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Vuelta a España 1985

Par Ian Cleverly • 26th August 2010 01:52pm • Publié dans Rouleur

“Nobody would ride. They preferred to see me lose and a Spaniard win.”
- Robert Millar

A lead of over six minutes over a former trainee nurse by the name of Pedro Delgado on the penultimate day of the 1985 Vuelta evaporated for Robert Millar as quickly as a wisp of cloud over the Angliru.

The Scot had already congratulated his closest rivals on their brave efforts but the race was his. A puncture, a cartel of Spanish teams and the Peugeot directeur sportif intervened, and one of the biggest upsets in recent race history prevented Millar from becoming the first Briton to win a Grand Tour.

Millar’s flat tyre on the second of the day’s three climbs saw Delgado fly the nest in the company of Kelme’s Jose Recio. Oblivious to the danger, Millar returned to the chase group with eyes only for his nearest challenger, the Colombian Pacho Rodriguez, just 10 seconds adrift overall.

With the final climb of the Vuelta, Los Leones, conquered and Millar glued to the wheel of Rodriguez, the race was seemingly won. But the lead pair had pulled out a five minute lead by this point, unbeknown to Millar until Peugeot director Roland Berland pulled alongside to belatedly inform him.

Now el maillot amarillo was stuck. Having burned the last of his Peugeot teammates regaining the 15-strong chase group, Millar was effectively alone: Berland had not secured the services of other teams beforehand – standard practice under the circumstances – so not one of those 15 riders would contribute to the Scot’s cause. To pull the group along single-handedly would be to risk being jumped by Rodriguez.

Delgado had done the impossible, turning a six-minute deficit into a 36-second winning margin, attacking in the style that also netted him the ’89 Vuelta and ’88 Tour. Arguably, the ’89 Tour would also have gone the Spaniard’s way had he not missed his start in the prologue, losing 2’40” in the process.

For ‘Perico’, 1985 was the start of a brilliant career. For Millar, it was heartbreak and the dawning realisation that his future lay away from the Peugeot team.

The Vuelta a España begins on Saturday and Spain's grand tour is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

The Vuelta – music inspired by the Vuelta a España will be available to order from www.rapha.cc this Friday 27th August.

Commentaires

Mike Hurl

26th August 2010 03:10pm

Whatever happened to music inspired by Le Tour? And what about the downloadable/mp3 version of the Giro album?

Joe Hall

26th August 2010 03:40pm

… Le Tour album will be gracing us with its presence come Tour-time 2011. Downloads are arriving for Christmas. But the CD is a much nicer way to own the music.

Mike Owen

10th September 2010 04:34pm

Couldn't agree more with buying the actual object rather than some virtual facsimile. Apart from anything else the compression that downlaodable files undergo robs the music of it's full range. There's a good take (and explanation of it on the bottom of this page
http://radiokhartoum.com/press-releases/khz210-Hepburns.pdf

to quote:A note on mastering…
Radio Khartoum releases are mastered for listening, not the subway. Since the early noughts we have been instructing our engineers to just say no to the loudness wars (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ for a loudness wars primer). Remember the signature tinny production of the 1980s? Squashed dynamics is the post–mid-nineties equivalent. That said, this time around we’re giving listeners a choice: we’ve produced alternate, “loud” masters of the Mares’ Tails and How the Fallen Are Mighty albums. We’re calling them the “loudness war editions” and making them available via download only. Though we don’t like them as much as the masters used for the CD and vinyl editions, we have endeavored to make the L.W.E. versions sound as good as possible for what they are. And the loud versions are not all bad: we expect that they will be superior in many situations. Better for subways, noisy restaurants, cars, and iTunes party shuffle mode (going head-to-head with the rest of the world’s overly compressed masters). Oh, right — add top-40 radio to the foregoing list. Better for basically everything … except listening.

Buy the Giro album, it's lovely and so will the Vuelta I have no doubt.

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