Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Born to Ride The Autobiography of by Stephen Roche Stephen Roche. Stephen Roche was born on 28 November, 1959 in Dundrum, Dublin, Ireland. Discover Stephen Roche's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? Also learn how He earned most of networth at the age of 61 years old? Popular As N/A Occupation N/A Age 61 years old Zodiac Sign Sagittarius Born 28 November 1959 Birthday 28 November Birthplace Dundrum, Dublin, Ireland Nationality Ireland. We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 28 November. He is a member of famous with the age 61 years old group. Stephen Roche Height, Weight & Measurements. At 61 years old, Stephen Roche height is 175 cm and Weight 74 kg. Physical Status Height 175 cm Weight 74 kg Body Measurements Not Available Eye Color Not Available Hair Color Not Available. Who Is Stephen Roche's Wife? His wife is Lydia Roche (m. ?–2004) Family Parents Not Available Wife Lydia Roche (m. ?–2004) Sibling Not Available Children Nicolas Roche. Stephen Roche Net Worth. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2019-2020. So, how much is Stephen Roche worth at the age of 61 years old? Stephen Roche’s income source is mostly from being a successful . He is from Ireland. We have estimated Stephen Roche's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets. Net Worth in 2020 $1 Million - $5 Million Salary in 2019 Under Review Net Worth in 2019 Pending Salary in 2019 Under Review House Not Available Cars Not Available Source of Income. Stephen Roche Social Network. Instagram Linkedin Twitter Stephen Roche Twitter Facebook Wikipedia Stephen Roche Wikipedia Imdb. Timeline. He also finished on the podium at the early-season Paris–Ezy road race and finished 14th overall in the Sealink International stage race which was won by Bob Downs. However, a knee injury caused by a poorly fitted shoe plate led to a disappointing ride in Moscow, where he finished 45th. However, on return to , August to October saw Roche win 19 races. That led to a contract with the professional cycling team for 1981. Roche scored his first professional victory by beating in the Tour of Corsica. Less than a month later he won Paris–Nice (where he became the first, and still the only, new pro to win Paris–Nice) despite illness following the descent from Mont Ventoux and finished his debut season with victories in the Tour de Corse, Circuit d'Indre-et-Loire and Étoile des Espoirs races with a second place behind Hinault in the Grand Prix des Nations. In total, his debut yielded 10 victories. In the Giro d'Italia, Roche took three stage wins (including a team win with Jeans–Vagabond in the team time trial) en route to overall victory and became the first Giro victor from outside mainland Europe. Roche's stage wins that year in the Giro were stage 1b, the 8 km (5.0 mi) time trial downhill on the Poggio into San Remo and stage 22, a 32 km (20 mi) into St. Vincent. Despite his stage wins, the race is remembered for the stage from Lido di Jesolo to Sappada, where Roche, contravening team orders, broke away alone early and despite being caught late in the race, had the strength to go with the counterattack and take the pink jersey from his teammate Roberto Visentini, who had been previously leading the classification. His behaviour in the stage gained him the tifosi's hatred. It was said the only member of his team that Roche could rely on not to ride against him was his domestique Eddy Schepers, although Roche recruited Panasonic riders and old ACBB teammates Robert Millar and Australian Phil Anderson to protect him with Schepers on the Marmolada climb (a day known as the "Marmolada Massacre"). Stephen Roche. A belated happy birthday to Stephen Roche, who was born on November 28, 1959. After completing his apprenticeship as a machinist at a local dairy in Dublin, and following a successful amateur career in Ireland, which included winning the Irish Junior Championship in 1977 and the Rás Tailteann in 1979, Roche joined the Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt amateur cycling team in Paris to prepare for the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow. Soon after his arrival Roche won the amateur Paris–Roubaix, escaping with Dirk Demol and sprinting to victory on the track at Roubaix. Roche remembers how he was told by his directeur sportif that if he did not win “he would be sent home to Ireland that day”. He also finished on the podium at the early-season Paris–Ezy road race and finished 14th overall in the Sealink International stage race, which was won by Bob Downs. However, knee discomfort caused by a poorly fitted shoe plate led to a disappointing ride in Moscow, where he finished 45th. Upon his return to France however, Roche racked up an impressive 19 victories toward the end of the season, which