Cracking read thanks @wiscot . Just finished an excellent article on Roberto Vissentini in Pro Cycling that you would enjoy. It was clearly a disadvantage at the Giro (some say a disadvantage in general ) to not be born Italian.

Thanks! Yeah, I can’t imagine that if Roche finds himself in Italy, he doesn’t spend some time with his old buddy Roberto. That was a crazy Giro and the Giro sets a high bar for craziness!

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As a junior rider in Sweden I was in a break with Prim once. I was advancing on the outside of the bunch and when I was just behind Prim he attacked and I, who seldom managed to even follow the bunch all the way to the finish, instictively (it was not a descision, belive me) managed to hang on to his wheel. After a couple of hundred metres he swung out a little to the left, it was my turn to work. Wich I already did. And I just wasn’t able to get up there, we were way past my normal racing speed. So he swung back and continued to pull for another hundred metres and steered to the side again. And this time he turned his head and stared. I was ashamed and desperate. I just had to get upp and pull so I raised myself from the saddle and put on the highest sprinting speed I could manage. OK there were 75 kms left to race but never mind now it was all about just getting upp there. Yes, I succeded to get in front and at the same moment as i sat down to establish a tempo, swoosh, came the whole peloton. That was it.

Thanks for sharing that story!

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As a junior rider in Sweden I was in a break with Prim once. I was advancing on the outside of the bunch and when I was just behind Prim he attacked and I, who seldom managed to even follow the bunch all the way to the finish, instictively (it was not a descision, belive me) managed to hang on to his wheel. After a couple of hundred metres he swung out a little to the left, it was my turn to work. Wich I already did. And I just wasn’t able to get up there, we were way past my normal racing speed. So he swung back and continued to pull for another hundred metres and steered to the side again. And this time he turned his head and stared. I was ashamed and desperate. I just had to get upp and pull so I raised myself from the saddle and put on the highest sprinting speed I could manage. OK there were 75 kms left to race but never mind now it was all about just getting upp there. Yes, I succeded to get in front and at the same moment as i sat down to establish a tempo, swoosh, came the whole peloton. That was it.

http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-six-days-in-romandie-1983/

I remember seeing this when I just started going out with a cycling club and it was probably responsible for me being still mad for it 33 years later. VLVV