Spain's Vuelta in the dictator era: epic tales, 60 kg bikes and aniseed

The Vuelta of the dictator era: epic tales, 60-kilo bikes and plenty of nostalgia

Bicycles weighing 60 kilos, pitiful gear ratios, unpaved roads and stages through the Basque Country lined with factories and workers in blue overalls cheering the peloton as it went by. That is the picture invoked when comparing the Vuelta of the dictator era with today's, a race said to embody an epic sport in which Spain was a powerhouse. That's how nostalgia works: you remember the scenery and forget the rest.

The first point of friction appears quickly. It is claimed that back then cyclists didn't take drugs, and that this added to the epic quality. The answer comes with a knowing smile: they must have taken something. And from there to the domestic detail: for breakfast, a three-in-one coffee cut with aniseed liqueur. The joke sums up the skepticism with which the legend of clean cycling is received.

The testimony of a professional from the 1950s and 60s

Some people offer something more solid than irony: a friend who raced professionally between 1955 and 1962, from whom many stories have been heard. Epic cycling, yes. They didn't take drugs? Laughter is the answer. The first-hand account dismantles the fable of the ascetic athlete and leaves standing only what was real physical effort.

The epic, in any case, had names and faces. Jaime Mir is remembered as the face of the Vuelta back then, with his mustache and glasses, the only one a child taken to watch a stage finish remembered. Eddy Merckx and Ocaña were there too, but barely stuck in the memory. The anecdote has its charm: the local idol weighs more than the foreign champion.

Antiestéticar of descending alone and other tales of men

Among the stories rescued is one worth a whole treatise: an excellent climber who was afraid to descend alone and waited for the peloton to come down. Those were stories for real men, goes the verdict. The phrase, half in jest, points to something true: cycling back then was measured by endurance and daring, not by watts per kilo.

The contrast with the present is drawn without nuance. The current Vuelta is compared with the one back then, and the conclusion is that they've ruined an epic sport in which Spain was a powerhouse. The complaint is not just sporting: it's cultural. What is missed is not the primitive gearing, but a world of factories, workers and a country that saw itself in its cyclists.

Pork rinds, carajillos and reasonable doubt

Breakfast reappears as a gauge of the times: Cola Cao, fried pork rinds and carajillos (coffee with spirits). No sports nutrition. And on performance, the most repeated verdict: any of those cyclists would dominate today. Maybe. It could also be the classic "the good old days" applied to the pedals.

The doubt that lingers is the usual one. If cycling back then was so epic and so clean, why does the professional friend laugh at the question? Nostalgia for the dictator era and its 60-kilo bikes sells the epic very well. The pharmacy, on the other hand, doesn't make it into the picture.