wackojackohighcliffe wrote:
"Put me back on my bike"

issoisso wrote:


is that about Tom Simpson? If not, the reason I'm asking is that there's a famous made up story going around saying that he said that before dying

It was on stage 13, 211.5 kilometers from Marseilles to Carpentras with the climb up Mount Ventoux that tragedy struck. That morning, before the start of the stage Tour doctor Pierre Dumas had looked at the weather and worried that given the heat that was promised for the day, a racer who went too far in doping himself for the stage could die.

Tom Simpson was a very well regarded racer. The reversion back to national teams was a terrible handicap and also a sort of blessing for him because while there were not enough good Britons to form a high quality team to help Simpson win the Tour, he didn't have to worry about competing with Pingeon for the leadership of the team. Winning the Tour was his aim. His agent had put him under terrible pressure to come up with good results because his 1966 had been devoid of big wins. Simpson knew he had to deliver.

Before continuing, let's look at Simpson's record, because today all we remember about him is that fateful day in Provence.

Tour de France

7 Participations
1960: 29th overall
1961: Did not finish (DNF)
1962: 6th overall and a day in yellow (first Englisman to do so)
1964: 14th overall
1965: (DNF)
1966: (DNF)
1967: (DNF)

His other racing palmares show that he was a very good racer: Tour of Flanders, Paris–Nice, Bordeaux–Paris, Milan–San Remo, Tour of Lombardy and the Brussels 6-Day with Peter Post as his partner. Also, in 1965 he won the World Pro Road Championships.

But wait. Let me have Owen Mulholland tell Simpson's story:

"As always, the Tour loomed as the centerpiece of Tom's season, and he wasn't enthralled when the organizers decided to revert to the old time formula of national teams. All through the season riders compete for their trade team sponsors, in Tom's case, Peugeot. Now the riders were supposed to forget all about those commitments and race for their respective countries. A small group of home grown English pros with almost no continental experience were all Tom could look to for teammates. He knew he would be on his own.
"His game plan, therefore, was to ride cautiously on the flat and save himself for the mountains where the big time gaps would make all the difference. The 1967 Tour followed a clockwise direction across northern France before dropping south through the Vosges and Alps. Simpson survived these tests fairly well, although he'd had to put down the hammer very hard on several occasions.
"July 13 began in Marseilles, and as he awaited the call to the line a Belgian journalist noted that Tom looked tired and asked if it was the heat. 'No, it's not the heat.' Tom replied. 'It's the Tour.' As events were to prove, this was a telling comment.
"Still the heat could not be ignored. Already it was approaching 80°F in the old port city, and many riders winced at the thought of what lay before them. 100° was quite possible, and there was no protection whatsoever on the rocky face of Mt. Ventoux which they were scheduled to tackle around 2 in the afternoon.
"The long approach slope to the base or the 'Giant of Provence' (as Mt. Ventoux is known locally) served to shred the field and leave the big guns clustered at the front. Simpson, as expected, was the only member of his team to be in this group. After 7 miles of grueling toil Tom began to slip back to a group of chasers about a minute behind. In that group was Lucien Aimar, the '66 Tour winner. He remembered how Tom hadn't been content to sit in the group, but kept trying to bridge the gap back up to the front bunch. But no matter how hard he tried, Tom simply could not maintain the tempo necessary to move up.
"Suddenly Tom dropped from his little cluster of riders. Barely able to turn the pedals he began to weave across the road. In a hundred yards he collapsed. Immediately he was surrounded by spectators.
"The well-meaning fans lifted him onto the saddle and got him going with a good push. When the momentum dwindled in a few feet Simpson began his former zigzag course. Another hundred yards and Tom again tottered from the bike, this time utterly spent. He immediately lapsed into a coma and nothing the Tour doctor or a local hospital (where he was taken by helicopter) could do brought relief. In 3 hours Tom Simpson was dead, victim of his own indomitable will and the sorcery of his supposedly magical pills."

In the hospital, Simpson's jersey pockets were found to contain amphetamine pills. Blood tests showed alcohol (he had stopped at a bar at the base on the Ventoux) and amphetamines in his system. He suffered heart failure from the heat and severe dehydration. The drugs had made it possible for Simpson to ignore his body's screaming signals that it was in danger.

It it is usually written that Simpson's last words were, "Put me back on my bike." They make compelling, seductive drama which is why they are repeated in every story about Mount Ventoux. But it's not true. When he fell the first time he told the British team mechanic Harry Hall, "Get me up, get me up. I want to go on. Get me up, get me straight." As we know he continued up the hot mountain and then collapsed just before the summit. An editor put what had been intended as a paraphrase in quotes, and from then on the words have been part of cycling lore.

History records and the public little cares that Jan Janssen won the stage.

It has been said that a man's virtues are his own and his faults are those of his times. It was never more true than in the case of Simpson. He was charming, possessed a fine sense of humor and was well liked by his fellow riders. Gimondi, who was to be his teammate the following year, wept when he learned of Simpson's death. Simpson was brave and driven, willing to take terrible chances. He was suffering from terrible diarrhea (his mechanics had to hose his bike down before working on it) at that point in the Tour, a condition that surely contributed to his dehydration. To make things still worse Tour management made it hard for the riders to get enough water, making hand-ups from team cars illegal. They feared that the riders would get a free tow while holding on to the bottle. The riders often finished the stages terribly dehydrated. Despite his illness and exhaustion Simspon not only had no intention of quitting, he was intent upon getting a high placing that day. Franco Bitossi says Simpson would not have died today because the riders are more carefully monitored. At the earliest signs of trouble he would have been pulled from the race. Also, he probably would have been able to get enough water.

When Simpson's ambitious mentality met the drug-culture of professional cycling of the 1960's it was as if he had walked into the first scene of a Greek tragedy where the outcome is already known by the audience.

Was he bad person or a hero? He was neither. Like thousands of other men he accepted the terms that continental racing dictated. Riding without dope would probably have meant failure. At least that's the way most of the riders saw it. It might not have been true. Franco Bitossi's heart problems forced him to ride clean because death was a probable side-effect of amphetamines. He still won 147 races with his prodigious talent. However, a look at his career wins shows that some of the greatest titles just eluded him.