Читать книгу Etape. The untold stories of the Tour de France’s defining stages онлайн

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‘Twenty-five kilometres of cobbles one day, and then 25km again the next day,’ he adds, shaking his head. ‘Twice in two days, eh? And the rain … there was so much rain.’

This knee pain led to Hinault’s darkest hour: his midnight escape from the Tour, once it reached Pau in the Pyrenees. Earlier in the day, there had been a time trial, won by Zoetemelk, with Hinault fifth, which was enough to give him the yellow jersey. He accepted the jersey on the podium, told the journalists his knee was okay, and that night fled back home to Brittany, only telling Guimard and the race organisers. In Hinault’s absence, the race turned TI-Raleigh’s way, which offered consolation for their failure on the pavé. ‘We won eleven stages and Zoetemelk won yellow,’ Van Vliet says. ‘Raas also won the green jersey. Still, I don’t think Peter Post was happy.’

Hinault returned in the autumn to win one of the greatest ever world road race titles, on the mountainous roads near Sallanches, and the following year did something almost unimaginably defiant, even by Hinault’s standards. He rode Paris–Roubaix. Why? ‘Because I was the world champion, and when you’re world champion you have to honour the jersey,’ he says now.