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A year-old Tom Boonen followed three minutes later, he too was caught in head-on pose, with bloodshot eyes and mud all over his face and body. Oh, how I loved a wet Parsi-Roubaix! Now, I could talk of the many different finishes to the race, like dozens of glorious solos, of the cat-and-mouse tactics that preceded a sprint-finish, of the atmosphere in the velodrome when the leaders arrived, when the winner had won, when the result was known, when the tears flowed for winners and finishers alike. But I prefer to end my tales at the Carrefour, just a kilometre or two from my first-ever sighting of the race in Photographing Paris-Roubaix is a dream come true for anyone who loves cycling, and certainly it was for me.
And it always, always, brings us great images. So, to add to its accolades as the most exciting, the most famous, the most popular, can I also say it is my absolute favourite race to photograph? There, I just said it, Paris-Roubaix was my favourite race — and I missed it so much this year. It was the evening sunlight that did it, reflecting brightly off the lapping waves of the Mediterranean sea to create soulful shadows from eight bicycles and eight cyclists as each team pointed themselves down the start ramp in Torreviega and sped off to a roar of approval from a rapturous crowd.
And then came the spectacular crashes of UAE and Jumbo-Visma - perfectly timed in the second half of the stage just as excitement of the finale was building on TV. This jolt from beauty to cruelty may have shocked many, but not-so those of us who expect such things to happen in the Vuelta. Because these things always happen in the Vuelta. The Vuelta celebrates the last week of summer when the beaches are still packed, the heat quite intense, and the hinterland of the country almost devoid of humanity when the Vuelta pedals by.
Then we go north, celebrating a Spain much greener, cooler, quieter, a Spain that is ridding itself of those pesky tourists, tempting the locals to come out and cheer the race on themselves. You cannot really be in love with the Vuelta without also loving Spain, and I fell head-over-heels on my first-ever trip to the country in Next morning the chaos began, that is to say the Vuelta stage began, with me on the back of a small, oily, cc moto driven by a guy called Ortega, with whom I could barely speak a word of Spanish.
The chaos gradually became a bike-race as the Vuelta moved away from Oviedo and out into the hilly Asturian countryside. I warmed to the rhythm of the race as it sped along highways and by-ways, passing villages where every single inhabitant cheered the race on. And before you knew it we were heading into the Picos de Europa mountains where a stunning church towered over the road we were on — the Santuario de Covadonga. Then the road climbed, past waterfalls, caves, forests, and even past grazing wild horses, until we emerged on to a spectacular plateau high above.
I had seen some inspirational racing between Pedro Delgado, Robert Millar, Fabio Parra and Federico Echave, but my lasting memory was of the beauty of the climb, the way the road circled two crystal clear lakes near the top, and how dramatically snow-covered peaks rose high above the finish-line. Although I worked the new Vuelta for almost twenty years, and enjoyed every single edition, regardless of who won, it is the earlier years that I recall with greater fondness.
Can I put that down to youthful, wide-eyed enthusiasm? The diminutive climber from Galicia actually won this flattish TT, leaving Millar speechless.
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Foreigners did get the better of their Spanish rivals in the Vueltas of Luis Herrera , Sean Kelly , and Marco Giovannetti before Tony Rominger ran-in a consecutive hat-trick of victories in , , and to really silence the locals. And because that armada often included Russian and Colombian mercenaries as well, it made for a thrilling, full-bore, three weeks of racing.
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But the Vuelta opened my eyes to a different world with its day-in, day-out, dramas and spectacle. I also discovered that a three-week tour allowed you to get to know your subjects just a little, which made the job all the more satisfying.
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Unlike in the Giro or Tour, the Vuelta follower is much more a part of the race, he or she can live and breathe the emotions, chat with cyclists on the start-line and often lodge in the same hotels. Travel around the country is almost a shared experience with long or disrupted transfers of equal discomfort to teams and media — particularly in the times when there was no fast autovia to drive on. I felt extremely exuberant and privileged to be a part of it. The Guardia Civil trucks would descend on such areas with a visible menace, disgorging their armed riot-squads to quell any imaginary protests or un-rest as the race passed, before climbing back into their trucks and actually overtaking the peloton once or twice a day.
There was rarely any trouble, but in a high-ranking officer raised his hand-pistol and fired shots above a gathering crowd in Pamplona — a city half Basque, half Spanish though they describe themselves as Navarran. There was a time trial to Valdezcaray in the Rioja region in , and a few hundred Basque fans made the short trip to cheer on men like Marino Lejarreta, a potential winner of the race.
It was wet and cold all day on the mountainside, and especially so for any ill-prepared fans.
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Then Lejarreta hove into view, his slender shoulders bobbing, him digging deep as the gradient increased — I readied myself to get a decent shot. What made me laugh was the way the fan was holding a big umbrella over Lejaretta as he pedalled along, determined to protect his hero from the rain for as long as he could keep pace, which was a good few hundred metres. One of the most positive effects of the Vuelta moving to its summer slot in was the chance for the Spanish race to venture onto higher climbs, something that had been impossible in April and May with winter snows still covering the ski-areas that the Vuelta needed to reach.
Many Spanish cities empty out in summer anyway, so now the Vuelta had to take the race to the people, a switch of strategy that opened up the potential for some truly great race-routes. I most definitely was not a fan of the new Vuelta when it moved in Even the castles of Castilla y Leon and famous windmills of La Mancha had an extra sparkle to them back then - the crisp spring light had an irresistible quality to it.