led to a contract offering from the Peugeot professional cycling team for 1981. Roche scored his first professional victory that season after beating Bernard Hinault in the Tour of Corsica. Less than a month later he won Paris– Nice, where he became the first, and still the only, neo-pro to win the race. Despite suffering illness, Roche finished his debut season with victories in the Tour de Corse, Circuit d’Indre-et-Loire and Étoile des Espoirs races, along with a second place finish behind Hinault in the Grand Prix des Nations. In total, his first season yielded 10 victories for the fledgeling pro. In 1982, his best placing was second in the Amstel Gold Race behind Jan Raas. But, his rise continued in 1983 with victories in the Tour de Romandie, Grand Prix de Wallonie, Étoile des Espoirs and Paris–Bourges. Roche finished 13th in Tour de France the following year, while capping-off his season with a bronze medal in the world cycling championship at Alterheim in Zurich. Roche switched to the La Redoute team in 1984 following contractual wrangles with Peugeot (the settlement of which led Roche to sport Peugeot shorts for two years before winning a court action against Vélo Club de Paris Peugeot), reprising his Tour de Romandie victory, along with triumphs in Nice-Alassio, Subida a Arrate and a second place finish in Paris–Nice. He finished 25th in that year’s Tour de France. In 1985, Roche won the Critérium International, the Route du Sud and finished second in Paris–Nice again, while also making the podium in Liège–Bastogne–Liège with a third place finish. Additionally, Roche won stage 18 on the Aubisque in that season’s Tour de France, completing the overall podium in third – 4:29 behind winner Bernard Hinault. But, tragedy befell Roche next year, after he crashed at high speed during a six-day event at Paris-Bercy. This not only brought the curtains down on the remainder of his season, with only a stage victory in the Giro to impress his new Carrera–Inoxpran team, but the injury to his knee would serve to plague him for the rest of his career. As a result, Roche finished the Tour de France that season in a disappointing 48th place, one hour and 32 minutes behind Greg LeMond, which he described was like “entering a dark tunnel” of pain. However, the following year would prove to be Roche’s greatest, wherein he won the early season Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, took a third victory in the Tour de Romandie and fourth place plus a stage win in Paris–Nice. He also finished second in Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the closest he ever came to winning a Monument Classic . He blamed his runner-up position on tactical naiveté and “riding like an amateur”. En route to the overall victory in that season’s Giro d’Italia, Roche claimed three stage victories, including a win in the team time trial, becoming first winner of the Italian outside mainland Europe. Perhaps Roche’s most memorable stage victory during the Giro was the stage from Lido di Jesolo to Sappada, where he contravened team orders by commercing an early escape followed by a final counter-attack after being caught that resulted in him wresting the maglia rosa (pink jersey) from his teammate Roberto Visentini, who had been previously leading the classification. Needless to say, Roche’s move not only caught the ire of the Italian tifosi, but cost him the support of most of his teammates. In fact, Roche would later recount how the only member of his team that he could rely on for support was Eddy Schepers, while former teammates Robert Millar and Phil Anderson also helped to deliver him to victory. Roche finished the Giro exhausted, but was still in good enough form that critics considered him a favorite for the Tour de France. Following Bernard Hinault’s retirement, ’s questionable form and with Greg LeMond out-of-the-picture due to an accidental shooting while hunting, the 1987 Tour de France was wide-open. It was also one of the most mountainous routes since the war, with no fewer than 25 stages. Roche began to stamp his authority on the race after winning stage 10’s Individual Time Trial stage at Futuroscope, while finishing second in stage 19. Stage 20 saw the challenging climbs of the Galibier and the Madeleine, while finishing at La Plagne. Roche attacked early-on, and stayed away for most of the day before being caught by Pedro Delgado, who attacked along the final climb. But, despite losing almost a minute and a half to Delgado, midway up the climb Roche succeeded in pulling back his Spanish rival’s lead to just 4 seconds. Upon crossing the finish, Roche famously collapsed and lost consciousness, while race medics rushed to give him oxygen. When asked if he was ok after he revived, Roche replied “Oui, mais pas de femme route de suite” (“yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away”). From