block on my bike pretending I was Hinault (my dad liked him) sometime in the late seventies.

First memories of actually watching any cycling were Millar V Lucho for the spotted jersey - wow, these new Columbian riders! There's was a bit of Kellogs city center cycling mixed up in it as well, some Sean Kelly, that sort of thing. All a bit hazy now, not sure what was actually the very first I saw.

phreak

Easily one of the most exciting things I'd seen in any sport.

hanshotfirst

Watching the Grand Depart of the 2014 Tour. Just had it on mute in the background while a few mates were over to drink and listen to records. A friend brought a copy of Tycho's Dive and it seemed to sync up really well to the peloton rolling through Yorkshire. I'd just started cycling myself so it all kind of hooked me at once.

I think that weekend I watched the Armstrong documentary on Netflix and that 'Year In Yellow' thing that Sky did about Wiggins, then I devoured the Tour highlights every single night. Couldn't understand why Kittel wasn't in yellow despite winning 3 of the first 4 stages, just didn't get it, haha!

onyourright

Phil and Paul marvelling at Ullrich riding up the inside of hairpins while seated. Anyone remember what year that was?

mm1

My goodness, you people are young!

carbonclem

Watching the Milk Race fly through our village in the 1974 or 1976 - not sure which, could have been both?

dabber

phreak wrote:

Easily one of the most exciting things I'd seen in any sport.

Yes, seeing Pantani in full flight for me... can't remember where, or what climb but in full "il pirata" mode... so exciting and dramatic.

edit: for typo

takethehighroad

OnYourRight wrote:

Phil and Paul marvelling at Ullrich riding up the inside of hairpins while seated. Anyone remember what year that was?

97, the climb to Andorra I mentioned above

The Pantani picture is on the stage to Les Deux Alpes in 1998

onyourright

Thanks.

joe2008

phreak wrote:

Easily one of the most exciting things I'd seen in any sport.

This for me. I was already 33

Pross

Probably the ‘84 Tour and Millar taking the polka dot for me but may have seen some of the Milk Race before that.

bobmcstuff

mm1 wrote:

My goodness, you people are young!

Haha, I was thinking just the opposite...

iainf72

86 Tour de France.

I was growing up in SA then and we used to get the American CBS coverage a couple of weeks after the event on TV. So I'll forever equate cycling with synth and new age music.

awavey

probably when the milk race visited the town I lived in mid 80s,as it seemed a really big thing even if I had no idea what was going on, first TdF probably 90's as I remember it on C4 and the tune which I could never understand wasnt like the Kraftwerk single Id got plus Boardman at the Olympics 92.

dodgy

One of my earliest memories was stage 18 of the '83 TdF, they rode from Le Bourg-d'Oisans all the way to Morzine, taking in pretty much every major col on the way. It was insane. Just looked it up and it was 153 miles, must have been torture! I think the 83 TdF had a lot of long stages after riders in the 82 edition had complained about long transfers, the answer? Bloody huge stages!

knedlicky

My father took me as a boy to the Milk Race a couple of times in the 60s, but up to 1984 the Milk Race was still only for amateurs, so those occasions can't be 'Pro-Cycling' memories (title thread), even though later-successful-professionals like Lopez-Carril and Hennie Kuiper were there.

My earliest Pro-Cycling memory is therefore reading an article in a newspaper to do with Pingeon and Poulidor in a Tour.
But it's so long ago and I was so young, I've no idea when or what I read, just I never forgot their names. However, the article stirred my interest in road racing more than seeing the Milk Race had ever done - although it took me a further few years before I actually followed any Pro-Cycling in detail (the 1972 Tour).

.... I've just looked up when and what I likely read about Pingeon and Poulidor – most probably a report along these lines:
In the 1967 Tour, domestique Pingeon took the yellow jersey after stage 5A (around Roubaix), while his captain Poulidor ended up over 6 mins back. On stage 8 (over the Ballon d'Alsace) Poulidor crashed and fell a further minute behind, so before stage 10 (over the Galibier), Poulidor announced he would ride the rest of the Tour in support of Pingeon. He kept his word and Pingeon went on to win the Tour.
(So an agreed role reversal long before this year's one)

bm5

TakeTheHighRoad wrote:

Indurain getting dropped at Les Arcs in 1996
)

That's my saddest memory.

timoid.

85 Tour highlights. I didn't really get what was going on, but I knew there was an Irish chap called Sean Kelly who was wearing green. I decided then that the green jersey was far superior to the yellow and pretended to wear it when I went for bike rides.

My first live cycle race I can remember is the 86 Nissan classic, with Kelly in green as race leader this time. The following year I got to meet him at a sponsors gig in the same race. Neither of said much. TBF I was only 10.

mouth

Watching Eurosport and some kid had 'joined' the race - he was like 12 or 13 and pedalling on the road in the peloton. He was chatting with whoever was at the front, who then leaned over and rubbed his head like you do to a nephew on his birthday, passed him a bidon and the kid turned off somewhere. I was probably about 10 when we got Sky so early 90's. I assume it was the Tour, but may be wrong.

Boardman at Barcelona sticks in there too. I remember the bike being all over the papers and stuff.

Didn't really get into following the sport until I joined this forum. I remember the Team SKY launch, and have watched quite a lot of GT racing since.

crescent

Those "World of Sport" segments on a Saturday lunchtime in the 80s where they summarised the entire week's racing in about 20mins. I had my new Raleigh Arena in 1981 and those 20min sections were the highlight of the week for me and my mate, as far as we were concerned our bikes were just like theirs. The names that were always mentioned at the time were Hinault, Anderson and Kelly. When Robert Millar started appearing on it a bit later I was blown away that a wee guy from my home city could be anywhere near something as 'exotic' as the Tour de France. Happy days :-)

mm1

Ah those World of Sport summaries, grainy pictures and Dicky Davies joking about "Hillman van Impe".

ddraver

I remember seeing what must've been the Milk Race come past when I was very young (too young to remember how old I might have been), somehow the memory of my parents saying that Chris Boardman was in it sticks though.

I supppose then there was flashes from the Olympics and the Lotus Bike (and that Freddy Mercury song)

Then I suppose there were passing flashes of Lance Armstrong and accidently discovering coverage of the tour on (I guess) ITV. My interest for that was much more to do with seeing where we might have been on Holiday though (we went to the Alps a lot when I was a nipper). Then at 18 I saw the Tour come through Serre Chevalier when I was working a season there. That was the the Lance in the field day...

However the moment when it started was finding an illegal stream of some race over a rainy easter weekend over 'cobbles' called Paris-Roubaix ( I think some memory-merging might have happened here but in my head it was the one where Hincapie's stem broke). That was the hook that got me...

thegreatdivide

5th July 1981 at a cross roads somewhere between Nantes to Le Mans, waiting for the peloton to go past. Rene Martens won that day. I was 10.

Tashman

I remember the Barcelona Olympics and watching TdF Highlights. I also remember watching the tour comne through my home town of Basingstoke in '96. Just looked back and seen the line-up. Wow, Indurain, Pantani and a young pup called Armstrong.

takethehighroad

ddraver wrote:

However the moment when it started was finding an illegal stream of some race over a rainy easter weekend over 'cobbles' called Paris-Roubaix ( I think some memory-merging might have happened here but in my head it was the one where Hincapie's stem broke). That was the hook that got me...

Memory merging is correct. Hincapie's stem broke in 2006, and it was dry (albeit overcast)

The rainy one where he fell into a ditch is 2002 (a young Tom Boonen came 3rd) and the year before is Servais Knaven where it also rained