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And the weather was at its most un-predictable best the whole time, another asset which photographers cherish. As for the atmosphere of the country, so vibrant as Spain awoke from its winter slumber and launched its first fiestas of the year, well there was nothing quite like it. P the Vuelta — or so I thought. It took a while to warm to what was basically a completely new race.
The stranglehold then placed on the Vuelta by the ONCE team made it all the more difficult to sway my judgment. The racing was clinical, too controlled, ONCE smothered the racing, and the Vuelta struggled to breathe. At least the race had begun using newer climbs like Alto del Morredero, and it had already gone over the Pyrenees for a French stage-finish at Luz-Ardiden. But in the Vuelta showed an even newer, daring, face by introducing the Alto del Angliru to the cycling world. The acute steepness of the Angliru changed the face of the Vuelta forever — the race has spent the twenty years since then discovering similarly crazy ascents, it was that significant.
The Sierra de la Pandera in Andalucia followed in , the year when the Angliru was assailed for a second time. In a stage finished at the 2,metre summit of the mighty Envalira — the highest paved ascent in the Pyrenees.
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The Vuelta raced to La Covatilla ski-resort in the far west of the country, using a newly-surfaced road out of Bejar. That Vuelta featured no less than five summit finishes, including a first-ever ascent to the Calar Alto Observatory high above the Almerian desert. It seemed that just about every region of Spain had its own Angliru to unveil, a fact that eventually led to the Vuelta having as many as eleven summit finishes in its route in As the Vuelta grew in stature, and as the Giro and Tour looked on with a mixture of envy and curiosity, it was also noted that the Vuelta had introduced short, sharp, mountainous stages into its repertoire.
Originally put on to combat the intense heat of a Spanish summer, these short stages started a trend that has long-since been adopted by the Giro and Tour to achieve the most exciting racing over three long weeks. It all began in Spain, at the Vuelta. The insanely-steep finishes formed a defining image of the newer Vuelta and established its present-day reputation as a race the greatest want to win, but which many other cyclists want to avoid altogether.
Even some of the older, more established ascents have been exploited to extend their length, with gravel roads suddenly re-surfaced with tarmac or concrete to take the Vuelta to greater heights and an even greater legend. The cyclists are on their limits, barely riding at a walking pace, but so too is the powerful moto, for such low speeds are perfect for stalling on the very worst gradients. Some of my shots down the years actually show other motos, especially the heavier ones from TV, toppling over if the photographer or cameraman has so much as moved a leg while he was shooting.
But the images one gets of the racing are often sensational. Though some folks might not appreciate it - having seen a whole series of race-accidents since stage one of this Vuelta, as well as that mis-use of a gravel road in Andorra - the roads the modern Vuelta races on have a dance-floor quality to them in comparison with older times.
The country had a wonderful network of national roads, at least in the proximity to cities and large towns, but I really do not remember ever seeing an autopista or autovia anywhere. Car drivers avoided the side-roads for fear of damage to their precious tyres and suspension, for those roads were bumpy, rutted, pot-holed and extremely slippery with agricultural spillage just waiting to conspire with falling rain and create accidents. The twisty mountain roads were the worst of all, with the lack of car traffic nullifying any need to get the cracked surfaces fixed. It was little wonder that Sean Kelly won the Vuelta in against some serious climbing opposition.
Some of the greatest racing tactics today stem from older editions of the Vuelta, where they were designed, owned, and operated primarily by Manolo Saiz, the forceful ex-manager of ONCE who was at the centre of the Operacion Puerto scandal in All four Liberty riders dropped back on hearing the news with two of them actually stopping for a call of nature while they waited for Heras. Heras came off the descent to be scooped up by the Liberty quartet who then towed him along the valley towards the final climb, all the while distancing Menchov. Heras then took off on the final climb and soloed to what was possibly his greatest stage-win in any Vuelta.
Liberty had utilised a master tactic rarely seen before, but that has since become the preferred weapon of choice of any powerful team. I believe that stage of the Vuelta was the first time it was used in combat, and it was impressive to see it so vividly and with such perfect execution. The Vuelta is, after all, the most un-predictable race of the three grand tours, and a big reason why most observers love it. The course was planned in a city where it hardly ever rains, and for sure not in August — but, yes, that day it rained.
Specifically, I recall the Vuelta on a stage to Zaragoza. Then, it was the infamous U. Even the off-script gravel road in Andorra this August had me checking my old photos. Yes, the Vuelta took risks back then as well. Probably the biggest talking point of the Vuelta was the bust-up on stage-nineteen when Movistar attacked right after a huge crash had taken down most of their closest rivals.
It came on a day that seemed right out of the older Vuelta pre, with rain, winds, slick-roads and barbaric tactics compounding the misery. But this was a stage I would have loved to have been photographing and observing, and then later speculating on who did what to whom, and how, and why.
But a part of me would have loved to see their attack at the head of the peloton continue, for it was old-style racing at its cruel best, the likes of which we rarely see now. And it came in the Vuelta, perhaps the only grand tour where they might have got away with such a move. This was the year that the Vuelta went back to the Basque Country after 33 years away and received an absolutely fabulous reception. Local hero Igor Anton won into Bilbao, racing for the locally-sponsored Euskatel team, to make the Basque fiestas that night even noisier.
Wiggins then took the red jersey the following day, obliging Froome to support him. A Spaniard won. Then a foreigner won. How good was that?! And then Alberto Contador for his contribution to Vuelta history in the modern era. Rominger had tough opposition for all three of his victories, and he won in three very different ways.