ANDY Q+A

Favourite Tour de France Moment?

Hmm. A lot. As a fan I was there in 1989 when Greg Lemond famously beat Lauren Fignon in the final stage time trial to win the Tour by just eight second. Crazy scenes. When the Tour started in San Sebastian I sent myself (!) [pulled rank] to the start to bring the film back for the issue. Getting film back to London from the Tour was always a logistical nightmare, and expensive. Seems mad now in the digital age! Anyway I managed to jump into the Motorola team car, driven by Hennie Kuiper, following Phil Anderson through an absolute ocean of screaming Spanish tour fans. Hennie, one hand on the wheel, shouting at Phil out of the window and turning to talk to me!

Favourite Cycling Memories?

Again lots. Three stick out. Chris Boardman’s Olympic victory. And his Hour Record ride in Bordeaux. I was at both. Sort of working! I had ‘proper’ journalists there of course. Barcelona was remarkable. It was just so historic and, because it was Team GB’s first gold of the games, the press went nuts. The BCF made it very difficult for me to get an interview until Chris put his foot down and told them he would be talking to me. Met up with him at an outdoor café, in a totally deserted athletes’ village. I remember it was incredibly hot. He brought the gold medal and we chatted for an hour or so. It was brilliant but a bit sad. He knew his world was about to change, and boy he was right there, but had money worries and was truthfully a little naïve as to his new status! I wonder what happened to him!

Bordeaux was great fun. Went for about 4-5 days. Actually helping him out with logistics a bit. To be honest it was all very amateurish, apart from the ride of course. Great dinner afterwards! There were quite a lot of us. Including from memory, Eddy Merckx, who was a bit ‘tired and emotional!’ Came to the end of the meal and there was some embarrassment as to how it was going to be paid for. In the end myself, using Cycling Weekly money it must be said, and Alan Dunn, the Rolling Stones manager, stepped up and paid it!

And Chris again. The picture in the header says it all really. Winning the prologue here in Lille. I was back in the office watching. A Brit in yellow. A very rare thing at that time! Great photo thanks to my friend Phil O’Connor.

Most Embarrassing Cycling Memory?

Two!

I used to ride a few of John Potter’s Bike Events rides and a favourite was Bordeaux-Barcelona. On day one just south of Bordeaux, in the pine forests, I was with a group of about six. Bowling along. Quite fast. And we met this really old French guy at a junction. He just flicked in and rode by the side of me. I was early thirties. Fit(ish). He flicked me aside a bit. And said you look OK on a bike, in French, so I agreed. And he asked if I’d ever raced. So I said yes, recalling my third place in the national student’s hill climb, and my fifth place in a Thornaby Trading Estate thirds and juniors crit. And then, in my arrogance, I thought, OK mate you look OK on your rubbish old bike. So I asked him, in my bad French, have you raced? “Oui. Je suis Roger Laperbie. I won the Tour de France just before the war, in 1937. I would have won it more but Hitler interfered.” Oh dear!

Second was in Lanzarote. I set up some Cycling Weekly training camps there and we brought along a few names each year to help attract customers. Sean Kelly, Robert Millar (Pippa York), Bjarne Riis. Big names. And one year we took Eddy Merckx himself. Around 1994. So aged 50. He was great and in pretty good shape. But struggled with the distances. Anyway one day he’d set off with the ‘fast’ group and then turned onto a shorter circuit. And myself and a couple of friends caught up with him later, at the top of the long (10km) descent into Club La Santa, where the camps were based. And… err… we attacked him. Jumped to the other side of the road and sprinted off! And put a few hundred metres into him in seconds! Then looked back and he’d changed up a few gears. Was turning an impossibly big chainring and was on the drops and, well, looking like a very focused Eddy Merckx! He went past us like a rocket. With a look of total contempt on his face. Very firmly put in my place. I still shudder at the thought!

Strangest Cycling Memory?

Hmm. Let me think!! An uncomfortable evening with Lance Armstrong at a Stones concert in Rome springs to mind…

Favourite Bar in Lille?

Au Paon D’or. Feels French to me. It’s in a pedestrianised area. Nice terrace. Nursing a Chouffe cinquante (or two!) and watching the world go by is fun! L’imaginaire would be my second choice. Similar reasons.