Why? Because I'm Worth It.

I'd been in Frankfurt for over three weeks last September, working every day at the the IAA - the Motorshow - and on the only afternoon I had off I tracked down the wonderful Assos 'Nucleo' shop in town, apparently the only one of its kind in Europe. There's not even one in the trendy commercial centres like Milan, Paris or Barcelona, nor their HQ in San Pietro di Stabio in Switzerland. This was going to be an interesting bit of time away from the office ... and potentially expensive.

I've always loved Assos kit, somewhat weakly suckered in by their slick marketing long before Rapha jumped on the bandwagon. To be fair, it's always been excellent quality gear, reassuringly expensive, it's associated heavily with the European professional scene, and unsurprisingly the Nucleo shop embodies everything that you'd expect from such a premium brand. Shopping becomes an experience, over and above the clothing. It's slickly-opening spotless drawers containing crisply-arranged products, it's the flooring, the lighting, the Assos-branded cups I'm sipping a complimentary espresso from as I perch on the edge of a piece of angular, modern leather furniture. The shop staff were never going to have to try hard that day: I wanted the Assos Limited Edition (see - it's got me already) Federazione Italiana Heritage Jersey as soon as I was aware of its release, and I was standing there with some cash burning a hole in my pocket, rainy-day money that had been there for quite a while. I felt justified in a warped way, since unlike profligate Western governments, Kelda and I have been saving hard for the next stages of The Italy Project since we bought our place in Le Marche back at the end of 2007. At that moment I felt that after such a long stint away from home and such a thrifty existence for the last few years, the ordinarily crazy act of spending over £100 on a cycling jersey was justified. I simply deserved it.

Did I mention that the Heritage Pack also includes a pair of white Assos socks, and the
matching casquette shown in the image above? That makes it worth the expense.

Whilst I know I'm going to love mincing around on the C40 in the summer sunshine wearing this jersey, I have to admit that it's actually an inferior substitute for another Italian National Squad jersey I've wanted for over 25 years. Still made by Assos, it's the jersey used by the Italian team both in 1986 at Colorado Springs when Moreno Argentin won, and again the next year when he lost the maglia iridata to Stephen Roche in Villach.

Tony Mills at Dauphin Sport sowed the seed in my head way back then, pointing out at the time that not having the jersey made by one of the big Italian brands such as Castelli or Santini would mean that the association wouldn't last long, and that this would end up a rarity. I'm certain that my desire to obtain one started right there. Remember though: these were pre-Internet days, and to get hold of one of these you'd probably have to live in Italy and be related to one of the riders lucky enough to have made it into the squadra azzurra with a jersey to spare. Assos Italian blue with vertical green, white and red tricolore bands. Rudy Projects, no helmet. Über cool.

Note Charlie Mottet crying in the background because he's been riding around for 7 hours in a shitty Adidas top

In fact Argentin has been a style icon responsible for not only one, but two of the best jerseys I've ever seen, as well a bike I've always dreamed of owning (I had a stab at it in the early 90s with a replica bike even my main man Doctor D thought was desirable). Not only did he get to sport the best national jersey ever devised, he also spent a season in the best Worlds jersey too: Castelli's own take on the rainbow bands, and the first to provide matching shorts. Divides opinion this, I know, but I love it. There are some additional factors at play here though - it's the whole package.

Sheer class, in every respect

Look at that 1987 team-issue Bianchi for starters. Columbus SLX, chromed head tube, forks and rear stays with black lacquer overlay, fork crown and rear brake bridge picked out to match the frame main tubes. Campagnolo Colbalto brake calipers (utterly gorgeous), celeste colour-coded Almarc leather bar covering and matching bottle cages, long before this type of attention to detail was the norm (although Bianchi clearly benefit from having a simple colour associated with its brand; I can only think of Wilier Triestina's copper-coloured frames as another example). Add in the white lever hoods, off-white wheel guides on those Campag brake shoes and the similar-coloured rubber doughnut on the cable adjuster and you've got a bike being ridden by just about the most stylish rider that ever turned a 170mm Record Corsa crank in anger.

With his olive skin, quintessential latin looks, he was the pro I wanted to look like (I'm a blue-eyed blonde and prone to sunburn). Yeah sure, strive to ride like Hinault, with a bike position like Hinault (can't do this either ...), but give me the dress sense and style of the Italian from San Dona di Piave any day of the week. He even made those grey Brancales look good, that when shod to Lemond's well-documented troublesome plates only managed to remind us of something you'd see worn by a clown at a Billy Smart's circus reunion. I'd also take the liberty of pointing out the matching Swatch watch  ...

OK, OK, I'm labouring the point about pro style for sure, to the degree that this might seem like I'm indulging in man-love, but talking about it does bring me around to the sartorial elegance apparently lacking in one of our favourite sons. I'm afraid that Bradley - who I think comes across as an awesome bloke as well as great rider - really did look like Worzel Gummidge on the top step of the podium at the Tour of Romandie at the weekend. Brad: take a style tip out of Moreno's book: raz that bloody 'trendy' hair off for a proper, smart cropped Mod style, change those black socks for white ones, and cut them down by about six inches. Please. Ken and Doreen (you know them from your boyhood racing days alongside OPCC roadman Ian Jeffery) have been chewing my ears off about it all bloody weekend!!

