Cyclist
Love, sweat and gears at the 1985 Tour de France
The two young women shook the rain from their tracksuit tops as they entered the bar. The crowded room barely gave them a second glance. It was the middle of July and the Tour de France was in town.
The surrounding mountains had soaked up the warmth of the day and now a cold drizzle splintered the night. One of the women immediately spotted who she was looking for – an older, well-groomed gentleman at the bar – while the other found the payphone and dug out a sheet of paper and a handful of coins from the ‘VC Fontainebleau’ musette she was carrying. She scanned the list of hotels and found the one she wanted. She then punched in the number and began rehearsing in her head the French phrases she would need to be put through to the correct room.
Her companion, meanwhile, was leant over the bar scrutinising a map with the man. He was saying something and pointing to the numbers on a page of his notebook. A loud cheer went up as the TV news showed Frenchman Frédéric Vichot winning that afternoon’s stage of the Tour in Toulouse.
The woman at the payphone was finally connected: ‘Martin? It’s Catherine. How did it go today?’
From her happy demeanour it was obvious to any onlookers that she was speaking to her boyfriend. But their conversation was anything but romantic.
‘Sprockets, Catherine. You’ll need at least a 28,’ said Martin. ‘It’s not just the gradient, it’s the distance. You’ll really have to pace yourself, it’s like nothing you’ve done before.’
The conversation at the bar was along similar lines. Instead of the typical joshing between father and daughter, it was a cold, clinical dissection of gradients and hydration strategies.
‘So, I rode it this morning, Maria,’ said the man, whose lean, tanned frame betrayed his past as a successful ex-pro and four-time participant in the Peace Race. ‘It took me an hour and ten. Be prepared for the heat and the crowds, there’s already hundreds of motorhomes parked up there.’
‘Dad, I’m getting pretty used to having my bottom slapped and beer breathed all over me. I had all that in the Alps, remember?’
Back at the payphone, Catherine was being reminded by Martin how they had met at the previous year’s Olympics in Los Angeles. But not for sentimental reasons.
‘You finished 13th then and you did your National Champion’s jersey proud,’ he said. ‘That’s all that’s expected of you now. Make Team GB proud.’
Her boyfriend was Martin Earley, the young Irishman who had just turned professional with the Fagor team and was riding his first Tour.
‘It’s alright for you, this is your full-time job now!’ she laughed. ‘I’ve got to go back to teaching PE when this is all over!’
She saw that Maria was kissing her father goodbye and looked at her watch.
‘Martin, I have to go now, it’s almost curfew, plus I’m running out of francs. Good luck tomorrow, you’re doing 200 kilometres, we’re only doing the last 50!’
‘But that’s the Tourmalet and Luz Ardiden. So make sure they put a 28 or bigger on your block. Depending on Monsieur Hinault’s mood, we’ll probably be a couple of hours behind you. Speak tomorrow night.’
The girls zipped up their Team GB tracksuits before running through the drizzle back to their hotel. They’d share their newly acquired advice about gear ratios and gradients with their teammates over breakfast.
After 13 stages racing on the same roads as the men, there were only four more left for the 58 remaining riders in the 1985 Tour de France Féminin.
Twenty-seven-year-old Catherine Swinnerton – who would give up racing the following year and marry Martin – would finish 27th on GC, while 20-year-old Maria Blower – whose dad, Owen, had once suffered the heartache of not being able to fulfil a late call-up to the Tour because he’d lent his racing wheels to another rider – would finish 22nd.
But for now, both faced a restless night at the foot of the Tourmalet…
• This article originally appeared in issue 154 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
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