October 11, 2012 
As I browsed through Waterstone’s bookshop this evening I caught a glimpse of Tyler Hamilton’s exposé of the doping regime within what was the US Postal cycling team of the early 2000′s . I just happened to turn to a number of pages dealing with the 2000 Tour de France and of Lance Armstrong’s obsession with his two main rivals – Jan Ullrich and my all time cycling hero, Marco Pantani. Sadly Pantani ended his life a tragic figure, dying alone in a hotel bedroom suffering from depression and acute cocaine poisoning.
I loved watching Pantani race, mercurial and total unpredictable. He rose even more in my estimation when I discovered that (according to Hamilton) this unpredictability drove Armstrong to absolute distraction!
Good on ya Marco! 
Here’s Il Pirata (the pirate) in action.
Author Info
Snap Ken.! I loved watching him and Robert Millar.
I`ve just finished “In Search of Robert Millar” by Richard Moore,a cracking read and thoroughly recommended.There`s some good Youtube videos of the two of them in action including the entire ITV documentary on Millar from the 90`s.
I had the privilege of meeting Robert many years ago at 2am one morning when he almost battered down my friends door to announce his intention of calling the poilce if we didn`t curtail the party noise
I think I began watching cycling after Robert Millar had retired. But I do however remember watching Greg Lemond ride the Tour de France – but that must have been a one off before we had satellite telly and Eurosport when I became addicted to it. Maybe Channel 4 covered Le Tour in those days.
Must see that Millar video. Thanks for the info
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He ended up a fairly reclusive character from what I heard. You must have really pissed him off for him to “break cover”
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The new Tyler Hamilton book looks very interesting although I only scanned a few pages in the shop. David Miller’s book is also a good read.
Nice varied video ken.Must be unnerving to be going at that speed with the crowd so tightly packed close to the bike.Although I,m a keen cyclist myself I’m not a big spectator of TV events.I prefer doing it myself even if to a far lesser degree.
These crowds near the mountain summits are “mental!” especially the Italian “Tifosi”. It’s the nutters who run alongside the cyclists that are the real menace.
Having said that most accidents are usually caused by some eejit staring through the camera lens and forgetting that they are in the path of the peloton. One of the worst I remember was when a policeman decided to do just that – from the wrong side of the barrier and caused one hell of a crash!