Categories: The Works

The Works: It’s All About The Bike, Sean Yates

Our Man, Sean Yates

It’s been awhile since a book has been reviewed on Velominati. Who has time to read books? I needed some background on Sean Yates and was surprised to know he had written an autobiography back in 2013. This book is a real beauty. The book is stitched together with his own accounts of life and accounts from friends and fellow racers. He was a record keeping maniac so he has a lot of good detail of his early cycling days. His friend’s accounts all tell tales of a big friendly guy with huge capacity to put everyone in the hurt locker, including himself.

Interestingly all his family were vegetarians and he had never eaten meat until he moved to France. It certainly dispels any myths about vegetarians not being able to be super athletes as Sean was most certainly that. He was a natural rouler, easily going under an hour on his very first attempt at a 40km time trial (bastard!). Luckily his family was very supportive of a lad who chose to ride rather than go to college.

Back in his day the riders were coach-less and often clueless. Yates was doing hundreds of push ups everyday; keeping the physique more rugby player than cyclist. Young pros would show up at races, get hammered, go home. And repeat. Here is an excerpt of Sean in Paris as a neo-pro, now eating meat and everything else.

In Paris, we’d go for a ride in the morning then laze around. My favorite trick was to go to the patisserie along the road and buy a huge family butter cake. It’s sort of a white cake, made of absolute pure fat. I’d mush it all up, dump the lot into a salad bowl and sit there eating it with a spoon like it was a bowl of muesli. -Sean Yates

Preparing [the cake] was a total ritual for him, like a heroin addict cooking up, says John Herety [fellow racer and flatmate], The cake would be divided into squares, then the whole lot would go in the sort of bowl reserved for family fruit salads. Then a large pot of fromage blanc would go over the lot. That gave him the excuse to call it “yogurt cake’ like it was some kind of health food.

The book is full of these great stories. Sean Kelly tells a few tales of Sean’s descending abilities that are pure gold. Early on, Yates’s Merckx-like natural talent kept him in the professional ranks despite his lack of the race savvy those who grew up on the continent may have already had. He rode for Peugeot with mentors like Phil Anderson and Stephen Roche, then eventually joined the 7-Eleven team, which turned into Motorola. It was quite an amazing career.

I’ll spare you any further details because they are much better when read right from the book, available used and maybe even new from your local book seller or library. This is the best rider autobiography I’ve read in many years and highly recommend it. It gets the V-bunker’s five cogs rating.

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

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wiscot says:

Jun 23 2016 at 5:23 am

@ErikdR

@wiscot

Stumbled across this: I’d actually never seen this footage before:

The sound track is ludicrous and the commentary is in Italian (so no clue; perhaps Pedale Forchetta will chip in at some point…), but the footage, while grainy, is amazing. Altig pushing Anquetil hard and losing his own speed in the process, then sprinting to come ahead of him again to put him out of the wind, then pushing him some more, etc… He looks indefatigable.

Holy Shit! That's incredible. Maitre Jacques was called that mainly on account of his TT abilities. I've ridden a bunch of 2-up TTs in my time and nothing, nothing is worse than being mismatched or getting pushed by your partner. That must have been humiliating for Anquetil. No offense to Altig, but the Frenchman must have been having a really bad day. Thanks for finding and posting. What a beast Altig was.

Oh, and not the socks - white and short. As it should be. Look and learn.
ErikdR says:

Jun 23 2016 at 5:35 am

@wiscot

Ha! Yes, I couldn't help noticing that, too (about the white socks, I mean). Spot on.

Of course, in those days - and not unlike Ford T cars a few decades earlier - cycling shoes could be obtained in any color you liked, as long as it was black.

And yes: Anquetil must have had one of the worst days of his career there. Still, hats off to the late, great Rudi Altig.
wiscot says:

Jun 23 2016 at 5:38 am

@ErikdR

@wiscot

Ha! Yes, I couldn’t help noticing that, too (about the white socks, I mean). Spot on.

Of course, in those days – and not unlike Ford T cars a few decades earlier – cycling shoes could be obtained in any color you liked, as long as it was black.

And yes: Anquetil must have had one of the worst days of his career there. Still, hats off to the late, great Rudi Altig.

Anquetil must have been mortified by his performance.

Just got a pair of all-black Shimano R5 shoes. They have perforations but I'm thinking of doing some modifications to make then a tad bigger. Black shoes with nice ventilation holes. Old school style.
ErikdR says:

Jun 23 2016 at 5:50 am

@wiscot

*Dylan Moran voice*: "Words, words you give me... Where's the cake?"

