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I first really became aware of cycling as a sport in the late 80’s, I well remember Stephen Roche’s triumphant season in 1987 when he pulled off the historic triple of Giro D’Italia, Tour de France and World Championships and then two years later watching in wonderment as Greg LeMond overhauled Laurent Fignon on the Champs Elyses to win the Tour. But for me the greatest was always Sean Yates, the Sussex rider who did it the hard way (and boy was he ‘hard’) upping sticks and moving to France to race with the fabled ACBB club near Paris, part of a generation which included the great Robert Millar who is to this day the finest Grand Tour rider these Isles have produced. In those days if you wanted to make it on the Continent you were on your own, no help from British Cycling. Many years ago we had a guy who worked at Mosquito who had ridden with Sean at the ACBB and looked to have a fine racing career ahead of him, but back home during the winter and working as a postie (a popular job with racing cyclists, up early and all day to train once your round was over) he damaged his back lifing sacks and never raced seriously again although his class was enough for him to turn up at Herne Hill track years later and show us how real riders race!
Anyway, back to Sean Yates whose career spanned the years from the late ’80’s when cycling in Europe was opening up with the arrival of American teams such as 7-Eleven right through to the early Armstrong years and the Motorola team. Best known as a super domestique, plugging away on the front of the bunch making all behind him suffer, he also had his moments of personal glory not least being wearing the Yellow jersey of the Tour de France in 1994. This was the year the Tour came to the UK and I well remember standing on the side of the road in Brighton shouting myself hoarse as he and his fellow ‘kings of the road’ raced by.
Forward 15 years to this past wednesday and i turn up,for the regular wednesday night track league at Preston Park track in Brighton less than a mile from where I once watched Sean race by. We have ridden a few of these events this year and I’m really getting to enjoy racing on the track again, a discipline I haven’t turned my hand to in over a decade. This week was different though, we arrive to find a fully liveried Astana team car parked at the gates of the track. Now in the Burnett family this is a sight to cause sopme excitement, team cars are something we associate with summer holidays and watching the Tour pass over Pyrenean climbs. Then the penny drops, it can only mean Sean Yates is riding, he still lives in Sussex and is a Directeur Sportif with the Astana squad. Still fit, he likes to turn up for the odd race when work allows, the competitive spirit still shines bright.
Final race of the evening and Yatesy puts in a bit of an attack to string out the bunch, I didn’t hesitate and glued myself to his wheel - it may only have been half a lap but it gives me a thrill to say I’ve ridden on Sean Yates wheel. I wonder if in 10 years time David Beckham will be turning up for a kick around at his local park!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 18:11:13 and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.