Behind The Yellow Jersey: Racing In The Shadows Of Kelly And Roche

In October 1974, I was placed on the Irish Olympic Squad for Montreal, along with Sean Kelly, Alan McCormack, Tony Lally, John Shortt and Peter Morton. We would be sponsored by the French company Pernod, and spend three nights a week weight training all winter under the supervision of a coach in a Dublin gym. Kelly would be exempt from the winter training, as he was still living in Tipperary. After the gym sessions and long training spins in the Wicklow Mountains, it was time for the new season of races. As I shivered at the starting line of the Dublin to Drogheda handicap event, I looked at the men around me. There was Kelly, already considered Ireland's greatest ever prospect; Peter Doyle, a living legend of Irish cycling who almost single-handedly won the Tour of Britain from some of the world's best cyclists; Liam Horner, winner of the famous Isle of Man International Road Race; Tony Lally, the youngest ever winner of the Tour of Ireland; Pat McQuaid, the national champion and destined to win the next two Tours of Ireland; Alan McCormack, who would later become the youngest Irishman to complete a grand tour; Oliver McQuaid, who would go to the Montreal Olympics the following year and his brother Kieron, who had ridden the Munich Olympics...then there was me, with a second place in the junior championships to my name. To say that I felt out of my depth would be a massive understatement. Four years and three hundred races later, I found out that fellow Dubliner Stephen Roche would be my roommate for the duration of the eight day Tour of Ireland. We had both been selected on the Irish team, and Stephen had already established himself as a leading contender for the overall classification with a strong performance into Cavan, where he finished with the leaders. Our hotel room in Cavan town was damp and cold, but Roche was in fine form and he chatted about his prospects of winning the entire race. "I'll help you any way I can Stephen," I assured him, although privately I was worried about just getting through the next day's stage. "I'd say the day after tomorrow is the big one," he said. "I've got to have a go on the Gap of Mamore and put some time into Shortt and Millar." He was referring to the most feared climb in the entire race. The Gap of Mamore in the far northwest of the country is an incredibly steep ascent on what is now known as the Wild Atlantic Way. It was once the only route to the land of Urris, where the inhabitants were often entirely cut off from the outside world during bad winter storms. It turned out to be a very cold and wet tour. I never once heard Roche complain about the conditions or anything else for that matter. His powers of recovery from hard races were beyond anything I had ever seen. At breakfast, he chatted away about various riders in the race, but was mainly focused on the British Airways squad and Billy Kerr as the riders to beat. Roche and myself were already good friends, but it was during that tour I really learned that he was not just an above average racing cyclist, but rather an extraordinary force of nature who was capable of exerting himself to the absolute limit day after day. His powers of recovery were nothing short of miraculous. At nineteen years of age, he was already displaying the prowess that would later make him the top cyclist in the world.

• | Author: Michael Cusack
• | Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• | Publication Date: Jun 02, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 202 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1542631122
• | ISBN-13: 9781542631129