PIPPA YORK

The British cycling icon talks James Shrubsall through her astonishing journey, on and off the bike

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These days most British bike racing fans can easily reel off handfuls of world-beating home nation luminaries. So much so, it’s becoming hard to remember when British cycling had practically zero presence on the Continent. But that’s how it was: in the 1980s, you could count on one hand all the UK riders you might spot at the Tour de France. One rider you most certainly would have included in that tally was Philippa York - known then as Robert Millar. Glasgow-born York became the most successful British pro in years, with Tour de France stage wins and a historic fourth on GC, plus the mountains classification win in 1984 elevating her to superstar status among British fans. At the same time, York was enduring a personal struggle with body dysphoria, and ultimately underwent gender transition in the 2010s. Since then, she has forged a successful career as a cycling journalist, drawing on her racing experience to comment insightfully on today’s action. After “messing around on bikes” for fun in her early teens, York was drawn to the world of bike racing via clips on ITV’s World of Sport. “I thought, ‘This looks interesting... it’s got to be better than the life mapped out for me, working in a factory’,” she tells Cycling Weekly. And so began the escape – a recurring theme in York's life, and one which eventually became the title of a new book, The Escape: The Tour, the Cyclist and Me, written with cycling journalist David Walsh, and which recently won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.

Dreaming of escape