The road was steep, the air was hot and I had been gapped on the climb. The bunch has disappeared out of sight and I had just one other rider left for company.
‘Have you got the legs today?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Good because we’re going to keep riding straight over the top of this climb. No slowing down. They’re going to have to chase us.’
With that Sean Kelly, winner of countless races and with a career that stretched from Merckx to Armstrong, pulled in front of me and gave me shelter on his wheel. As the gradient flattened, we dropped through the gears and our speed doubled. We cruised past the others, leaving them standing. Quite literally because they had stopped at the side of the road for a toilet break.
The road collapsed away downwards through a series of fast, traffic-free bends. There were three of us now: Sean, Kurt (The Belgian) and me. For a few brief moments I was transported back 30 years and I was imagining myself competing in Paris-Nice, The Belgian was no longer Kurt – he was temporarily Jean-luc Vandenbroucke. Soon the bends were finished, our brakes had cooled and the long, flat coastal road stretched out for miles ahead of us.
We took turns on the front but the breakaway was doomed. We were caught moments from the line/café. Sean blamed The Belgian, The Belgian blamed me and I blamed Sean because he had spent the last five minutes sat up talking on his phone, before getting lost and going down the wrong side of the road.
The others joined us. Reality sank back in. I was not Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle, I was just another journalist. But I had just been in a breakaway with Sean Kelly and it was the pinnacle of my cycling career.