“I could have won two more, at least,” he reasons Francesco Moser, 73 years old in June, as he scans the sky among his mountains in Trentino. «As soon as some good weather returns I’ll get back on the bike. But not much, I give myself a couple of hours a day. And strictly with the electric bike, when you are over seventy you can’t joke.”
Paris-Roubaix 2024, a change to the route introduced: the reaction of world champion Van der Poel
It was his run, the Paris-Roubaix, and indeed Francesco Moser has amassed 273 victories in a very rich career. Twelve years later Gimondi arrived alone at the Roubaix velodrome in 1978, resplendent in the world champion jersey – barely shadowed by the mud – won the year before in Venezuela. And he only arrived in 1979, and again in 1980, a trio of solitary victories never achieved by anyone. He also risked taking fourth, in the sprint, if only Bernard Hinault hadn’t materialized in front of him and De Vlaeminck – the usual suspects – and won and declared: «Never again here, it’s not a race».
The ritual of what they called the Hell of the North is renewed on Sunday in the France of old coal mines, of the bumpy streets that have become national heritage, an asset to be defended because the myth is celebrated here and the myth cannot disappear under the asphalt. «Everyone was talking about this Roubaix and I said to myself: let’s go then. And I even risked winning the first one”, it was 1974, he wasn’t yet 23 years old, and if a wheel hadn’t gone off on a bend at the end maybe he could have fought for success, Moser second on his debut. «There I understood that it could be done. I didn’t know her before. My brother Aldo had never raced it. We went to try the route by car the day before, with my sporting directors, Bartolozzi and Vannucci.” They talked about a series of notes, in which they noted the pavé sectors, the difficulties, the solutions. «Well, only by pedaling on it, with the kilometres, I learned to face it». His recipe is easy, if your name is Moser and you are in the midst of a fantastic career: «There is little you can do: you have to feel good, go fast and try to stay in front. When it rains, you pedal in the center of the donkey hump that is the road, because there is water on the sides and you don’t know what you would find underneath; when it’s dry, you instead pedal along the edges, on the little side paths. And you try to stay upright, above all.” Then there is the decisive ability to take the cobblestone sectors in front, so as not to risk being delayed: a chicane has been introduced at the entrance to the Arenberg Forest to prevent the group from arriving there compactly at fifty per hour, in three days from the terrible fall at the Tour of the Basque Country: «It seems stupid to me.
It will mean that you fall before and not after… The truth is that everything is extreme, excessive, even if in cycling you always fall.” And he explains those moments: «The fight begins even ten kilometers earlier, to take the cobblestones among the first. Sometimes I had a partner who helped me, other times I did it myself, I made do. It was a battle.” He ran the Roubaix until the 1987 edition, at almost 36 years old, «and if I hadn’t attacked soon maybe, that too…»: more than regret it’s fun to remember the years of his youth. “The first remains the one I’m most fond of, with the rainbow jersey, but I could have won two more.” There weren’t the technological gadgets of today, «just a few tricks, more or less the same bikes for everyone, I had a Benotto. Only sturdier wheels, padded saddle, and so are the handlebars, but nothing else. What if we also held tests in Italy? But no, we don’t have cobblestones, just some smaller and more regular sections, it’s not worth it.” He has never been afraid of hard work, a matter of family, cyclists and farmers, passion and sweat, good wine and success. «When I left the house for training, I could only go downhill, there was no longer any road up. Which meant finding the climb on the way back, when I was most tired.” A pleasant sentence if you were born in Palù di Giovo, only lessened now that “I live on the farm, it’s been uphill but not like it was back then”.
The man of the mountains ran divinely on the blackened plain where in those years Roger De Vlaeminck known as the Gypsy dictated the law, four victories that earned him the nickname Monsieur Roubaix. In 1978 they were also teammates. «Sanson, my owner, wanted it, Roger didn’t have a team and he came to mine. But there was no way to get along. He didn’t listen, he didn’t like hierarchies. We almost didn’t speak to each other.” That day Moser attacked first and made a gap, and Roger couldn’t chase him, even though legend has it that he tried to convince Freddy Maertens to take him back under. Moser doesn’t confirm: «I don’t know, they’re just rumors. I also saw him again recently, Roger: he still complains, he doesn’t like cycling today.” And does she like it? «I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable in this system. And I won’t say anything else.” Meaning what? «Well, now the sports directors are in charge. In my time we runners were in charge…”. So they were right to call her the Sheriff. «Ah ah… it was Magrini and Rosola who came up with that nickname». But will there be anyone she likes? «Van der Poel seems the strongest in one-day races, Pogacar in stage races. Then there are Evenepoel, Roglic, Van Aert who are trying to fit in.” Since his years, Italy has only won four times in Roubaix, in the classics we struggle. Why? «I don’t know, I don’t deal with cycling organisation. We don’t even have a team, come on…”
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1970-01-01 00:00:00
#run #group #chicane #Bullshit