there, the maillot jaune (yellow jersey) changed hands several times during the race with , Jean François Bernard and Delgado all wearing it before Roche used the final time trial to overturn a half-minute gap and win the Tour by 40 seconds, which at the time was the second narrowest margin in the history of the French Grand Tour since Jan Janssen beat by 38 seconds in 1968. Two years later, Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by a mere 8 seconds. Roche also became only the fifth rider in history to win the Tour and the Giro in the same year. He was also the only Irish rider to win the Tour de France. A victory in the World Championship Road Race in Villach in Austria that year also made Roche only the second rider to win the Triple Crown of Cycling (i.e. the Giro, Tour and Worlds in the same season). Roche explained how he arrived unprepared for the undulating 278 kilometer course, which he was initially assigned the role of riding in support of his teammate Sean Kelly. But, after finding himself in the lead breakaway group that failed to respond to a late attack from Moreno Argentin, Roche executed a counter-attack of his own during the final 500 meters, overhauling the Italian rider by a matter of a few meters to seize the victory. For all of his achievements that season, Roche was awarded the Freedom of Dublin medal in September. At the close of 1987, Roche moved to the Fagor MBK team, bringing English riders , Malcolm Elliot and the 1984 Tour de France King of the Mountains winner Robert Millar along with him, as well as domestique Eddy Schepers. As a result, the team was criticized for having too many English speaking riders. Unfortunately, the 1988 season began badly for Roche, who suffered from a recurrence of knee pain that marked a gradual decline for him. In 1989, Roche finished second in the Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme, and second again in Paris–Nice, marking his fourth runner-up finish in the French race. Moreover, he finished a paltry ninth place in the Giro. Knee pain would ultimately forced him to withdraw altogether from the Tour de France. Roche changed teams for 1990, this time riding for Histor Sigma. Roche’s prospects began to improve that season after he won the Four Days of Dunkirk, which was followed up with victories in the Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme and Critérium International, while riding for ’s TonTon Tapis team in 1991. However, Roche strangely missed the start of Team Time Trial during that season’s Tour de France, forcing him to withdraw due to missing the time cut. Roche returned to the Tour de France next season, but could only muster a ninth place finish, while he mainly rode in support of his Carrera Jeans– Vagabond teammate Claudio Chiappucci. Roche also raced the Nissan Classic Tour of Ireland that season as well. And, despite featuring prominently during many breaks, he only managed a fifth place finish. The following season, Roche again finished ninth in the Giro d’Italia, followed by a lack-luster 13th in the Tour de France. Roche decided to hang-up his wheels at the end of 1993, which yielded only a single win for the Irishman in the criterium at Chateau Chinon. Nowadays, Roche lives in Antibes on the Côte d’Azur, where he remains very active in the sport via a handful of cycling tours that he’s opened up in Majorca. He also takes part in a number of race organizations, and often works as a race commentator for Eurosport . He has four children with his former wife Lydia. His son, Nicholas Roche, is now a professional rider who was the 2009 and 2016 Irish National Road Race Champion. Stephen Roche: I had people spitting rice and wine in my face. I f someone described the scenario to me now I'd be out of there," Stephen Roche says as he takes off his shirt. Naked from the waist up, Roche begins to detail the ordeal he endured when winning cycling's triple crown of the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the world road race in the space of a few brutal months in 1987. Roche is already an hour late for his own party, and the launch of a revealing book which celebrates the 25th anniversary of that iconic achievement, but he is bruised on the inside. Earlier in the day he helped bury his mentor, Claude Escalon, the old Frenchman who had given Roche, a young Dubliner, his chance to make a living in the hard and often crooked world of professional cycling. Roche is grieving and in the mood for serious talk. There is no shyness in the 52- year-old as he strips off and changes out of his funeral clothes. But instead of joining everyone waiting expectantly for him at the launch, Roche talks for over an hour about the summer that changed his life and the allegations which trailed him in later years. Despite the magnitude of his feat, matched only