# Chris Boardman



## BAi9302010 (Mar 7, 2002)

As a kid, Chris Boardman was always my favorite pro cyclist and looking back now, it still amazes me what a great rider he was. He's best known for his hour record rides and pursuit accomplishments on the track, but in his prime, he was arguably the best time trialist in the world on a non-technical course and he beat all of the best riders from the '90's at one point or another. In the mid-90's Hein Verbruggen said that Boardman was the one rider in the top-100 UCI rankings that he was 100% confident was riding clean. 

Just some stuff that comes to mind....Before he turned pro in 1993, Boardman set a 25 mile British time trial record of 45:57 that still stands today, riding a fixed gear (non-aerofoil frame and using a regular, non-aero helmet) on an overcast, rainsoaked out-and-back course. He did a 17:54 in an unofficial club 10 mile tt, which is 4 seconds faster than Bradley Wiggins current official record. If I remember correctly, after turning pro in late 1993, he won 3 of the 4 races (all tt's) that he entered, including the GP Eddy Merckx, Duo Normand, and Chrono des Herbiers. In the 20km tt stage of the 1996 Paris-Nice, he rode at an average speed of 56.3km/h and set the record for the fastest ever stage in a professional stage race that lasted until the prologue of the 2001 Giro d'Italia, won by Rik Verbrugghe (at and averave speed of 58.895 km/h!).

His coolest win though was probably the prologue of the 1994 Tour de France. Here's a little background on the race: 

Boardman went pro pretty late, at the age of 25, because he wanted to ride in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in the pursuit (which he won) and then attempt to break the hour record as an amateur. After successfully breaking the hour record, Luc Leblanc, the French national RR champion at the time (who would go on to win the 1994 World's RR) commented to the press that... "if Boardman can break the hour record, than half of the professional peloton can break it". 

Having gone professional with Greg Lemond and Roger Legeay's GAN team in the fall of '93, Boardman was set to make his TdF debut in '94 and he set his sights on the prologue in Lille that year. Because of his tt results from the late '93/early '94 season and his status as the reigning World pursuit champion, he was given a late starting time in the prologue, ironically 1 minute behind Luc Leblanc. That day, he rode the fastest stage in Tour history (or any pro race up to that point), was the only rider to catch his minute man, and beat Miguel Indurain into 2nd by 15 seconds.......over 7.2km  Check out the custom aerobars...


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## California L33 (Jan 20, 2006)

Maybe we can get Chris to make a comeback like Lance!


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## Creakyknees (Sep 21, 2003)

What a stud. I hadn't known about Verbruggen's comment.


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## nrs-air (Jan 23, 2007)

Chris Boardman is awesome without a doubt. But I'm confused about the fastest stages in the tour. IIRC, Cipo won the fastest road stage, Lance has the fastest long time trial and Boardman has the fastest overall with his prologue win?


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## cydswipe (Mar 7, 2002)

Zabriskie is in there too with a fast TT time.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

unfortunately, he'll be best remembered for the spetacular ways he crashed out of Tours - the wet prologue crash and the crash in 98.


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## BAi9302010 (Mar 7, 2002)

nrs-air said:


> Chris Boardman is awesome without a doubt. But I'm confused about the fastest stages in the tour. IIRC, Cipo won the fastest road stage, Lance has the fastest long time trial and Boardman has the fastest overall with his prologue win?


feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...


Fastest tt's in Tour history:

1. Boardman - 1994 prologue
2. Boardman - 1998 prologue
3. Cancellara - 2007 prologue
4. Zabriskie - 2005 tt (long prologue/short itt +/- 20km)
5. Lemond - 1989 final tt (+/- 25km)
6. Armstrong - 2000 final tt (long 50+ km)

Fastest road stages in Tour history...

1. Cipollini - 1999 tdf (only road stage ever to break 50km/h. Found 50.355km/h after a little googling)
2. Bruyneel - 1993 tdf (49.417km/h)


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## fuzz-tone (Sep 29, 2008)

CB was awesome! Thanks for the clip... I forgot about that bike.


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## Kris Flatlander (Sep 9, 2006)

Creakyknees said:


> What a stud. I hadn't known about Verbruggen's comment.


You mean Leblanc?


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## cq20 (Mar 24, 2007)

California L33 said:


> Maybe we can get Chris to make a comeback like Lance!


Sadly very unlikely. Chris Boardman was diagnosed with osteoporosis in 1998 which meant he had to give up high intensity training.


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## saird (Aug 19, 2008)

stevesbike said:


> unfortunately, he'll be best remembered for the spetacular ways he crashed out of Tours - the wet prologue crash and the crash in 98.


Not by me.


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## WeakMite (Feb 20, 2005)

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Boardman*

_"In 1998 Tour de France, when the Tour began in Dublin, Ireland, he won the prologue but crashed on stage 2 while wearing the yellow jersey. In 1998 he was diagnosed with an illness like Osteoporosis. 

Treatment for this condition meant that Boardman needed hormone replacement therapy, necessitating that Boardman take Testosterone. As a professional cyclist, it was against the sport's doping rules for Boardman to take testosterone. Boardman chose to continue in cycling for a further two years and hoped to finish his career on a high note at the 2000 Summer Olympics. His preparation was affected by missing the 1999 Tour de France due to sinus problems. Boardman came eleventh in the time trial at the Olympics."_


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## cydswipe (Mar 7, 2002)

Since Boardman is so well known for speed, he came out with his own frames.

http://www.roadcyclinguk.com/news/article/mps/uan/3202


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## Jokull (Aug 13, 2007)

WeakMite said:


> _"In 1998 he was diagnosed with an illness like Osteoporosis.
> 
> Treatment for this condition meant that Boardman needed hormone replacement therapy, necessitating that Boardman take Testosterone. As a professional cyclist, it was against the sport's doping rules for Boardman to take testosterone. Boardman chose to continue in cycling for a further two years and hoped to finish his career on a high note at the 2000 Summer Olympics."_


Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding - because Boardman chose to ride clean, he postponed his treatment until after he retired, but finished his career early as a consequence. Also, he did end his career on a high note - he broke the Athlete's Hour Record shortly after the 2000 Olymipics.


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## davidka (Dec 12, 2001)

Jokull said:


> Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding - because Boardman chose to ride clean, he postponed his treatment until after he retired, but finished his career early as a consequence. Also, he did end his career on a high note - he broke the Athlete's Hour Record shortly after the 2000 Olymipics.


 That's one of my favorite cycling stories though it's more about how awesome Eddy Merckx was. CB beat Merckx's 30 year old record by only a handful of meters after being down w/5 minutes to go.


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## BAi9302010 (Mar 7, 2002)

True, but Boardman was at the end of his career and nowhere near the form he had in the mid-90's. If he'd gone after the athletes hour in '96 when he broke the hour record, he would've destroyed Merckx's record. He did testing in 2000 before making the attempt and found that he had the form to go after the record although it'd tight, but the results weren't close to the tests he'd done in '96. During his attempt he was behind Merckx's schedule until the last couple of km's when he had to sprint all out in order to break the record. 

Even in 2000 Boardman probably would have broken 50km if he'd made his attempt at high altitude like Merckx had in Mexico City. His 2000 athletes hour record would probably still stand if Ondrej Sosenka hadn't used a weighted rear wheel to give it centrifugal force, which slowed acceleration, but aided in maintaining the high speed necessary to break the record (Moser also used weighted wheels in his attempts).

As for the hour record he set in 1996, it may never be broken since the UCI went and changed all of the guidelines. Before the rule changes, Rominger was the only rider to come within 3km of it and he doesn't exactly have the cleanest reputation.


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