Icons: My Inspiration. My Motivation. My Obsession.. Bradley Wiggins

and I was determined I’d accomplish it. The Acqua & Sapone team were there, and their leader was Mario Cipollini, a big, macho, alpha-male Tuscan. He’d won San Remo and was favourite for the race. So I checked that my team-mates were on the wheel, and started making my way up the side of the road. Eventually I came up alongside the Italians, by now feeling quite good about myself because I felt I was doing the job that I was asked to do. The problem was that Cipollini was looking across at me with something approaching total contempt. Unbeknownst to me my colleagues had just sat up, and like a dick I’d ridden to the front of Gent–Wevelgem on my own. Cipo obviously assumed I was French – I had a Française des Jeux jersey on – and he turned to the rest of his team and said something along the lines of, ‘Look at this French wanker!’

      Museeuw in the 1993 Tour of Flanders, his first win in the race.

      I’d thought I was being a real pro, but now these Italians were laughing at me, quite literally. I had to creep back to my place at the back of the group, and I felt like a wimpering dog. Then we hit a crosswind, then I went out the back, and then I climbed off at the first feed. It was pretty embarrassing, to say the least. Cipo could make you feel really small. I hated him for that at the time, but cycling was much more hierarchical back then. People like me didn’t dare go near people like him and Museeuw, because you had to serve your apprenticeship first. The idea that I might try to converse with them never even occurred to me, and I reasoned that Museeuw wouldn’t have known who I was anyway. I was a nobody, and he was far too busy trying to win the bike races I was nominally competing in. He retired in 2004, blissfully unaware of the fact that he’d been my boyhood idol. How, realistically, could it have been otherwise, given that I hadn’t managed to utter a word to him?

      You live and learn, and eventually I got pretty good at it. I had a long career, and towards the end of it I began a sort of sentimental journey. In the spring of 2015 I was doing an interview with the Belgian press. I was about to take part in my final Tour of Flanders, and they asked me about my cycling upbringing. I started telling them the story of how Museeuw’s 1993 Flanders had been the first race I’d really watched, and it got back to him. He speaks some English, and he sent me a message on Instagram. It was something like, ‘Good luck and thanks for what you said about me.’ I replied, and he told me that his 15-year-old son, Stefano, was a big fan of mine. He then asked if it would be OK for them to come and meet me before Paris–Roubaix, and I said that yes, of course it would.

      Then I started to panic, because Johan Museeuw was coming to meet me.

      So next thing I was having a massage after a training ride, and Servais Knaven, our DS, came up. He said, ‘Johan’s downstairs in the lobby waiting for you.’ He was early, but I started panicking because I was keeping the great Johan Museeuw waiting. I asked Servais, ‘What am I supposed to say to him?’ Servais thought that was quite funny. He said, ‘How should I know? Just talk to him! He’s only human!’

      Eventually I went down, and I was that teenager all over again. I was basically 16, but by now Johan was almost 50. He has this gentle, soft, fairly high-pitched voice anyway, and in some way he seemed almost the opposite of the ferocious rider he’d once been. When I asked him about Roubaix he gave me the usual ‘Stay near the front and don’t forget to eat’ advice. It was exactly the same advice that cyclists have been giving one another for 100 years, because staying near the front is quite important if you want to win a bike race. The difference was that the advice came from Johan Museeuw, so it was – and is – worth its weight in gold.

      I had one of my rainbow jerseys with me that day. I’d ridden De Panne a few days earlier, and there’d been a time trial. I got the jersey out, signed it and gave it to Stefano. Then Johan opened up his bag and pulled out a jersey of the same design as the one he’d worn to win the 1993 Tour of Flanders, the Belgian tricolour. He said he wanted to give it to me, which as you can imagine was pretty humbling. He also pulled out one of his famous bandanas and signed it, ‘To Wiggo, Cheers. The Lion of Flanders.’ Then for some reason he gave me a load of cans of beer, as you do. They’re a little bit mad, the Flemish.

      It had only taken me 22 years, but I’d got there in the end. I’d finally had the courage to meet Johan, and he’s a mate now. However, the fact that he’s a mortal, and vulnerable like the rest of us, doesn’t in any way diminish the bike rider he once was. It’s true that he wasn’t much for talking back then, but he’d bike races to win and he was under a colossal amount of pressure. He was the torchbearer for Flemish cycling, and that’s one hell of a weight to have to bear.

      I keep telling him I’ll go over and ride the cobblestones with him some time. I’ll probably get round to it eventually, but then again maybe not. Time rolls on, but I’m still not sure I’m worthy. I may have won the Tour de France, but he’s still Johan Museeuw.

      Still the Lion of Flanders.

      

      Museeuw winning the World Championships, 1996.

      Riding through the mud in his last victory at Paris–Roubaix, in 2001.

      I was speaking to my mum after having watched Museeuw win Flanders, and she explained that Eurosport would be showing something called ‘Paris–Roubaix’ the following Sunday. She said, ‘You know the mews out the back here, with the cobblestones? Well, they ride over roads like that, and the cobbled sections are called pavé.’ I couldn’t for one minute imagine how they’d be able to race their bikes over stuff like that, but I couldn’t wait.

      And so it was that, on 11 April 1993, I was acquainted with the wonder that is Paris–Roubaix. My first impression was just how crazy the whole thing looked. And how spectacular. I’d only ever seen sporting events that took place in hermetically sealed stadiums, but this was something else entirely. Where Boardman had gone round and round the velodrome, here they were just flaying themselves for hour after hour. You had potholes, mud and dust everywhere, and those cobbles. Then you had guys just keeling over and falling off, people running with their bikes or carrying them, noise and bodies everywhere. I can only really describe the scene as organised anarchy, and I loved it. It may sound dramatic, but it’s no exaggeration to state that it was a life-changing moment for me.

      It was an epiphany.

      Two riders had broken away. One was a Frenchman named Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle, who’d won the previous year after having tried 15 times. The other was an Italian named Franco Ballerini, and he was doing all the work. He was trying to shake Duclos off, and every time he surged the electricity went straight through me. Somehow Duclos kept clinging on, and ultimately they came into the velodrome together. Then they did the sprint and literally crossed the line simultaneously.

      To the naked eye it looked too close to call, but Ballerini was convinced he’d won. The race officials were looking at the photo finish, but he started riding his lap of honour anyway …

      

      The closest Paris–Roubaix finish ever. Ballerini (left) being pipped to the line by Duclos-Lassalle in the Roubaix velodrome, 1993.

      I UNDERSTAND WHAT PARIS–ROUBAIX means to people now, and I genuinely think he didn’t dare contemplate that he hadn’t won. I think he was actually trying to convince himself that he hadn’t lost. Paris–Roubaix was who Franco Ballerini was, and winning it was all he lived for.

      In the end they gave it to Duclos, the French guy. He’d been on Ballerini’s tail for an hour, and then stolen round him and won by a few centimetres. Franco