Comments on: Episode 62: We’ve Lost The Battle In Britain

By: bmfw

bmfw — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:24:34 +0000

Have to agree with John's comments regarding the winter Olympics & winter sports in general. Pretty much the only sport I watch during the winter is the Biathlon that's shown on Eurosport. These guys (& girls) are phenomenal athletes. Skiing round with heart rates in the 170's or higher, then trying to compose themselves to shoot 5, 2.5cm targets at 50m – it defies belief. I'm sure the mighty Ole Einar Bjorndalen could have been a top cyclist if he had chosen that path – he has an amazing engine.

By: StumpyRider

StumpyRider — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:40:59 +0000

Did rather choke at any notion of Bert being Le Patron. As John says, he's largely invisible. I rather like Tim Moore's descritpion of Hinault's demeanour as being like: 'he'd just been told that some bloke up the road was prancing about in a wedding dress singing, 'Bernard, Bernard, je m'appelle Bernard'!

“Signor Pistolero is feeling tired today, there will be no racing.” Stop it, you're killing me…

By: John_the_Monkey

John_the_Monkey — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:31:36 +0000

Steve has it about right, although during the races Mr. A chose to race, he could dominate quite enough to pursue his personal vendettas (Simeoni f'rexample).

Wasn't there a rumour that he was a prime mover in the rider protest at the Giro too?

Congleton and Audley are near me, as it goes - there's some lovely riding around there on the cheshire lanes.

By: VeloCast

VeloCast — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:49:39 +0000

Aye, fair point. ;o)

By: Ingy

Ingy — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 02:46:56 +0000

…and Peebles is such a sensible name for a town!

Peeved of Wisbech/Congleton/Stratford on Avon etc etc etc

By: Steve_S_T

Steve_S_T — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:40:22 +0000

Regarding Le Patron, I suspect Hinault will be the last true bearer of that mantle because race specialism became commonplace in his aftermath. So whilst Armstrong might have carried the mantle, the fact that (during his 7 win run in the TDF) he was invisible in Europe, if not always physically certainly competitively, until May and was then gone for good by the end of July meant that a good percentage of the pro peleton probably never raced against him. Furthermore the European riders resented that cherry picking style and were never going to be as dominated by him as their predecessors were by Hinault, Anquetil etc. The effect of specialising is also exacerbated now by the increasingly global nature of the sport. La Vie Claire didn't have to race in America, Qatar, Australia, South East Asia etc, so their squad was probably half the size of a current Pro Tour outfit, which further meant that more of the riders were exposed to Hinault's dominance. So I suppose familiarity bred repsect rather than contempt, whereas the average top pro of the noughties had less need to fear Armstrong because he'd rarely come across his throat grabbing racing persona.