LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD - BARRY HOBAN

Cobbles, coal and Yorkshire grit - In association with Specialized

Ask Barry Hoban what the best ride of his 18-year career was and he doesn’t hesitate long before answering. This is perhaps surprising considering how many rides he has to choose from, of which dozens ended in victory. Until Mark Cavendish came along, he was Britain’s most prolific Tour de France stage winner, with eight.

“The best ride I ever did – Paris-Roubaix, 1972,” he says. This is also a touch surprising because it wasn’t one of his wins – until he explains how his ride to third place unfolded. “In 1972, I was flying. I was right up there with everyone. [Eddy] Merckx, [Roger] De Vlaeminck, [Eric] Leman, all the topnotch riders in the Arenberg Forest.

“You never want to puncture in the Arenberg – I did. I lost two minutes before a team-mate gave me his wheel,” recalls Hoban, now 80, with the zest of a young pro reliving a race from the previous day.

Smashed it

“I went, and I rode. I was passing people as though they were stopped,” he says of his chase back to the group. But his uncompromising pursuit on the pavé had left his back wheel buckled.

“I put my arm in the air, the team car screeched to a halt, I got a back wheel. So I had another chase again. By the time I got back, De Vlaeminck had gone.” Hoban launched another chase but never did quite catch eventual winner De Vlaeminck, or André Dierickx, who also attacked while Hoban was catching his breath.

“I know perfectly well, that day, without that puncture, it would have been a different story. I probably spent about 50K of that race chasing to get back on. I still finished third,” Hoban says, with justifiable pride.