The Purple Reign - an ode to Barry Hoban
Just a few days ago the legendary British cyclist Barry Hoban passed away, this is just a short and personal tribute to the great man.
The video here was made a while back, while the pics of me in my old BP-Mercier jersey, a replica of the one he wore for many years, was from this week.
Late 1970’s, when a pre-teen me started cycling, it was those all too rare newspaper pics & TV grabs of the greats of the Tour de France that stole away my imagination and dreams. That’s when I first heard of Barry Hoban, a Yorkshireman racing the Tour de France with the exotically named Miko-Mercier team, something that was a rarity back then. In fact, you could list the Brit’s at that pro top tier on err, 1-2 fingers (with Phil Edwards at Sanson, RIP), and the whole Brit pack on the other fingers of the same hand. Not only that, I heard tell that he had won 8 Tour stages. My schoolboy imagination couldn’t quite comprehend that feat – of a Brit.
Roll on a year or 2 and I saw my first colour pics of Barry in his shocking pink & purple Mercier jersey and on a pink bike, a sight that mesmerised me. He was a true role model and inspiration to generations of Brits over the years, a rare, near unique glimpse of cycling hope to us. From watching him race the British Pro Champs, to getting caught up the finishing fury between him and Sid Barras after a dodgy sprint had cost Barry his last hope of becoming British Road Champion, to several more encounters and later working on a documentary with him at home, where we watched all of his stage wins on video.
Though, there’s one particular encounter that still lives me; one early May Friday morning in 1981, just 14-15 hours after I’d had the scariest cycling crash of my life. After entering the finishing straight of a track training sprint, and then a crowd running out on the track after a girl fell off whilst fooling around - I won’t go into too much gory detail, but you can imagine the consequences of a brakeless me 30 meters or so away from the crowd, and in a full-on sprint into that crowd. Shocking stuff for all involved, which left me very-temporarily paralysed from the waist down and out cold, then came the sirens and A&E, being cut out of my skinsuit on operating table. Luckily enough I was just severely battered and bruised and went home.
Defiantly (with a race up 2 days later), I got up the morning after and rode 13 miles out to a local bike shop, on walking in I saw the owner and Barry (who had just started working with Falcon Cycles), who had just been told the story. They stared at me in a state of shock – as the outcome had not looked good the evening before. After filling in the after story blanks, Barry looked me up and down in disbelief, cocked his head, then shook his head, and in that uniquely blended accent of his, he grinned and said “Huh, trackies eh, a tough breed…”
That was my first conversation with him, and you can but imagine the impression it made on a 15 year old bike racer – thank you Barry, rest in peace.
