Rouleur 22... PANTANI

Rouleur Issue 22 has hit the door mats of many people over the past couple of days, soon you'll be able to buy it online and in the many stockists across the world.

It's difficult to remember some times how many people read the mag and enjoy the six copies they get every year. Comments i often read about include loving the smell of the print, the feel of the paper and just how great it is to get the new copy of this most exciting of cycling magazines.

If you have read this blog [and not just looked at the pictures] you will know i am not one for words, or words that often mean a great deal or are strung together with any gravitas or even spelt correctly.

this piece on Marco Pantani has been a lot of work, so much so that when i came to the end i felt a bit flat, crest fallen almost at the thought that it was done and that it had all finished. The research went away and i sent all the pages over to the mag. I am over the moon with the piece, it's my favorite story to date and there is something about watching Marco Pantani that seems to have got under my skin.

That's maybe why i felt sad when I finished, I know more about the man now than I ever did, it's easy [and internet forums are full of people moaning] to spout off about how he doped [which he did] and took recreational drugs [which he did also] but by watching hour after hour of footage of him on a bike, he was still one hell of a bike rider and more importantly a true character of the sport. That's why I choose to keep the story about the racing, covering his life as a bike racer from his Baby Giro days, to his Giro win in 1998.

Working, re-working, tearing up bits of paper, researching, considering how I was going to get the life of one of cycling's most interesting characters into my alloted 12 pages of Rouleur. Finally things started to come together, and as December hit us with snow, crippled public transport systems and bitter cold i was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It took about six months to get the piece to a place where i was happy.

So after late nights, early mornings and a small mountain of tea bags, something that began as one word from Guy Andrews [Rouleur Editor] 'PANTANI' now takes up twelve pages of a magazine i really enjoy reading. I hope you do too... Thanks