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news
David-Millar-wideGot a question for Garmin-Sharp’s David Millar? This afternoon on Twitter, it’s #MillarTime
Veteran Tour de France rider David Millar will be taking over the Twitter feed of sponsor Sharp Europe Tuesday afternoon to host a natter with fans.
Millar will be on the @Sharp_Europe twitter feed between 4pm and 4:30pm on Tuesday March 11. All you have to do is tweet your question with the hashtag #MillarTime, and he will try and answer as many as possible.
To make it even easier for you, you can follow and join the chat right here on road.cc:
Two subjects that are bound to come up are doping and cycling technology.
Millar famously confessed in 2004 to using EPO when he won the 2003 world time trial championship. He served a two-year suspension and returned as an outspoken crusader against doping.
In 2008 he joined the team that is now Garmin-Sharp, becoming a part-owner of the team in order to emphasise its anti-drugs stance.
In a recent interview with Humans Invent, Millar said that he had always seen technology as a way for clean riders to combat those who are doping.
He told Tom Southam: “It was having this view that helped me gain so many early successes in time trials against guys who had the physical advantage from doping. The majority of other pros (and even my team management) didn’t care about their position, wheels, gearing, skinsuits, helmets, shoe-covers: I did. At times I would buy my own equipment and risk the wrath of the team management and sponsors.”
The classic example is his team’s targeting of team time trials as a type of race where doping teams were vulnerable. Jonathan Vaughters, manager of team Garmin Sharp said: “Any high speed event allows aerodynamics to benefit the rider more than doping. In low speed disciplines, like climbing, that’s more difficult. But in the team time trial, overcoming doping, by use of faster materials and better positioning, is possible. You just have to put in the time in the wind tunnel.”
And it’s not just about aerodynamics, but other aspects of race preparation. Millar said: “We were renegades when we arrived in 2008, we also didn’t mind being different and being laughed at. We wore ice-vests before the Giro d’Italia TTT that we won (in 2008). We may have been laughed at when we rolled up to the start line in our vests, but nobody laughed when we won.”
This will be Millar’s last season as professional cyclist, as he brings to a close an 18-year professional career. A lot has changed in that time, but Millar thinks it’s ultimately been positive change.
He said: “Cycling is a bonkers sport, it got a bit too mad the last twenty years, but we’re back to it being the right sort of mad.”
Want to know exactly what’s the right sort of mad? Follow #MillarTime from 4pm tomorrow, Tuesday March 11.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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14 comments
I see no harm in Millar using the year as a farewell tour.
Perhaps the team and pro peloton will give him a few opportunities to really celebrate his last year - I'm sure he won't be gifted any wins, but maybe some gesture of respect.
The sport will be poorer for the loss of Millar and Jens. I wouldn't say that about every other older retiring pro.
Nothing wrong with him announcing retirement when he did. Allows him opportunity to raise money for charity via the one off shoes Fizik have made for him.
...and provides a fantastic opportunity for some free advertising for Fizik (they now get their products featured in most mags for every race David is in) and Dave no doubt gets a nice kickback for being so loyal to a sponsor. Everybody's happy, eh!
Sure, no reason why they shouldn't get some exposure for this. Or is there a rule that sponsors can't receive a bit of media coverage for their funding of the sport?!
Yepp, here's a question Dave. Why not announce your retirement at the end of a season like every other bloody pro rather than turning it into a year long Dave Millar testimonial tour?
It's early to announce it, sure, but if you think 'every other bloody pro' does it at the end of the year you're in for a shock. I think some of the reasons why aren't particularly to fathom but, so what ?
I don't think there's any rule that says when you have to announce your retirement. Jens Voigt pretty much said that this would be his last year as well.
I like Millar and as a resident of Glasgow, it's good to know that I'll be able to see him race for the last time in the Commonwealth Games.
Wonder when he's going to start using the #MillarTime hashtag on his answers?
How much money did you make out of your tell-all autobiography?
not as much as Lance for his tell nothing, make it up, fairy tale autobiography
quality photo, looks like he's jumped on the bike but forgot to attach the saddle.
Love a bit of Dm insight, hope he stays in the sport once he retires from racing.
Interesting - not heard this expressed in such a way before. Makes sense I suppose, given the massive increases in power required to generate a small increase in speed at the top end.
How about doping and aerodynamics? It's not exactly an either/or Vaughters.