Remembering a life in the saddle

The Wakefield rider’s British record of eight Tour stage victories stood for 34 years until sprint ace Mark Cavendish broke it two years ago.

But even today aged 71 – three decades after racing retirement – the great grandfather-of-two’s competitive edge and route map memories are still there. He didn’t benefit from the sprint lead-out trains used by modern-day cyclists and finished second a frustrating eight times.

The ex-Calder Clarion and Leeds Chain Gang cyclist said: “I know personally that I lost two stages of the Tour de France because of a team mate who was trying to win. I was faster than him!

“If I’d had a lead-out man I could have had another five firsts. But it was a different era. The sprint and winning stages is very critical for a team now. It was very critical for you then but the team focused more of its attention on the overall classification.”

His Tour record does include one victory that he doesn’t quite count as a win. It followed the death from exhaustion of his friend and rival, Tom Simpson, on the climb up Mont Ventoux in 1967.

An autopsy revealed Simpson had taken amphetamines. The day after his death the race ground on from Carpentras to Sète. “I wasn’t interested in winning the stage. But you had the senior guys in the peloton and after the stage Tom died on they said, ‘We are not racing today. We think it is right and fitting that a Briton wins the stage’. Hoban married Simpson’s widow, Helen, and has been back to Mt Ventoux many times.

The spectre of performance-enhancing drugs still looms large, but for Hoban, who has strong views on the subject, drugs were never an option. “I said to myself, ‘I will end up being sane and healthy for the entirety of my career’, which I was and still am. You make up your mind how you are going to lead your life.”

Reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol during the 2010 race. His subsequent 12-month ban was overturned by the Spanish cycling authorities in February amid claims he’d eaten contaminated meat.

The sport’s governing body and the World Anti-doping Agency may yet step in and revisit the issue. Although Hoban has no time for “blatant cheating” he believes Contador should be free to ride.

“I believe in any democracy you are innocent until proven guilty. The amount of clenbuterol which was found in Contador was so, so, so minuscule. We have got bigger amounts of radioactive stuff in our bodies. There’s no way one can legally say beyond any reasonable doubt he is guilty of anything.”

Hoban is still looking forward to the classics, the Giro d’Italia and of course, Le Tour. He takes a particular interest in the Gent-Wevelgem one-day race in late March, which he counts as his finest individual win. He beat Merckx and a host of other top cyclists to the line in 1974.

In his day it was 244km long, which “separated the men from the boys”. These days it’s 34km shorter and the riders jet in and are ferried about all season long in deluxe tinted-windowed coaches. “I used to get a notification from the team to say I was riding whichever race. It said, ‘You will be reimbursed second class rail fare from Gent to Paris, from Paris to Madrid for the Tour of Spain’.”

Hoban said you can’t compare cycling generations as bikes and team tactics change. But for him it’s Merckx over seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong anytime. He thinks Merckx’s achievements in other grand tours and classics overshadow Lance Armstrong’s French-based record.

“When Merckx was prominent, that was the height of my career. He was very competitive. He was an amazing bike rider and athlete.”

And how does Hoban think his own record, which includes podium place finishes in Paris-Roubaix and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, stands up? “There’s the British saying, ‘You are never a prophet in your own land’. I know I’m more acknowledged in Belgium and France than I am over here, which is sad.

“I did live over there for 20 years. You had to live where the racing was, either France or Belgium.”

Hoban, originally from Stanley, near Wakefield, still works in the bike business today and rides near his home in Newtown, Wales.

“I love going out on the bike. But I don’t like the cold. I hate the winter weather. I say to people, ‘I should have been born a swallow’.”