In the mid eighties in Denmark I spent a year in the same Army Recon Platoon as this guy, captured here agonizing over seeing his bike crushed on that little hill in the Ardennes:



His name is Jesper Skibby, and besides being famous for having his bike run over by the race directors car on Koppenberg, he also completed the TdF 8 times during the nineties, mostly for the Dutch team TVM (which, incidentally, rode Gazelle frames during that time), and later CSC.

When we were getting drunk and chasing girls in the Army he was an amateur racer. Suffice it to say that the silly war games was of little interest to him. Merely skin and bones (sort of like our DRietz), and almost 6 feet tall, it always amazed the stocky, broad shouldered farmer boys in our barrack that such a wimpy statute could successfully compete in any athletic pursuit. Besides easily holding his own against the brawn and constant machismo using his quick wit and brainy banter, he was also one of the nicest guys. I heard his popularity later spread through the pro peloton, a Jens Voigt of the nineties.

Back then he was the first one to tell me to stay away from the 1R Cinelli stem, as in his short career he had already broken a couple. This was bad news as I had just spent a weeks wages to get one..

Skibby wrote a book confessing to being, at his own request, nearly constantly doped during his pro years. But unlike just about any other such confession, he doesn't attempt to drag anybody else down with him. No names mentioned, no weak justifications. 'I was part of a tough metier and used the ingredients needed to participate. It was as simple as that', he says. 'I had no moral or ethic concerns whatsoever.'