"Do you ride with Valverde?"

[Mike I]

So there I was in the early part of the Hampshire Hilly Hundred, when a fellow rider turns to me and says, "Are you that guy who rode with Valverde?"

"I must be going well", I thought, "This chap thinks I'm riding like George!"

I felt it only fair to put the record straight, but who's the most famous cyclist you've been mistaken for? Mills and/or Paul? Champion from Belleville Rendezvous? A bear from a Russian circus?

[Andrew G]

One for you here Dad .

[Roy Green]

"Are you the guy that rode with 1960s star Frenchman Raymond Poulidor?" Well, yes, actually.
In 1961 when I worked on Sporting Cyclist magazine I spent a week or so in Nice in March, following the pros in their training camps and races there. I stayed at the same hotel as Poulidor. He actually asked me to keep him company on a couple of training rides. No heroics needed from me, as with a race every other day, the pros would ride easy tempo, for about 100km. The hardest part was keeping with him descending the Alpes Maritimes climbs. By the end of the week I was quite a fearless descender!
Poulidor was a thoroughly nice, placid, guy. He would have been the best Tour rider of the decade but for a certain Jacques Anquetil getting in his way. The week after the Nice training he won Milan-San Remo. Don't think I can claim any credit for pushing him ... It gave me a good headline for my article: 'I trained with winner of Milan-San Remo'. As for Anquetil, have just finished reading Paul Howard's steamy biography of him 'Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape'. Quelle homme!

[-Adam-]

Well a dropping Liquigas up Ide Hill was fun, to be fair though, it was Fillipo Pozzatto that started it!

[Stu Merckx Man]

i had nice little sprint up the selsdon park hotel drive with old oscar pierero

[-Adam-]

[quote="Stu Merckx Man"]oscar pierero

[Stu Merckx Man]

you say tomato i say tomato