Within five years of turning up for his first club ride with East Grinstead CC, Sean Yates had become a top-flight pro. From haring around the Ashdown Forest with his brother and his mates to sharing wheelspace with the likes of Bernard Hinault, he’d come a long way in a short time.
As a rider he won Grand Tour stages and wore the yellow jersey; as a DS he helped Bradley Wiggins to the first ever British Tour de France win. But there was never any grand plan – Yates always just took it as it came. Still does.
“Straight away I was one of the fastest,” he says of those first club 10 time trials he rode in 1977. Still just a junior, before the season was out, he was down to 21, 22 minutes for the distance.
“Soon I was travelling all over the country racing, and trying to climb