by the great , who won the triple crown in 1974, shadows stretch across Roche's story. The charge of doping, with apparent proof of his use of EPO in the faded days of his career, haunts Roche. Yet, initially, he is consumed by the bitter rivalry that marked his victory in the first race of his extraordinary treble. "Today I wouldn't have been able to stand what happened to me in the Giro," Roche says after he was threatened and vilified by irate Italian fans of his team-mate Roberto Visentini. Roche took the race-leader's pink jersey from Visentini when, while disobeying team orders, he broke away in a dramatic example of his individuality. "For the rest of the Giro I had people spitting rice and wine in my face, and Visentini plotting revenge. Back in 87 I said: 'Do what you want. I ain't going home.' That's a tough statement and maybe it comes from this hard streak in me. I wasn't giving in." Only one member of Roche's team supported him. Eddy Schepers, who had ridden with Merckx, was the Belgian domestique who remained loyal to Roche. "Eddy took a great risk for me," Roche says of Schepers' support while he and Visentini battled on one climb. "Eddy could have gone – no problem. It caused a big stir at the time. "I took hold of Visentini's handlebars and made it clear that if he tried anything that dangerous he'd be going over the side with me. I always remember these helicopter shots they took of us. It must have looked ridiculous – two team-mates fighting each other. "But the most dangerous moment was when the fork of my bike broke and we were going down fast. I knew something was wrong. But if I'd shouted: 'Roberto, I think my bike's broken', he would've just attacked me. I'd seen a lot of bad crashes but I couldn't panic. I realise now how close I came to a terrible accident." His Tour de France victory is remembered most for his epic battle against Pedro Delgado on the gruelling stage to La Plagne. "I suffered a lot," Roche says. "I saw the opportunity on Madeleine and pushed myself to an extreme that I wouldn't have done today. In 1987 I didn't have any race radio to rely on. I was good on the tactical and psychological side and I just went for it. If I'd had the kind of info they get on the Tour today I might have eased off when I was just 30 seconds down on Delgado. But because I thought the gap was so much bigger I kept grinding on. "I was in survival mode. I didn't even register what I'd done. It was the journalists who knew. They were so shocked because they all thought Delgado had won the Tour that day. It was only when someone shouted: 'Roche is coming … Roche is coming', that they suddenly turned to see me. They had to rewrite their stories." After passing out soon after he crossed the line, Roche entered Tour folklore. "About 45 minutes later, when they took the oxygen mask off, this French TV crew came to me and said: 'Stephen, can you reassure the fans that everything's OK with you?' I said, in French: "Yes, everything's OK – but I'm not ready for a woman tonight.' It was just my sense of humour after the suffering. "That's why the Tour means the most to me. People who are really into cycling talk about the world championship the most – because it completed the triple crown. But for me it's the Tour because it was beamed into millions of homes for three weeks." Roche pauses when reminded that his landmark is now shrouded by the fact that, in 2000, an Italian judicial investigation concluded that a sample of his blood contained EPO. It came from 1993 – his last year in the peloton while riding for Carrera. "There's nothing you can do," he says. "People can say what they want. But EPO wasn't around in 1987. We're talking about the end of my career with these allegations. Why would I go down the road of EPO when there was no pressure on me any more? I had no ambition to win. I just wanted to ride my bike. It doesn't make sense that I would start doping then." David Walsh, Roche's first biographer, published the findings which seemed to indicate clear guilt. "David found all these code names which he said pointed to my name. But that's not proof I took EPO. David damaged me a lot. He damaged me for life." Roche's rather uncertain defence is that the blood samples were also used for university research. "Yes," he nods. "When the case came out I rang Giovanni Grazzi – our doctor at Carrera – and asked: 'What's going on?' He explained that we'd had monthly blood tests where they would test us for simple things – like the level of iron in our system – and once that had been done the samples were used for research. The blood was contaminated and that's why the graphics were so inconsistent. "How can I defend myself? I can't give any proof. It's the same with the fact there was other stuff around in 1987. How can I prove now that I was clean? They didn't store urine and blood