Still probably the Uk’s greatest one-day racer, brilliant rider with a very obvious flaw. Will Fotheringham’s “Put me back on the bike” was a really good read.

Imagine having diarrhoea so bad, your mechanics had to hose down bike, being dehydrated and the temps being in the 30’s, then taking speed and Cognac and his agent having given him the ultimatum that he must finish in top 5 (whilst in 7th place) or pay heavily financially to the point where you may not get a ride next year, this was a culture where drugs had not been banned until the season before in TdF. He brought UK cycling forward a huge jump forward and was a tough sod.

He was friends with an old boy in my road club and gave him a WC jersey which he passed on to Wiggins when he won the Tour.

I grew up in Harworth and remember the funeral well. Iwent down to the cemetery after the funeral and I have an old photo tucked away somewhere of a wreath in the shape of dropbars. We had the Tom Simpson memorial race held around the village for two or three years (I think?) afterwards which initially attracted quite a few continental pros. Quite a spectacle for a pit village.