Love Letter to the Tour de France: Stephen Roche Relives the Glory and the Heartbreak

It’s impossible to love road cycling and its history without stumbling upon the
decorated name of Stephen Roche. Matt Stephens comes face to face with the Irish
legend. Catching up with Stephen in his home in Antibes, France, they relived the
intense emotional relationship the former pro still has with the Tour.

Hello everybody, it’s Matt Stephens here for another We Love Cycling video podcast. It’s a Tour de France special again, and this guest is also very special indeed. It’s none other than Stephen Roche who, of course, won The Triple back in 1987. And by The Triple, mean the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the World Road Race Championships. Only two people in history have done that, and that’s Stephen Roche and Eddie Merckx. And this is a wonderful deep dive into Stephen’s relationship with the Tour de France, the fact that the first time he came across the race was when he rode it for the very first time way back in 1983, and one of the most interesting things about this conversation is the fact that it took somebody else to point out the significance of his win in 1987 in the Tour de France for him to put it into proper context. You’ll enjoy this one. Stephen Roche, I’m going to be honest with you, mate. I know you pretty well, but you were one of the people and one of the riders that inspired me to pursue a career in bike racing. I wasn’t a mega rider, but here I am still 30, 40 years later, you’re on the end of a call. And we’re here to talk about the Tour de France. But firstly, thank you very much for joining me, mate. You’re welcome, mate. It’s always great to be involved with you because I appreciate your shows and your podcasts and your, whatever you call them, your little broadcasting, let’s say, with different riders. A lot of humour. And I know you’re as passionate as I am. And it’s great to have people like yourself broadcasting to a wide generation, a wide kind of population because not everybody is a cycling fan, but they’re cycling enthusiast maybe. And they get a lot out of your show. So thank you, Matt, for your contribution to our sport. No, it’s very kind, very kind. Well, I’m in my spare room. You’re in your garden. It looks like you’re somewhere very, very exotic. But what we’re here to talk about is the Tour de France. You know, it’s just around the corner. I’ve just come off commentary for the Dauphiné, of course, big race, one of the big races that leads into it. But what I want to talk to you a little bit about, Stephen, if you don’t mind, is we know what you’ve achieved in the race. And you’ve left quite an incredible mark on our sport with your Triple Crown back in 1987. But can you take us back if you can, I know you’ve got a pretty decent memory, can you remember when you first became aware of the Tour de France and how that came to be? And then a little bit about your journey to ultimately winning it. When did you first become aware of the Tour? I started cycling at about 13, 14. And, of course, when you start cycling, you get to hear all these big things and big names of riders, we heard about Coppi, Bartali, Gimondi. And in like the late 70s, we’re speaking like the great Eddy Merckx. And then we started talking about the legendary Sean Kelly. And being from Ireland, you know, we’re all ears about what Sean Kelly is doing on the continent. This young guy, bricklayer from Curraghduff, going over to the continent, leading out the great Freddy Maertens and even winning a stage in the Tour de France. And that’s probably where we became more aware of it, that it’s actually something that was open, it’s not open to just Belgians or French or Italians or Dutch. It’s also open to ourselves like when we’re on our own, he just got there and won a stage and was one of Freddy Maertens best lead-out men. So possibly then I became aware that the Tour de France or the world of cycling outside of Ireland. So to speak, because I was very much in my own community. I was in school, riding my bike, but with my friends, but not really interested in what was going on in the rest of the world. Not interested because I wasn’t curious, but because there was no documentation or information about the outside world of cycling. Finally, after a lot of work, I got my local news agency to bring in one Cycling Weekly. Every week, I used to go get my Cycling Weekly. And then there was Tours, then there were other magazines. But that was probably the earliest, it would have been 1975, 76, where I would have been more or less introduced to that there was cycling -outside of Ireland. -And what about your first kind of taste of the Tour? Did you ever go watch it before you actually raced it? Did you ever see the Tour de France as a young rider? Or was it literally you never saw it and then you ended up racing it early in your career with Peugeot? At what point was your first interaction with the race itself? My first interaction was when I was on the start line in 1983. Oh, right. So, literally, you knew about it, you read about it, and then you were there as -a professional rider. Wow. Okay. -Well, I went as an amateur in 1980 and during the Tour as a way for the Olympics. And I came back as a pro at ’81. And I was too young to ride the Tour that year. So I watched it on television, of course, but didn’t even go and see it. And then ’82, the similar and then ’83. Then I was on the Peugeot team for it and arrived at the start line. I said, ‘Wow, what have we got here?’ You know, you arrived three days before. And everything starts building up. We had the medical tests at the time, there were the doctors there, they would see each rider individually, give them a quick brush over as to our medical history and make sure we’re apt for competing. And then, of course, there’s a team presentation, even though it’s only very, very small and, you know, very discrete at the time, there was a team presentation. And then, of course, you get your suitcase with like 10 new jerseys, 20 pair of socks, 10 new pair of shorts, and this lovely road book of where you’re going for the next three weeks. For me, it was amazing because I was like 23 years of age. And by this stage, I was living for three years in France, so I kind of know a lot more about international cycling and who the Hinaults were. Van Impe, Joop Zoetemelk, Hennie Kuiper, like a little bit more aware of who -these guys were, and how these guys were performing in the big races. -And so when did you know you’ve been selected to ride the Tour? How was the competition? Because the team you’re with, Peugeot, it was a very, very strong team at that particular time, wasn’t it? And your compatriots would have been the likes of Sean Yates, was Alan Piper, then Robert Miller, Phil Anderson, to name just the British riders, you know, in the team. So when did you know you’re -going to ride? -Well, I had a very good Tour of Romandie in May, I went out of the Romandie beating Phil Anderson. So I was having a reasonably good season. And so Pascal Simon was more or less the leader of the team at the time. So I was brought into the team to help the likes of Pascal Simon and to have a learning curve for myself. So no real pressure. So if you remember, Pascal Simon did an incredible ride on the mountain stage, got the jersey, and basically, you know, wiped everybody out. So we had a great team meeting then that now, Simon’s our man, we still have a few kind of mountain stages to come, but there was a transition stage or two before the next big mountain stage, just keep everybody safe. But unfortunately for Pascal, the very next day, we’re riding along a road just talking, that’s called a transition stage. And Pascal hit a wheel, I went off the road into the ditch, and broke his collarbone, collarbone or a shoulder blade. But we didn’t know what actually got broken or not broken or injured, or whatever. But they decided to strap him up and set him on his way. So he finished the stage and the doctor saw him, he got X-rayed and said the shoulder wasn’t broken, or they weren’t telling us it was broken. Because at that time, Peugeot were, of course, you know, taking in all the promotion that they could get and the page one of the newspapers, all the television as well, talking about Pascal, this Peugeot rider, Pascal Simon, riding the Tour de France and having the yellow jersey and being maybe the next French winner and everything else. So they’re more interested in that. And there’s like two days of transition where they said, okay, well, it doesn’t matter. Even on one leg, he can do it next today. -Different times. -Yeah, we never know what happens. He might come around before the next mountain stage. So, we’re all basically told to just stay around Pascal and make sure he stays comfortable, gets enough rest, no issues and make sure he gets to the end of each stage. And we see what happens in the mountains. So every day, they patched him up with the tape on his back and pulled him back and made sure they really rebuild him every day and put him on his bike. And we finished every stage. He was at three stages of transition and we succeeded in getting him to the finish every day. Then we came to the mountains and we kind of had our doubts, but we knew that the truth was going to come out because the real truth was if it’s broken, there’s no way he can climb. Is this kind of a bluff? So we did it before and we had to take him. So we were kind of like with the doctor and the management, they had one thing and we were just told to do what we had to do. But we still had doubts ourselves. Okay, this guy, how can they keep the guy in here if it’s broken? Maybe it’s a strategy to… This way, keep the other guys from attacking in transition stages. So we didn’t know, really. But anyway, once we hit the mountains, we found out that it was actually real, that it was actually much more serious than we had thought, and Pascal had to abandon. So we were more or less given then a free card. And I always remember that the stage into Morzine, I think it was my first stage where I really found I could climb, and we were together with Robert Miller and Robert’s riding in front of me. There was one guy ahead and then the breakaway and they were going over Joux Plane before dropping down into Morzine. And I did road tempo with Robert and I realised, gee, I can do this. And just watching Robert like ‘click, click, click, click, click’, no accelerations, nothing, nothing, you know, everyone was so smooth. So I kept with Robert and I hung on