Ed Hood strikes us on into the 80s along with his Tour de France by the many years collection. Let’s have a look again on the riders that outlined the last decade on the Tour de France and surprise for a second: Who did shoot JR Ewing; Cliff Barnes? Nah! Kristin Shepard. Don’t fear in case you needed to Google that.
In January we misplaced our pal and colleague Ed Hood, two years after his devastating stroke. We are going to always remember Ed and his data, connections within the biking world, his writing model and love for the game. Ed wrote hundreds of beautiful articles for PEZ, so we can pay homage the ‘King of the Blackberry’ with re-runs of his nice work.
And a giant thanks to everybody who contributed to Ed’s ‘Go Fund Me’. It made a giant distinction to his final two years.
You possibly can learn the PEZ-Crew’s recollections of Ed Hood HERE.
Campag Delta brakes? They regarded wonderful on a giant bike, horrible on a small one; inside, the mechanism regarded prefer it got here out of a Rolex – the mechanics hated them and phrase was that they weren’t too intelligent at stopping you on a mountain descent. One after the other the Campag outfitted groups drifted again to their trustworthy facet pulls.
The notorious Campy C Brakes.
Joop Zoetemelk made a giant determination within the winter of 1979; to put himself beneath the tutelage of most likely biking’s biggest ever supervisor – Peter Submit. Ti-Raleigh’s ‘Kaiser’ guided his Dutch countryman with the lank hair to the most effective win of his profession – the 1980 Tour – with one other Dutchman, Hennie Kuiper, seven minutes again. Hinault give up while in yellow, the ache from a knee damage an excessive amount of even for the laborious little Breton.
Positive, this was from the 70’s, however it’s nonetheless a cool image of Eddy and Zoetemelk.
In 1981 and Hinault was again in enterprise, 5 stage wins and a margin of quarter-hour over Van Impe with a ‘again from the lifeless’ Freddy Maertens additionally taking 5 levels and the inexperienced jersey. A yr later, he was untroubled in taking the 1982 Tour to make it 4 wins, Zoetemelk was six minutes again with Aussie Phil Anderson’s spell in ‘jaune’ the excessive gentle for a lot of.
Phil Anderson.
The Tour was ‘sans blaireau’ in 1983; a loss of life race with the Spanish climbers within the Vuelta had left Hinault with tendonitis. We vaguely remembered that Frenchman, Laurent Fignon was the man who crashed when alone within the lead within the 1982 Paris – Excursions when his backside bracket axle broke; he sat shocked on the tarmac because the peloton hurtled previous him. By the way, Campag say they requested for that axle again, to x-ray it; however it by no means got here – feeding hypothesis that it could have been a ‘tremendous gentle’ substitute job.
Laurent Fignon.
By Sunday 24 July 1983 we definitely knew who the 23 year-old was – a Tour Winner! Pascal Simon had held the jersey mid-race and defended it regardless of the ache of a dislocated shoulder; however Fignon bided his time and to erase any doubt about his proper to win, dominated the ultimate time trial, operating out general winner by 4 minutes from Angel Arroyo of Spain.
Robert Millar by no means noticed a climb he didn’t like.
In Scotland we nonetheless discuss 1984 – the yr that Robert Millar gained the King of the Mountains and completed fourth on GC; it’s up there with 1314, after we beat the English on the Battle of Bannockburn. Speaking of battles, it was the Younger Pretender who emerged victorious from this generational and cultural confrontation; with Breton Hinault usurped by the younger former veterinary pupil from Paris – Laurent Fignon. Ten minutes was as shut as he may get; and only a minute behind him was a younger American – Greg Lemond.
Fignon a cheerful man in Yellow.
