Jan Ullrich's Tour-winning Pinarello Paris

The German’s time at the top was brief, but his bike is a timeless classic

- Simon Smythe

When he won the Tour de France in 1997 aged 23, Jan Ullrich looked capable of dominating cycling for years. As well as the yellow jersey, the German ‘wunderkind’ won the young rider classification, something no one since Laurent Fignon in 1983 had achieved, and his huge winning margin of 9:09 over Richard Virenque hasn’t been beaten yet. A product of the East German sports academy system and with the might of the Telekom team behind him, Ullrich could have been a stereotypical emotionless German winning robot. He turned out to be more human than anyone could have imagined, and it was fitting he triumphed on a Pinarello, the epitome of passione.