William Fotheringham - Roule Britannia: Great Britain and the Tour de France

Contents

About the Book

In 2012 Bradley Wiggins made history by becoming the first Briton ever to win the Tour de France. His compatirot Chris Froome came second while fellow Brits, the fastest man on earth Mark Cavendish and reformed doper David Millar, made sure that between them Britain accounted for 7 of a possible 21 stage wins. Great Britain had conquered the Tour de France.

In Roule Britannia, number one best-selling author William Fotheringham, charts British cyclings rise to the top. From the early days of Brian Robinson to Bradley Wigginss dominant ride via Tom Simpson, Robert Millar, Chris Boardman and many others, Roule Britannia celebrates a nations love affair with the greatest race of all.

About the Author

William Fotheringham writes for the Guardian and Observer on cycling and rugby. A former racing cyclist and launch editor of procycling and Cycle Sport magazines, he has reported on over twenty Tours de France as well as Six Nations rugby and the Olympic Games. His biography of Tom Simpson, Put Me Back on My Bike, was acclaimed by Vlo magazine as the best cycling biography ever written.

Also by William Fotheringham

Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson

Fallen Angel: The Passion of Fausto Coppi

Merckx: Half Man, Half Bike

Cylcopedia: Its All About the Bike

A Century of Cycling

Fotheringhams Sporting Trivia

Fotheringhams Sporting Trivia: The Greatest Sporting

Trivia Book Ever II

List of Illustrations

Brian Robinson, 1960 Tour de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Brian Robinson, 1959 Tour de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Tony Hoar, 1955 Tour de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Great Britain team, 1961 Tour de France (Roger St Pierre Library)

Alan Ramsbottom, 1963 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Tom Simpson, 1962, 1965 and 1967 Tours de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Minutes silence, 1967 Tour de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Barry Hoban, 1975 and 1977 Tours de France (Photosport International)

Barry Hoban, 1968 Tour de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Michael Wright, 1973 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Colin Lewis, 1967 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Vin Denson, 1965 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Robert Millar, 1986 Tour de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Paul Sherwen, 1978 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Graham Jones, 1980 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Robert Millar, 1984 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Sean Yates, 1984 Tour de France (Photosport International)

ANC team, 1986 (Photosport International)

ANC team, 1987 Tour de France (Photosport International)

Robert Millar, 1986 and 1990 Tours de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Sean Yates, 1990 and 1994 Tours de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Chris Boardman, 1994, 1996, 1998 Tours de France (Photosport International)

David Millar, 2002 and 2003 Tours de France (Photosport International)

Mark Cavendish, 2009 Tour de France (Offside/LEquipe)

Bradley Wiggins, 2012 Tour de France (Getty)

Le Tour en Angleterre 1994 (Photosport International)

To my father, Alex, who would have loved to have seen a first British victory on the Tour.

Roule Britannia

Headline, LEquipe, 7 July 1962

Rouleur: [Sports] a cyclist who can maintain a rapid, regular pace.

Le Petit Robert

Prologue

The sky was a clearest blue above the Champs-Elyses on Sunday 22 July 2012. We crushed onto the barriers by the finish line, waiting for the final moments when the long string of cyclists would fly towards us for the last time. We knew Mark Cavendish would lead them in, and so it proved as he raced up the slight slope, close to the right-hand side of the road, stage victory in his sights. A few seconds later, well back in the heart of the bunch, it was the turn of Bradley Wiggins, his arms in the air as he turned to his teammate Michael Rogers, with the pair embracing on their bikes as they passed us. The Tour de France was won. The first British victory in the race was complete. And on they went for a few yards, before Wiggins climbed off his bike and was suddenly lost in a sea of cameras, only his yellow crash hat in the throng showing that he was there at all.

I walked back down the Champs a few minutes later, towards the team buses parked on the Place de la Concorde. As I did, I turned to watch Christian Knees, Wiggins German watchdog, who had spent kilometre after kilometre on the front of the peloton, and was now enjoying his moment of glory: as the crowd cheered on either side of the boulevard, he zigzagged from one side to the other to wave at them and milk the applause, his face crushed into a massive grin.

It is rare for journalists covering the Tour de France to schlep down to the Champs. By the final day of the Tour battle fatigue has set in, and the lengthy trip there and back from the press centre at Porte Maillot cuts into writing time on a day of tight deadlines. And there was far more than usual to be written on this particular Sunday: the life story of Wiggins, how he had transformed himself from Olympic track gold medallist into Tour de France winner, how he and Team Sky had come to rule the greatest, toughest cycle race in the world. That story would dominate the British press the following day.

But on this occasion the trip had to be made. As a cycling fan I had waited thirty-five years to see this, ever since the day my late father bought me the book The Great Bike Race by Geoffrey Nicholson. As a writer I had waited twenty-two years since covering my first Tour de France, back in the days when we followed the fortunes of Robert Millar and Stephen Roche. I had seen the Tourmen pass for the first time, on a back road deep in the lush Normandy countryside, and over the years the connection between me and the stars on two wheels had changed, subtly and strongly.

In 1984, when I watched Robert Millar and Stephen Roche pedal past, along with Paul Sherwen, the hero of my teenage years, the link was different. At the time, I was trying in a far less significant way and ultimately to no great effect to do what they had done: come to France, live the cycling life, race hard, and see how far my passion would take me. Living in a cold-water flat, trying to be a pro, was how Millar put it. That in turn kept up a connection that went back thirty years, to the time when Brian Robinson, Tom Simpson and Barry Hoban had crossed the Channel to, in the words of Robinson live like the French did, and learn from them.

I admired all of them, because I had an idea of what they had achieved. I could not begin to imagine the sporting side, but the leap in the dark that they had all made was the same: packing a bag and a bike, getting on the ferry to go somewhere you barely knew, throwing yourself on the mercy of people you had never met at a time of life when you had never lived away from home, all on the strength of a single letter and a phone call, and with the hope that the people waiting would not prove to be charlatans or crooks. For all of us who got the ferry, at whatever level, the leap of faith was the same. You bought your ticket; you hoped it would work out on the opposite side of the Channel. The stakes were different: my livelihood would not depend on it, although the experience was formative. But certain things were the same: the language and cultural barriers, the need to learn rapidly, in spite of those barriers; the isolation, the need to save one-franc pieces for the weekly phone call home, the need to last the days until the next race through fatigue, injury, illness and solitude. As Millar said, if the French didnt make it they could go back to their parents. If we went home, everyone would say, You werent good enough.