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

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Hinault knew this was a rare, perhaps unique, opportunity for a rider who had endured mainly misfortune in his career. A year after their run-in at the Tour, Pelier made the headlines again, and once more for the wrong reasons. At the finish of stage seventeen of the 1986 Tour, at the summit of the Col de Granon, he collapsed. It had been a particularly tough and high climb; indeed, the Granon is one of the highest roads in Europe, ascending to 2,413 metres, and steep too. But Pelier didn’t just collapse, he lost consciousness. An oxygen mask was strapped to his face as he was loaded into a helicopter and taken to hospital. Then he slipped into a seven-hour coma. He plays this down, dismissing it as simply the consequence of a ‘massive fringale’ – hunger knock. ‘I was hypoglycaemic. I had to stay in hospital overnight. I recovered quickly but not quick enough. You can’t have a day off at the Tour …’

Pelier’s career refused to run smoothly. Unusually for a French rider, he opted to join a Spanish team, BH, for the 1989 season. ‘I wanted an atmosphere that was warm and welcoming and I found that in Spain,’ he says. ‘I was lucky when I turned professional to ride for two years for Jean de Gribaldy.’ De Gribaldy, known as ‘The Viscount’, died, aged sixty-five, in a road accident on 2 January 1987. Pelier joined Cyrille Guimard’s Système U team the same year. ‘The Viscount is someone I think about often, even today. De Gribaldy loved cycling and loved his riders. And I needed that kind of atmosphere. With Guimard, I found a different atmosphere, one that didn’t work for me.