samples from those days. The most important thing is that I'm at ease with my conscience." Wounded by Walsh and his former team-mate and friend, Paul Kimmage, the Irish writer who has campaigned for years against doping, Roche insists on his innocence. "When Paul wrote his book [Rough Ride – an insider's account of life on a drug-riddled tour] I came out of it well. Paul was my room-mate and had known me for years. He didn't say anything bad about me in the book. But what made me despise him then was that he was asked on TV: 'What about Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche taking stuff?' Paul said: 'I can't answer that.' I reacted fiercely but what I regret now was my naivety then. I had my head in the sand about doping." Can he understand why so many people are now utterly cynical about the excuses peddled by cyclists found with drugs in their system – from contaminated blood to, in the more recent case of , contaminated meat? "Others have been found with positive proof. With me there are just uneven charts and guesswork with code names. Personally I'd say that in my day 10% of the peloton were doing it and 90% were suspected of doing it. In the late 1990s it was at its worst. We had 90% doping and 10% suspected of it. Today I hope it's gone back to the first – if not better." Roche is outspoken when considering the prospects of Bradley Wiggins in this year's Tour, which starts on 30 June. "He can definitely win it. But it will have to be this year. Contador is back next year and he's a strong time-triallist and has more zip than Wiggins in the mountains. Wiggins will climb with the best of them but Contador has zip. [Andy] Schleck has zip too, but he loses 10 minutes in the time trials. "If Wiggins wins, I don't think it will be a bad thing. But it'll also maybe not be such a good thing for the sport because he has a bit of a showbiz attitude. We see him at some of his press conferences – and I'm not saying he's wrong because some of these internet journalists ask stupid questions – and he lacks respect for the media. Look at last year's Tour de France presentation. A journalist was building him up and Bradley said: 'You've said it all – I've got nothing left to say.' Pop stars do that, not an educated cyclist. It's OK giving off this image of being a rock star – but you've got to respect people. He speaks French but he didn't try speaking one word of French. He shut the journalist up and made him look stupid." I point out that, in my experience, Wiggins has always been an open and expansive interviewee but that this year he has been especially driven in his training. "You can be focused, but there's always time to be decent to everyone. But hats off to Team Sky and Dave Brailsford. He said he wanted a British winner in five years. He could have two in the next three. I really like [who finished second, ahead of Wiggins, his third-placed team-mate, in last year's Tour of Spain]. That showed Froome's potential. Wiggins is a sure bet. But Froome can prove it again this year. As long as he stays the really good, genuine guy he is now I think it would be great for the Tour if he could win it one day." Roche believes his 27-year-old son, Nicolas, has the ability to "become a top-five finisher in the Tour de France and top three in the Tour of Spain. I think he can do something special. But I'm hard on him. Hard but honest. I tell him that nothing but a top-three placing matters. No one cares if you finish 16th on a Tour of Spain stage." That hardness underlined Roche's triple crown 25 years ago, and it has resulted in his divorce from Nicolas's mother, Lydia. Does he regret his selfishness? "No," Roche says quietly. "There was selfishness and, yes, my wife made great sacrifices. I sometimes have a face-to-face with myself and ask what I would do differently if I had to do it all over again. And there's nothing I would really change. The way I did it made me who I am." Stephen Roche's Born To Ride is published by Yellow Jersey Press. Book Review: Stephen Roche “Born to Ride” Have you ever dreamt about sitting down with a relaxing glass of wine and spending an evening just chatting cycling with a former World Champion? What if you could spend time with a Triple Crown winner? Well, that’s how reading the new book by Stephen Roche ‘ Born to Ride ’ felt to me. It gave me the distinct impression that I was having an intimate conversation with one of the all-time greats in the world of cycling. The stories and the thoughts behind the action in the book are fascinating. Stephen’s personal views of the nature and culture of cycling in the 1980s–the teams, the Directors Sportif, the teammates and the rivals are the needed details. They fill in gaps in the urban legends and the well- documented stories that have become the lore of cycling. To be allowed into the depths of that