Laurent Fignon..

Fender76

Laurent Fignon is dead a year today. I'm just reading his book.
He was one of a kind, a pure class athlete dogged by injuries and bad luck.
A typical Frenchman, he was never afraid to speak his mind and he makes it clear what he thought of many big names in his book (Huge respect for Kelly, not so much for Cyril Guimard...) although he preferred to settle scores on his bike..
Pity there aren't more like him.

Lumen

Things which I learned from this book:

1. Aerobars are bad, if you don't have them.
2. Titanium is bad.
3. Don't hit your leg off the pedal.
4. Widespread EPO (ab)use in the pro peloton came in about 1993.

Zorba

Things i've learned from this thread

Must stop forgetting to order that book !

wayne0308

I'm actually looking for a good cycling book to read, might get this today if I find it in Dublin city center.

hinault

Fender76 wrote: »

Laurent Fignon is dead a year today. I'm just reading his book.
He was one of a kind, a pure class athlete dogged by injuries and bad luck.
A typical Frenchman, he was never afraid to speak his mind and he makes it clear what he thought of many big names in his book (Huge respect for Kelly, not so much for Cyril Guimard...) although he preferred to settle scores on his bike..
Pity there aren't more like him.

Yeah, his book makes for fascinating reading.

I always admired his class on the bike but he wasn't a person I liked to be honest (I didn't know much about him when he was racing) but after he retired I started to read about him and I got to like the man behind the image.

Collumbo

He was old an school hard man. Glad I got to meet the man... He signed a photo of himself for me that I tore out of an old Cycle Sport magazine when I met him in Carrick On Suir back in 1994 at the Sean Kelly thing... and two minutes later I got the photo taken with the Badger! Them was the days...

michaelm

Collumbo wrote: »

He was old an school hard man. Glad I got to meet the man... He signed a photo of himself for me that I tore out of an old Cycle Sport magazine when I met him in Carrick On Suir back in 1994 at the Sean Kelly thing... and two minutes later I got the photo taken with the Badger! Them was the days...

Reminds me of the greatest regret I have as a photographer/cyclist - having breakfast in the hotel in Carrick that morning and sitting near a table which had Fignon, Roche, Hinault and Merckx - and no camera!

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www.flickr.com/photos/mmolamphy

le petit braquet

I read the book on holidays and really enjoyed it. The fact that he was still angry and a little bitter about Lemond so many years later actually endeared him to me as it just showed how much it meant to him.

Reminds me of the greatest regret I have as a photographer/cyclist - having breakfast in the hotel in Carrick that morning and sitting near a table which had Fignon, Roche, Hinault and Merckx - and no camera!

Snap - pun intended. I was in the same hotel the night before and the same group was at a table having a drink and I didn't have a camera either!

lpb

a148pro

feck the tri bars, the drag from that pony tail must have been worth at least 10 seconds

happytramp

Say what you want about Fignon but the man sure knew how to handle a tape worm...:D