to him, I got over the top and then, down the far side, I think I was second on the stage, Robert was third. But nevertheless, it was the first time that I ever actually climbed at that level and you know, the next day was Alpe d’Huez, I think. And I rode quite well as well, although I got dropped towards the end. But nevertheless, the first time I really kind of embraced the mountains and realised that in the past, I was getting over climbs, but here I’m getting over Cols. So it was the first time I really realised that I can get over these things -with the best of them. -Did you at that point, although you were a rider that quickly was making his way through the ranks, did you even dare to believe at that point that you could win the Tour or did you think, ‘I could be competitive in the next few years.’ What did you allow yourself to believe in? Because you’ve become a great, great champion. But at what point did your relationship with the Tour became one that you believed that you could win? When did that happen? Over what period? -Because it was only a few years later that you did it, you know. -Well, I think one of my biggest advantages and one of my biggest downfalls is my positivity. And I always looked at the races as one event. I never thought the Tour de France or the Grand Prix of Lille or the Criterion and whatever in Sheffield, I didn’t really differentiate between one and the other. They were a race to be won. I’m a professional cyclist. I’m being paid to win races and the win was a win. And, you know, I wasn’t being pretentious. That was my way of looking at things. And I didn’t really, you know, I always say we’re all equal. The guys that are riding faster than me are ahead of me. They’re there to be beaten. So I gotta go out and beat them. And that’s where I kind of looked at it. Nothing was too big and nothing was ever too small. And my competitors were all equal and I was equal to them as well. And, you know, on a good day, I can beat them. So without being pretentious, I always looked at the races as the Tour de France as being another race, even though it’s a Monument. I still think I could win, even though it might -sound a bit ridiculous. I always felt that it was just another race. -So, essentially, you simplified it, didn’t you, in your mind, as just another race. That’s quite a, I’ve never really heard you say that before. It’s really, really interesting, but still, although you had that in your mind, you must have looked at the Tour and realised how important, how significant the race is because the Tour is the Tour, isn’t it? I mean, every race has its own identity, but, you know, anybody on the street who knows a little bit about cycling has heard of the Tour above everything else. So how did you separate that? ‘Cause that’s really interesting. Surely, the Tour must have seemed to be something almost insurmountable for you, or did you just stick to that, -‘Okay, it’s just another race.’ -Well, two things. When I was 19, I won the Tour of Ireland. And to this day, I’m still the youngest rider to have won the Tour of Ireland. And when I won it the last day after the final time trial, there’s a television footage of me lying on my bed with my yellow jersey on me being interviewed by Michael Carroll. And Michael Carroll was saying, ‘Stephen, well, you’re 19 now, you’ve won this Tour of Ireland. You’ve won it in, you know, great style. You won two or three stages, you won the final time trial. Now, what does this mean to you, you know? People say, you know, you’ve done well.’ So I’m, well, you know, I’m 19. I said, ‘well, yeah, you know, I just won the Tour of Ireland. I’m 19 years of age. People say that I’m strong and I’m good and everything else. But I just want to leave a mark on cycling.’ So, you know, so here I am, saying I want to leave my mark on cycling. So, looking back at it now, I’m saying, well, you know, wasn’t I lucky? I did leave my mark because otherwise, I’ve been seen as being really, really… You know, 19 years of age. And I’m saying I want to leave my mark on cycling. I’ve only won this Tour of Ireland, you know, but at the same time, then I went to London and I finished third in the Tour in 1985 and I won in 1987. You know, a long, long history with the Tour. But I never really realised, believe it or not, how important the Tour was or my victory was until probably 30 years later. 30 years later, I’m at the Tour the France and I’m working for Škoda. We have our guests at my town. We have Simon putting up a PowerPoint presentation to our guests to show them what the Tour de France is all about and introducing his Škoda VIPs or legends to the guests. And Simon put up this big screen and he introduced Tim Harris, an ex-British champion, one or two other guys. And he said to our last guest… There’s the screen and he split it up into 103 different squares, photographs. These other Tour de Frances, 103 years, there’s been so many winners and there’s so many winners, over 100 different winners over the last 103 years. But after 103, so many of them have, you know, won it twice or whatever. And I saw on the screen so many riders. Then, only those of them who have won the Tour and the Giro. And then again, he said, well, and of those so few, only two of them have won The Triple and it came down to myself and Eddy Merckx. Well guys, the one besides Eddy Merckx, is here with you, your host for the evening. And really at that time, even though we’re talking about Giro, Tour and the World’s, like, okay, but nevertheless, for the first time, I realised how important that achievement was. But also how important the Tour was in everybody else’s lives. Because we all hear about Laurent Jalabert, we all hear about the great King Sean Kelly, and we hear about all these great guys and they got incredible careers. And when you speak in public about them, people say, ‘oh, Sean never won the Tour.’ He won the Tour of Spain, all the Classics and all the stage races to be won. Same as Laurent Jalabert. He won all the Classics, he won the Tour of Spain, many stages and all the different WorldTour tours, but has never won the Tour de France. So for 30 years, I never really kind of gave it much thought that I’m a Tour de France winner. Okay, brilliant. But I never really realised how important the impact had been on cycling. When Simon actually put us up on a board and started whittling down the number of people that actually won the Tour. And how rare… There were about 19 Tour de France winners still alive, still around. So it was amazing. So I kind of said, ‘yeah, okay, I’m happy to be here.’ It’s amazing when you put it like that, isn’t it? Because I guess it takes somebody else sometimes to try and put things into perspective for you. But when you explain it like that, and The Triple especially, I mean, I know that most conversations with you, Stephen, and I’m sure, I hope you don’t get fed up with it, because people want to talk about that Triple a bit. I mean, it is monumental. It’s just you and Merckx that have done it. I mean, I guess Tadej Pogačar now has done one step, but it’s two big steps, isn’t it? To do the Tour and then to do the Worlds, I think he’s the type of rider who can do it. But you really have left your mark on history. And can you just actually share with us one of your most memorable days at the Tour de France, whether it was 1987, whether it was 1985, or is there a day that really stands out that you can share with us on any given Tour that has stuck with you for any particular reason? Well, there are different days for different reasons. But I suppose the one that most people will talk about, and the one that’s more vivid in my memory is the stage to La Plagne, where I, let’s say, could have lost my Tour. Yeah. You know, tactically and physically, it was touch and go. And, but you know, 37 years on, we still talk about the way the whole thing went, the way I was chasing Delgado towards the end. And I managed to stay cool and let him think he was winning, come back towards the end. But only because I’d been away in a break before, but people don’t know that, you know. So like, even though I lived the whole stage, I know exactly, I remember exactly, you know, why things unfolded the way they did and everything else, which, you know, people may not know it. But I look at myself and say, that was a masterpiece, you know. People without knowing what happened from the start of the stage, still look at the end result and say, wow, that was amazing stuff, you know. But that stage probably, you know, sticks down, stands out in my mind and my memory for many, many reasons. But, you know, basically because of the strategy, because of the effort I put in and how incredibly cool I stayed going up to hill, watching Delgado ride away from me, knowing in my own mind that, okay, I’ve got one shot here, I cannot make a mistake. So I got to go and come back to him as late as I can. To get as close as I can, to get close before the finish, and yet I stayed cool, you know. And also attacking with like 100 km to go, that was crazy. But nevertheless, Delgado was isolated, I saw an opportunity, I took it, it backfired. Then I got a second opportunity, but I couldn’t make a mistake. So, you know, it was, for me, it’s an amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing stage. But, you know, on the other hand, contrasting was, it was ’83, ’84, maybe ’85, maybe ’84, maybe ’83. I was riding… 1983 actually it was, after Pascal, plus Pascal Simon had abandoned, I did my great performance with Robert Miller into Morzine. Two or three days later, I’m riding with him over the Col de Glandon and Galibier, down, up over Alpe d’Huez. And all of a sudden I’m writing the Glandon. To my right, I have Lucien Van Impe. To my left, I have Johan van der Velde. In front of me, I have other guys. And I said, ‘wow, I’m in a good company.’ in I’m a good company here, you know. So I said, should I really be here? You know, this is not my world, you know. Coming from Dublin, riding in Ireland, okay. But, I mean, this is not my world, you know. But at the same time, I’m so impressed and on it. So we get to talk to the Col de Glandon and I can see it like it was yesterday, about two km from the top, there’s a couple of S-bends and one very, very sharp, kind of U-turn on the left with a very high stone wall. And I remember kind of getting shot, boom, hitting the wall, as they say, just before this corner. And I went around the corner, like literally touching the wall. What’s happening here, you know. And I blow my brains. And then a guy called […], who’s the next rider of that generation, was coming behind me. Saying, what’s up, what’s up, what’s up. So he gave me some sugar drinks. I drank them down. And then I got over the top with him. We drove down the descent, like he was crazy understanding. I hung out to him going down to the valley, the road gets in the valley, back on to the back of the front group before the foot of Alpe d’Huez. And on the foot of Alpe d’Huez, I hear the race motorbike coming up the side of it. I hear the race radio and they’re saying that the green jersey of Sean Kelly is pointed down at 11 minutes or 12 minutes behind. Okay. Not bad, you know. Then I’m up Alpe d’Huez, and I blow again. And then this guy that was 11 minutes behind me is hitting me in the back and saying, -‘come on, Rochie!’ -So Sean has caught you up. -He caught me and he finished like 20 minutes ahead of me. Oh my God. You blew big time, mate. I blew big time I don’t mean 20 minutes, but like 10 minutes ahead of me. So I lost like, 10 minutes on that, 20 minutes nearly on that climb, you know. But then it’s a learning curve as well. And you know, you learn to dig deeper and you learn to get to know yourself, what you can do, what you can’t do, and what you’re capable of. And I always feel that you have to go right to the very bottom and ‘sub-zero’ to be able to benefit from it. And there’s nothing, there’s no harm or shame or anything in going subzero. It’s a part of the learning curve. And you learn more from this than actually winning sometimes. And you learn how deep you can really go. Which probably helped me going on in future years to know that I can actually go very, very deep and still survive. Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing. I mean, that’s the real… That story is one that you could apply to any kind of walk of life, couldn’t you really? It’s about understanding the highs and the lows, and it’s the lows that help make you who you are, Steven, isn’t it? Really, that’s really, really important thing. Another question I want to ask you is more of a bit of a fun one, really. If A.S.O. gave you a call, say it’s Mr Prudhomme on the phone, he said, ‘Steven, we want you to design a stage of the Tour next year.’ What would the stage be? Where would it go? So if you had like, okay, it’s going to be the Steven Roche Legend Stage, what part of France would it be? Where -would it finish? What would it look like? What would it be like? -Well, I’m always fascinated by the stage to La Plagne. There was like, you know, four or five thousand meters of climbing, it went over the Galibier, Telegraphe, Madeleine. It was just an amazing stage and like the survival of the strongest, really. I might say it might have been too hard, but nevertheless, it was an amazing stage. But then I think, you know, on the Tour de France, if it was my stage, for a certain amount of reasons, I’d have a finishing on La Plagne. But then you really have to kind of have a Tour de France mountain stage finishing in Alpe d’Huez. But my stage wouldn’t finish in Alpe d’Huez because I never got over Alpe d’Huez very good. I couldn’t have a finishing on Alpe d’Huez. So, you know, but then there’s different, different climbs. But I think the mountain stage is always the most attractive and it’s a stage where you get the most kind of, ‘yes, I did it’, you know. So, yeah, the stage of the Tour -of ’87 and La Plagne will be my stage to put back on the board again. -Great stuff. Well, we’ll have a word with Mr Prudhomme next time we bump into him. And finally, Stephen, I mean, you know, we could talk for hours. We haven’t unfortunately got the time. I mean, you’ve clearly got a photographic memory, but just in relation to anybody who’s watching this, especially young riders who are thinking about embarking on a professional career, maybe dreaming about riding the Tour de France, -what advice would you give them? A couple of little bits of advice. -Just like you said, Matt, keep dreaming. And dream big. You know, there’s no point in starting out on something without having dreams. And there’s no harm in dreaming big. And I always say, you know, if you share your dreams with people and they don’t laugh at you, it’s because you haven’t dreamt big enough. So if you say something to your friends, I dreamt, I want to achieve this and they laugh at you, then you say, well, okay, it can be done because it sounds ridiculous. And the more it sounds ridiculous, the more achievable it is. So, like, there’s no… Everything is achievable once the homework is done. And of course, everything is united to be able to achieve it. But I think I always say, you know, whatever chance you have of achieving by dreaming about it, if you don’t dream about it, you have no chance of achieving it. So, you know, guys, dream big. And girls, of course, dream big. Dream big. That’s a lovely way to end it, Stephen. Thank you so, so much. Hopefully, our paths will cross maybe at the Tour de France this year, if not at the lounge, where I bumped into you very recently. But thanks for sharing some of your stories, some of your anecdotes. And maybe we’ll do another one of these where we can dig a little bit deeper, because I’d love to listen to some more, -mate. But for now, thanks very much. -Great. Thanks, bud. Take care. -Cheers.