Issue 18-6

“That’s what the fence did to me. It grated me like a melon” 

Alejandro Valverde and the bullfighter; Tom Dumoulin on the Vuelta that changed his career; the Milk Race asylum seeker; red-hot Vuelta fiction; inside the Austria World Championships; when Coppi came to London; Desire, Philippa York and much more

Cycling’s king of consistency Alejandro Valverde and top bullfighter Rafaelillo discuss their two professions and innermost thoughts. They have much more in common than meets the eye.

 We hear from Zoltan Elekes, the Romanian cyclist who sought asylum on the 1973 Milk Race, became national news and didn’t go home for 22 years.

 There’s also racing fiction with a Hemingway-reading American pro and Tom Dumoulin reflects on the astonishing 2015 Vuelta that turned him into a Grand Tour contender. Elsewhere, in Innsbruck, we meet the makers of the most brutal World Championships this century and look back at Fausto Coppi’s unforgettable British debut.