Being Pippa

The first Brit to win a classification at the Tour de France, Pippa York talks racing, transitioning and the current pro cycling scene

- EMMA COLE

'If it were nowadays, I would have been Pippa probably from the age of five or six,’ says Pippa York. ‘I would be one of those kids everyone is arguing about now. Would I have been a cyclist? I have no idea as I would have had a totally different life.’

Born in Glasgow in 1958, York began life as Robert Millar and went on to blaze a trail for cyclists in Britain by winning the King of the Mountains jersey in the 1984 Tour de France, becoming the first ever Brit to win a classification in cycling’s most prestigious race. And it was the Tour, York says, that first inspired her to become a pro cyclist.

‘When I was really young we used to cycle out to Glasgow airport and watch the planes take off. I wanted to go further, and at about the same time I noticed a magazine in a newsagent called International Cycle Sport and it was a Tour de France edition. World Of Sport was also on TV so I saw snippets of the Tour. It looked really interesting, and I wanted to try it so I joined a club, started racing and it grew from there.

‘My first year as a junior I got competitive; by the next year I was really competitive and could win races. Then I moved up to senior level and realised it would be a better life than working in a factory or a shoe shop. The clubs I joined encouraged me to keep progressing and by the end of my first year as a senior I thought I wanted to be a professional cyclist. In my environment that was unheard of. Nobody was a pro cyclist.’

The only real option for a Brit looking to turn pro at the end of the 1970s was to pack up and head abroad.