uses, one never knows …’
Though the Pollentier case had an irresistibly humorous aspect to it – it still does – it also highlighted an issue that, even then, cropped up with alarming regularity on the pages of Cycling. Quite simply, nobody who followed the sport could be oblivious to the suspicion that, at the top level, the use of performance-enhancing products was prevalent. Whether it was Jacques Anquetil, the five-time Tour de France winner, claiming that the Tour was impossible on bread and water, or Pollentier pleading that his bulbs of old urine amounted only to a policy of prudence and caution, the association between drugs and cycling – continental cycling especially – has always seemed uncomfortably close.
Though news of positive tests and scandals tended to disappear as rapidly as they appeared, the issue did prompt the occasional bout of soul-searching. In a post-mortem of the 1978 Milk Race, Cycling dwelt on some of the ‘concerns’ of the home-based riders. With the exception of the young Millar, they had under-performed, or been outperformed by their overseas rivals, and the analyses and explanations were couched in euphemisms and mysterious dark utterances. The riders, said the magazine, were ‘wary of the dangers of speaking out’. Specifically, they were ‘concerned about their rivals, particularly the East Europeans, drawing further and further ahead. They talk of the Russians, Poles, Czechs and East Germans being “on something” … They worry about dope testing – not about being tested themselves, but about the efficiency of the tests. They hear about miraculous “blockers” which hide proscribed substances from the testing procedures. And they get twitchy about anabolic steroids.’
Their fears were not unfounded, as history has demonstrated. But it was also recognized, even accepted, that professional cycling in the European heartland – France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain – was no stranger to le dopage. Again, history, particularly recent history, has demonstrated that such beliefs had more than a little basis in fact, though it is difficult, now, to know how widespread this knowledge was, and whether those who believed it – or think now, with the benefit of hindsight, that they believed it then – had anything more than hearsay and rumour to go on. The tales of drug taking did, after all, add another layer of intrigue, as well as a certain mystique, to the exotic world of continental cycling.
David Whitehall says today that the reputation of the continental scene was one reason for his not giving up his apprenticeship at Weir’s and following Millar to France. ‘I was tempted, but the drugs and all that …’ He tails off. ‘I remember someone saying that if Robert didn’t take the stuff he’d be back on the next boat – but that was the kind of thing people said. I don’t know how true it was. I did think I could make a go of it. But I wanted to have a normal life as well, and be attuned to what was happening in the world. These guys are so wrapped up in what they’re doing that they don’t know if there’s an earthquake or a war going on. They think what they’re doing is real life. But they’re in a bubble.’ Whitehall also recognized that, though he might have had the talent, he possibly didn’t possess the hunger. ‘You have to have the will to win in your stomach,’ said Millar in 1985. Whitehall admits he didn’t have that; he had doubts instead. ‘Robert was a wolf on the bike,’ he adds, with a mixture of admiration and bewilderment.
With his national title, Millar’s 1978 season could already be declared a success. A 19-year-old winning the country’s senior road race was exceptional, and news of his sudden emergence reached some of the British riders who were pursuing careers on the continent. They included Paul Sherwen, a professional with the French Fiat team, and Graham Jones, a leading amateur with France’s top club, the ACBB of Paris. It was Millar’s desire to join them, but there were other ambitions to fulfil first. First up, in July, was the Scottish Milk Race, the race that had represented something of a breakthrough for him the previous season with his second place on the final stage.
A very strange thing happened at the start in Strathclyde Park, to the east of Glasgow. The opening stage was a prologue, a short individual time trial, but as the clock ticked towards Millar’s start time he was nowhere to be seen. The meticulously organized and thus far utterly professional 19-year-old had gone AWOL. The unfolding of events was reported in Cycling. ‘“Where is Millar?” officials shouted as the timekeeper counted down to one, and the 400-crowd waited. It was a late flying start for him, handlebars on automatic as arms struggled to rid himself of tracksuit top, but he stormed out and came back … gasping like a fish out of water.’
The five-day pro-am race, dubbed the ‘Race of Friendship’, ended with Millar the best British amateur, in tenth overall. He rode a characteristically aggressive race, but the event was also notable for the fact that he was on a new bike: a Harry Hall, built by the legendary Manchester-based frame-builder whose bikes were graced by so many of the top British cyclists. Hall was perhaps the biggest benefactor in the country, though his reasons weren’t entirely altruistic: he knew that if the top British riders were seen riding his bikes, other cyclists would follow suit. ‘I didn’t know Robert before he contacted me,’ says Hall, who had also worked as mechanic to numerous British teams over the years, including that of Tom Simpson at the 1967 Tour de France. When Simpson collapsed and died on Mont Ventoux, Hall was first on the scene. ‘Robert wrote a letter to me,’ Hall explains. ‘He said he’d seen one or two riders on my frames and he fancied one. So I looked around to see what he’d done and I was quite impressed. He obviously had some ability. I said, “I’ll build you a frame and won’t charge you. Give me your old frame and we’ll do a swap.”’
Hall’s sponsorship arrangement with riders was as original as it was ingenious. He allowed his sponsored riders to build up a ‘tab’ in the shop, which they would settle at the end of the year. However, the bill was reduced significantly if the riders got their pictures in Cycling magazine, as John Herety, one of the riders sponsored by Hall, told me. ‘Harry gave you a frame and you had to hand it back at the end of the year, but if you got your picture in Cycling you got £30 off your tab. If you got your picture on the front cover then it was worth £100.’ Herety, showing the cunning that later took him to a successful professional career on the continent and in Britain, was quick to work out how best to profit from this arrangement – and it wasn’t necessarily to win big races. ‘What I did was create really good relationships with the photographers.’
Millar’s relationship with Hall continued until he left for France, but it was resumed in 1985 when he made regular visits to Manchester to assist with The High Life, the documentary film made by Granada TV. ‘He was what you might call a canny lad,’ chuckles Hall, ‘a quiet lad. There were times he’d come into the shop before I got in, and he’d stand waiting in the back. I’d come in and say to the lads in the shop, “Have you offered Robert a tea or coffee?” And they’d say, “Robert who?” And I’d say, “Robert Millar!” He was very well known by then but he wouldn’t say who he was, just that he’d come in to see Harry. He was very unassuming.’
There were two big engagements left in 1978, both of which would take Millar overseas again. The first trip he took in the company of, among others, Ian Thomson, Sandy Gilchrist and David Whitehall, as a member of the Scottish team for the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada. They were to be away for three weeks, which gave Thomson an opportunity to get to know Millar a little better. Thomson was already sensing that he might not have as long to work with him, and select him for his teams, as he would wish; he recognized that Millar was destined to leave for France sooner rather than later.
This was a source of regret for Thomson. ‘He shone so brightly and so quickly that he was in and out of the national squad in no time,’ he says. ‘There was a limit to what you could do for him anyway. I remember I took him to the Girvan that year [1978] and he arrived on the Friday night with his bike in bits. I said, “Robert, you shouldn’t be building your bike the night before the race,” but he did it. Robert would not look for you to do things for him.’ What stood out, according to Thomson, was Millar’s focused determination to succeed. He possessed a singleness of purpose that others simply
