If you would like to stock Rouleur please contact our

If you would like to stock Rouleur please contact
our distributor WWMD: sales@wwmd.co.uk
If you would like to stock Rouleur please contact
our distributor WWMD: sales@wwmd.co.uk
A
ll the love bike fans couldn’t throw at Lance
Armstrong, because he was, well, he was
just unlovable, Marco Pantani and Jan
Ullrich got. In a way Lance helped Marco
become a saint. And Jan, too. Bike fans love Jan
Ullrich and Marco Pantani because they were
the only two people defending the world — of
cycling — against tyranny. Read: America. Professional cycling belongs in Europa. Or. It doesn’t
belong to America. The Tour of California might
be the most beautiful or best organised race on
the calendar. But I don’t want to see it. My neighbour does Lawrence of Arabia on weekends at
the local theatre. I don’t want to see that either.
Give me Peter O’Toole. And put him on a
cobblestone.
Now Sara says these ex-riders have all lived
the same life. They have been at the same
races for years. Stayed at the same hotels. But
everyone has a different story. They don’t know
each other. She says that Jan and Levi would
probably have been good friends.
“Yes,” says Jan. “I would have had him in
my team.”
He just says it. Like a reverse Carlsberg beer
commercial. Not our beer. My beer.
“Jan. Show us your bikes.”
“Sure. I’ll go and get them.”
He leaves the room. Jakob, too. I stand before
Sara. “Listen. I’d like to hear your side of things.
Who is Jan Ullrich. You understand?”
“So we should maybe talk tomorrow?”
“We could go for a walk.”
“But I need to cook. For the kids.”
“Jakob Kristian will do that. He is a chef. Him
and Jan. We put them in the kitchen. And you
and I can talk. You could tell me about Jan. I need
you to tell me what I can’t get him to do. All the
things you went through after he stopped riding.
Also. You enter this world as a young woman.
Jan is a superstar. What was that like for you?”
“Jakob Kristian is a chef?”
Jan sticks his head through the kitchen door.
“Come on out here! I have the bikes. Look,
Morten. That’s the bike. The Pinarello. My Tour
bike. And look. There is a spider’s web on this
one. The Bianchi. And this is the Olympic bike.
Feel it. It’s been many years. But it only weighs
eight kilos! Here. Lift it.”
The gearing on the bikes. I don’t know the
numbers. But that gearing would make today’s
riders look like they are going in slow motion.
How do you ride up a mountain with that? And
when did it change? The fast pedalling.
”Lance changed all that. The fast pedalling,
right?”
“Yes,” says Jan. “And now Froome. Even
faster.”
“Froome looks like a cartoon. That’s not cool.”
Jan laughs. “Yes!”
“The Pinarello is original. The Olympic bike,
well, I crashed that at Paris-Tours at the end of
that season. And my Vuelta bike. Same thing. I
crashed that at Giro di Lombardia. I don’t have
them. But the Pinarello. This is the one.”
He leans over it. Grabs the handlebars. “In
the old days, it was like this. And then it was like
this. Me, I did this.”
Jan does Fausto Coppi. Then does Eddy
Merckx. Then he does Jan Ullrich. He does it
in four seconds. Moves around in position.
It is over so quickly, I almost didn’t see it. But
he just did it.
Wow.
At one point Jan had three bikes custommade. A Grand Tour bike. An Olympic bike.
And a World Champion bike. Just. You know.
Boom. When you enter Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s
mansion in Malmø, the first thing you see is a
huge picture of his feet. The argument is that
those feet pay for everything. So when Jan looks
at the Pinarello, he must have the same feeling.
I study him. I look at Jan as an old champion. He
is from a different time in cycling. I put him next
to Indurain, Hinault or even Merckx. Something
from the past. But then he tells me that it was his
birthday last week, and I say congratulations,
do the maths and almost faint in their driveway.
Jan Ullrich is two years younger that Davide
Rebellin.
If you would like to stock Rouleur please contact
our distributor WWMD: sales@wwmd.co.uk