Sincere apologies Brad. Just win the Tour and I'll take it all back and buy you several beers. It'd be an absolute pleasure. And also: I love the fact you do interviews in French.

The Collector

It's a couple of years since I last did some writing for Phil Diprose at The Ride Journal, and we're presently having a discussion about my submitting something new for the next issue. Below is my piece entitled "The Collector" which appeared in Issue 3, the result of a conversation I had with him explaining why I've got a loft crammed full of cycling magazines from all over Europe, going back over nearly 40 years.
I'd argue that this apparent compulsive hoarding is in no way a sign of mental illness (I think he doth protest too much), but rather no more than a harmless extension of Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder - a book I'm currently reading by Dave Barter. It's a much-valued accumulation over the years of a wide variety of printed matter, chronicling my love for this beautiful sport. No-one in their right mind would throw out family photographs, and these items are similarly capable of engendering a deep emotional response in me.

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It ran like this: if you wanted to be a pro, you’d need to go and live and race abroad and speak the language. We’d all heard the numerous broken-dream stories of talented Brits in France who’d returned early, simply unable to cope. I don’t know which came first for me – the love of the language or my boyish cycling dreams – but whichever it was, when my French teacher urged us to listen to French radio, read novels and newspapers like Le Monde, I had a plan. In the mind of a 15-year-old Francophile, tuning in to long-wave radio to catch the results of a Dauphiné Libéré stage was a brilliant idea, and Baudelaire, Balzac or dreary business journalism could quite reasonably be substituted with magazines like Vélo, Miroir and Sprint. Here was stuff I actually wanted to read.

This was an era when Cycling Weekly was our only access to the ‘continental scene’, the occasionally inspiring cover removed and blu-tacked to the bedroom wall, the perfunctory journalism inside simply skim-read and discarded. This novel French reading matter from Charing Cross Road was different. Out of habit I similarly defaced my first copy of Miroir – a picture of Hinault in yellow – and regretted it the moment I did it. What had I done? Transformed into something to cherish, the evocative photographs and poetic writing meant that there was no way further acquisitions could be mutilated like this. The Collector was born.

I was transported into a world of cycling wonderment: Le Coq Sportif yellow and Chocolat Poulain-sponsored polka-dot jerseys, Gitane bikes and Merlin Plage banners, red Peugeot commissaire’s cars blasting out their distinctive klaxons and flashing their headlights as the winner crossed the line. The voice in my head as I read is Daniel Mangeas, Le Speaker du Tour.

These first copies are my favourites, with riders unsullied by sponsors sunglasses and logo-plastered helmets, displaying instead an almost quaint parochial amateurism, of minimal sponsorship and commercial interests, where quintessentially French characteristics stand out. There’s a much-missed simplicity where the honest, human emotions of the riders are centre-stage: the intensity of effort, the unyielding focus on victory - la rage de vaincre - and the contrasting joy and disappointment of winner and losers alike.

As time has passed so the collection has grown, carefully stored in the loft and removed for occasional reminiscing. More than just a record of how cycling has changed over the years, they’ve become a poignant reference to moments in my own life: of exciting foreign adventures where they were purchased and poured over, of new places and people, of growing up, and like the fading images of the riders inside, of inevitably growing older.

I remember where I was when I bought a specific issue, what I was doing, who I was with. Pascal Simon grimacing up Le Puy-de-Dôme with a broken shoulder blade when perhaps I should have been revising harder. First-kiss butterflies of a new relationship, whilst Jean-Francois Bernard hauled himself to the top of the Ventoux faster than everyone else. Cowering inside a rain-sodden bar at Les Deux Alpes reading about that day’s stage in L’Equipe, whilst outside Marco simply rode away from everybody. 

Whilst deep-down I had no real hopes of becoming a pro, language study took me to University with a year in southern France, and a chance at the very least to pretend to be a rider. The irony of getting my name into Vélo in 1988 simply for being a coureur Britannique riding in a French team, obviously the next Stephen Roche, was not lost on me. My personal triplé for the season consisted only of a nut-brown cyclist’s tan, French now spoken with a Pagnolesque Provençal twang, and a sizeable overdraft. 

These riders were my boyhood companions, people I identified with, sartorially imitated on the bike and somehow wanted to be. Flicking through the magazines is like looking back at a family photo album you wish you were somehow in. Then they were daredevil uncles, today energetic young nephews, but both heroically competing in the hardest sport in the world, a sport I had neither the ability nor courage to pursue to their level, on the only stage that’s ever counted for me: Europe. The images and words captured inside are a celebration of this honesty, depicting la noble incertitude du sport - the magnificent uncertainty of sport. Sport is surely a metaphor for life, and this prized collection of magazines additionally represents a valued narrative of my own existence.