world, just a bit, is a compelling read and well worth the price of admission. Setting the stage with the details and drama of the World Championships of 1987, Stephen Roche narrates the tale of that fateful day, bone- numbingly wet, riding the circuit course at Villach, Austria. “During these early laps I am just staying in the wheels, sheltering from the wind behind other riders, freewheeling almost. That’s obviously an exaggeration, but that’s how easy I want it to feel, so that I can save everything I can for the end.” The winning strategy, the gear choices, the details of the day are the simple things, like putting on three rain jackets layered upon each other, that make for a build up that seems so very personal and intriguing. It also makes a fascinating read for fans of cycling and of sports psychology. Mixed in with the racing are touching details of Stephen’s early days trying to gather up money to make the trip over to race in France as an amateur, as well as, engaging stories of the many people who helped make it possible. Stephen openly lets us in to his personal life in a genuine and straight forward manner. It is this glimpse into the triumphs and failures of the man that make you feel closer, that make you want to read more. It also makes you realize that a Triple Crown in cycling doesn’t insulate you from being human, from being a parent, or the devastation of having a child who develops leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Within these pages are the joys of winning and the sorrows of life. One of the most intriguing takes I have from the book ‘ Born to Ride ’ is the strong undercurrent of confidence that comes through when Stephen Roche talks about being on the bike. He didn’t just think he could win, he knew the race was his to win, and he belonged on the top step of the podium. Interestingly, he is quite honest about the price he paid for it, within his own team and with others, cyclists and fans, who thought his tactics were not “pure” team spirit. For me, these insights into the mindset of a champion come through between lines, chocked full of the images of iconic cyclists who are brought to life through Stephen’s reminiscences. The legends of cycling from Miguel Indurain, Laurent Fignon, Roberto Visentini, Sean Kelly to Robert Millar play prominently throughout Stephen’s career. The book runs the gamut from glimpses of the boy, who collected clippings of Sean Kelly and was told at school he “wasn’t likely to get anywhere”, to the triumphant 1987 World Champion and winner of the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. Like most conversations, which zig and zag and take you to unexpected, but not unwelcome places, Stephen also addresses the climate of doping in cycling that existed at the time, his opinions of the present-day UCI and its concerns about “cheating” and improving the image of the sport, and his role in each. It left me ever more hopeful for the future of cycling, that there is still a sense of direction for the sport which comes from people like Stephen Roche who have been there and lived it. As I came to the end, finally putting the book down, there was a sense of joy and a sense of loss. The interlude with the past, like a fine wine or a lovely evening, was over all too soon, but I was left with a profound sense of place and a newfound appreciation for the real challenges and sacrifices it takes to be a cyclist. Overall, ‘ Born to Ride ’ is an absorbing and interesting new book, Stephen Roche’s first full autobiography, and I highly recommend spending a few enjoyable evenings savoring the conversation. Title: Born To Ride. Author: Stephen Roche. Published by Yellow Jersey Press, The Random House Group. Born to Ride. On 6 September 1987, Stephen Roche touched greatness. Victory at the World Cycling Championship in Austria completed a near- unprecedented 'triple crown' that included triumphs in the same year at the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. In April, against all odds, he fought his own team and an angry, partisan Italian crowd who spat at him on his way to taking the Giro. In July a superhuman effort at La Plagne saw him secure the yellow jersey just before he blacked out. Roche's victory in Austria confirmed his virtuosity. Born to Ride , Stephen Roche's first full autobiography, uses his best year as the starting point to explore the rest of his life. He doesn't hold back as he examines the many ups and downs of his time on and off the bike, scrutinising victories, defeats, rivals, serious injury, doping allegations and agonizing family breakdown. At the heart of the book lies an enigma. For all his charm and rare, natural talent, beneath the surface lies an incredible tenacity and determination. Roche finally reveals himself as a smiling assassin; a master-strategist who lives to attack.