Or: "Picture(s) of said shoes, please?"

I'm picking up my new, 40 year old Peugeot frame this weekend. Am seriously considering getting my hands on a pair of old-school, black, perforated cycling shoes to don once I get that particular project out on the road - so I'd appreciate some inspiration.
Teocalli says:

Jun 23 2016 at 7:20 am

@ErikdR

@wiscot

Ha! Yes, I couldn’t help noticing that, too (about the white socks, I mean). Spot on.

Of course, in those days – and not unlike Ford T cars a few decades earlier – cycling shoes could be obtained in any color you liked, as long as it was black.

And yes: Anquetil must have had one of the worst days of his career there. Still, hats off to the late, great Rudi Altig.

1962 first time he won was with Altig. Extract from Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape.....

"Two or three days before the race, we should have gone out training, but it was raining heavily, so Jaques didn't want to go out" Altig recalls with a degree of relish. "So I went out on my own, and I found a road tunnel that was being repaired, and I rode up and down inside that for three hours. I was angry, because Jacques hadn't prepared as seriously as he normally would. The Baracchi Trophy was an important race, so I said "If he's not going to train, then he won't forget this race in a hurry because I want to win".

Goes on to describe that Anquetil cracked around 70 Km. By the finish Anquetil was so spent he failed to negotiate the final corner onto the track and went straight on into the crowd. He was taken straight off to hospital but fortunately for the pair the time was taken at the entrance to the stadium so they still won.
Teocalli says:

Jun 23 2016 at 7:27 am

Evening job to clean these post L'eroica Brit last weekend ready for NL.

There we a few stands at the jumble with a whole pile of old shoes. Do I sense that either there will be a mass attendance next year or I will be going with an order book!
wiscot says:

Jun 23 2016 at 7:33 am

@Teocalli

@ErikdR

@wiscot

Ha! Yes, I couldn’t help noticing that, too (about the white socks, I mean). Spot on.

Of course, in those days – and not unlike Ford T cars a few decades earlier – cycling shoes could be obtained in any color you liked, as long as it was black.

And yes: Anquetil must have had one of the worst days of his career there. Still, hats off to the late, great Rudi Altig.

1962 first time he won was with Altig. Extract from Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape…..

“Two or three days before the race, we should have gone out training, but it was raining heavily, so Jaques didn’t want to go out” Altig recalls with a degree of relish. “So I went out on my own, and I found a road tunnel that was being repaired, and I rode up and down inside that for three hours. I was angry, because Jacques hadn’t prepared as seriously as he normally would. The Baracchi Trophy was an important race, so I said “If he’s not going to train, then he won’t forget this race in a hurry because I want to win”.

Goes on to describe that Anquetil cracked around 70 Km. By the finish Anquetil was so spent he failed to negotiate the final corner onto the track and went straight on into the crowd. He was taken straight off to hospital but fortunately for the pair the time was taken at the entrance to the stadium so they still won.

Fabulous story! Love the Altig strategy on training - raining? Find a tunnel.
ErikdR says:

Jun 23 2016 at 7:34 am

@Teocalli

Re Altig: Awesome! Massive helpings of determination and sheer V.

Re shoes: Nice!

Re jumble: FWIW, I'd certainly like to attend at some point - next year sounds good. When/where is that going to be, exactly? (Or rather: what is the exact name of the event? I'll Google it once I know what I'm looking for. Cheers!)
Teocalli says:

Jun 23 2016 at 7:38 am

@ErikdR

@Teocalli

Re Altig: Awesome! Massive helpings of determination and sheer V.

Re shoes: Nice!

Re jumble: FWIW, I’d certainly like to attend at some point – next year sounds good. When/where is that going to be, exactly? (Or rather: what is the exact name of the event? I’ll Google it once I know what I’m looking for. Cheers!)

See http://eroicabritannia.co.uk I'm guessing that next year will be the w/e 16th June. I hope so 'coz I've already booked the hotel for that weekend. Entries usually open in January but if you register interest on the website they are very proactive in setting out email updates.
Julian Allen says:

Nov 3 2016 at 5:26 pm

@brett @Giani

Hey Guys, isn't it time there a Yates article in the Awesome British riders category. A picture of his legs would be just one reason to do an article. The fact that he still holds the TdF record for fastest TT without tri bars should be one of many others.

Julian

http://www.musettetours.com