Favourite races for personal reasons

RichN95.

A different thread than the great races to watch.

What races have some sort of personal meaning for you?

The first Tour stage I saw on TV (not the first race, I'd previously watched the 1982 Commonwealth Games). Stage 13 of the 1986 Tour - still one of the great stages. If it had been ordinary, I wouldn't be here now. Hinault, LeMond, Liggett, Ocean, Lennox. Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je1v0E_e7QQ

The first pro race I saw live and was at the finish for. Stage 11 of the 1988 Tour (look closely and I'm around 200m from the finish on the left):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2PJg5IGio

specialgueststar

If I hadn't gone into Manchester as a skint student looking for some photo opportunities on a Sunday in 1987 my life would have been different. The first professional cyclist I saw live and flat out I now know to be Steven Rooks and the second was Joey McLaughlin. 1988 was also my first live tour but stage 17 The 1996 tour stands out of the many I have followed. Can't even remember which tour but remember a heatwave in the south covering 140 miles in a day eating anchovy pizza on a beach with a beer
( Florensac?)listening to the tour report on a radio . Good day . Good life

jimmythecuckoo

2105 Gent Wevelgem.

I thought Jurgen Roelandts was going to get that elusive classics win.

The wind and cold made it probably them most epic days racing I've seen and I regularly re-watch it when I am bored on the turbo trainer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edufilter=NULL&v=DBSmb1Qul8E

Pross

1989 Tour for me, I'd seen bits of the Tour highlights going back to Miller in 1984 but that was the first time I'd watch large parts of it. As a result, a few months later I bought a 'racer' (it was actually a bottom of the range Raleigh Banana replica and a POS) from my first ever pay packet and on a Friday evening walked into my local cycling club, that I had been vaguely aware of as I used to see the names of a few people I knew showing up in the local paper winning National titles, and within about 8 months of that Tour finishing I was on the start line of my first race. I knew exactly what my tactic was and how I was going to win the race and within 5 miles I'd learned the harsh reality as the bunch pulled into the distance as I'd been sat on the back and failed to respond quickly enough to a surge.

Pross

jimmythecuckoo said:

2105 Gent Wevelgem.

I thought Jurgen Roelandts was going to get that elusive classics win.

The wind and cold made it probably them most epic days racing I've seen and I regularly re-watch it when I am bored on the turbo trainer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edufilter=NULL&v=DBSmb1Qul8E

Woah, Jimmy has visited the future! Was Valverde still a contender?

No_Ta_Doctor

1996 Tour.

My first summer in Denmark and Riis only goes and bloody wins it. Obviously some very different feelings about it now, but at the time...

takethehighroad

Pantani - Les Deux Alpes - 1998 - David Duffield on commentary. When I truly fell in love with the Tour de France. I'd seen Indurain collapse in 96, and remember Andorra in 97 but 98 was the first Tour I really closely followed.

Then the stage to L'Aquila in the 2005 Giro. I was revising for my A-Levels, Di Luca won and showed me there were other races in the year. Then the Fenestre happened and I haven't looked back since

gsk82

2014 TdF stage 1.

As a Yorkshireman that was an incredible day to be a cycling fan. It was the day that cycling fans everywhere realised that Yorkshire is as good as some of us had been saying for years.

rick_chasey

takethehighroad said:

Pantani - Les Deux Alpes - 1998 - David Duffield on commentary. When I truly fell in love with the Tour de France. I'd seen Indurain collapse in 96, and remember Andorra in 97 but 98 was the first Tour I really closely followed.

Then the stage to L'Aquila in the 2005 Giro. I was revising for my A-Levels, Di Luca won and showed me there were other races in the year. Then the Fenestre happened and I haven't looked back since

I watch this as 10 year old with my Dutch grandfather (Belgian coverage, natch).

As much as that stage captured my imagination, like it would, the following day, Vizille to Albertville cemented that cycling was something for me.

Having watched the first half hour of broadcasting or so, me and my grandparents had to cycle over to their friends for coffee (well, it turned out to be a meagre lunch of deeply brown bread and very dry ham with a mug of very sour milk). What blew my mind was that, when we arrived, there the Tour was, on TV, and talk immediately turned to it.

I was being polite so I was sitting towards the back of the room but I could see the riders *flying* down the mountain. The oldies were chatting away and would occasionally reference the TV.

Pantani, who I'd been glued to in the terrible rain the day before, was practically glowing in his new yellow jersey and the whole idea that yesterday changed what happened today just blew my mind. What was great for a 10 year old was that it was the same two riders who i'd got to know only the day before, battling it out again for a photo finish!

andyp

The worst gift sprint ever? Pantani tried to make it look real, and had to brake to ensure Ullrich got it.

pblakeney

1984 TdF for the obvious reason that it was the first full highlights package to be on TV.
Flip side, watching Greg Lemond racing crits in Canada during the late 80s/90. Put me off watching live cycling for ever. I did catch a race in central France about 5 years ago while on holiday. It reinforced my opinion.
Road cycle racing is best watched on the TV with appropriate beverages and snacks.

rick_chasey

andyp said:

The worst gift sprint ever? Pantani tried to make it look real, and had to brake to ensure Ullrich got it.

Did know that. Shows how gullible kids are

iainf72

1986 Tour. I saw the CBS coverage (in South Africa) about a month after the race. Then I followed 87, 88 was full into it (managed to convince myself at the time that the 88 TdF was a good one). Being a teenager I basically watched it so much that I knew all the commentary off by heart.

Some years later, before the rise of YouTube I bought DVD copies of the CBS coverage.

If you've never seen the CBS stuff, they had pretty epic John Tesh and Yanni synth stuff over highlights but with a lot of explanation of what was going on. So it was a really good intro to it for people For example https://youtu.be/K2D_cKdOTIc?t=594

Then 89 happened and it's still the greatest bike race in history. 89 I watched the C4 coverage.

Used to also sometimes get 20 seconds of a classic on Transworld Sport.

ddraver

iainf72 said:

If you've never seen the CBS stuff, they had pretty epic John Tesh and Yanni synth stuff over highlights but with a lot of explanation of what was going on. So it was a really good intro to it for people

Holy Moly!!

I was much later to the party than most of you. Cycling was that thing that happened in the mountains we saw when we went on walking holidays won by that loud American dude.

However that all changed watching the 2008 Paris Roubaix and discovering there was this whole other world of cycling.