Maybe Hinault’s biggest high quality was his absolute refusal to put down and in 1985 he confirmed the world that he was nonetheless the King of the Tour; regardless of a foul crash which left him with a damaged nostril, the Breton once more triumphed – quantity 5, to hitch Anquetil as prime Tour chien. In second place at 1:42 was Lemond, effectively conscious that he may have crushed his La Vie Claire Boss, if given the liberty to take action. This was the primary Tour we noticed within the flesh; deciding we’d had sufficient of ‘Biking Weekly’ black and white footage and three minute slots on the TV on a Saturday afternoon, we thrashed my Peugeot 205 GTi right down to the German border to look at Hinault pulverise the sphere within the time trial.
Lemond and Hinault crossing the road hand in hand on Alpe d’Huez.
One other of Hinault’s star qualities was his capacity to clarify outrageous behaviour in phrases of 1 syllable and make it look as if he truly believed what was popping out of his mouth. The 1986 was to be Lemond’s, reward for his loyalty in ’85, however as a substitute of taking part in the group mate, Hinault attacked Lemond at each alternative; ‘to make Lemond’s win a worthy one,’ or; ‘to maintain him on his toes!’ relying on which of Bernard’s variations you listened to. Regardless of the bodily and psychological stress that Hinault heaped upon his younger group mate, Lemond was to not be denied and ran out winner by 3:10 from his ex-boss.
Bernard Hinault making Lemond work for it.
In 1986 we noticed our first prologue; in Paris; not too far to go, however in ’87 we travelled the complete 9 yards – the mountain TT on Mont Ventoux. Hinault had retired, Fignon was going like a ‘miner’s boot’ as my buddy Invoice Wright used to say – and Lemond? Similar to JR Ewing, in Dallas; he’d been shot! The race was broad open – it French darling ‘Jeff’ Bernard who rocked, rolled and poked his method to victory on the Ventoux, and it regarded to us like he was going all the best way to Paris in yellow.
Stephan Roche.
However smiling Spaniard Pedro Delgado and Eire’s ‘boy subsequent door,’ Stephen Roche had different concepts, ambushing Bernard on the subsequent stage. A cocky character, effectively conscious of his skills, Bernard hadn’t bothered to domesticate friendships within the peloton – an omission which price him dearly. Roche beat Delgado within the final time trial – gained by Bernard – to take the second a part of his majestic Giro/Tour/Worlds treble. Delgado completed second at 40 seconds – we’d be listening to extra from the good-looking Spaniard later.
Pedro Delgado.
Delgado did certainly win in 1988, however it was a messy victory; a substance referred to as probenecid was present in his urine; it could possibly be used as a masking agent to disguise the presence of steroids and was banned by the Worldwide Olympic Committee, however luckily for Pedro – not the UCI. However second positioned Steven Rooks of Holland lately confessed in his autobiography that he took EPO that yr. . . what the heck! And sure, we have been there to see Sean Yates win the stage six time trial.
Pedro Delgado: ‘I’ve made an enormous mistake’
We’ve all executed it; missed our begin in a time trial – but when the time trial occurs to be the prologue of the 1989 Tour and also you’ve simply wasted 2:40; that may be an issue. Then, a day or two later, in case you get starvation knock within the group time trial and get dropped by your squad – it’s merely not an excellent begin. Delgado did each of these items on this Tour, dropping big quantities of time however nonetheless standing on the third step of the rostrum in Paris.
Lemond en path to his dramatic time trial victory.
However a good larger drama would unfold within the final stage time trial from Versailles into Paris with Lemond over turning Fignon’s 50 second lead in simply 24.5 kilometres to win his second Tour by simply eight seconds and depart the Frenchman a shell of the rider he was.
And us? We have been in Luxembourg, questioning the place the hell Pedro was!
The ‘90’s? Greg will get his hat trick; a giant man from Pamplona who received his lungs and rib cage from a kind of bulls, comes alongside and – oh, yeah, some man from Texas wins a couple of levels and a Tour de France.
Like PEZ? Why not subscribe to our weekly publication to obtain updates and reminders on what’s cool in highway biking?
