Martin Earley said when he was a boy he dremt of riding races like the Giro d'Italia, before he was suddenly in them and on his day winning stages.
By Brian Canty
Paul Kimmage said the moment made him feel like he was a member of the Beatles when he lay drowned in a pool of his own sweat on the kerb at the top of O’Connell Street, basking in the moment of helping secure the Nissan Classic for his Irish teammate Sean Kelly in 1987.
The pair, along with Stephen Roche and Martin Earley, embraced one another and celebrated – just as they had done when Roche won the World Championships a month earlier.
“I often wondered what it would’ve been like to be a member of the Beatles and that day gave me some indication,” said Kimmage.
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“Kelly and Roche were rock stars anyway, but I actually felt like one and Martin was one that day too. That was a special moment, the four of us there on the street and the crowds congratulating us. You couldn’t buy a feeling like that.”
Earley was, still is, the least known of the four and though that was almost 30 years ago and stickybottle’s phone call takes him a little by surprise, he remembers it well.
“The Nissan was unbelievable” he says of the Nissan Classic week-long Irish race for professionals in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“I’ll never forget those races, particularly around the streets of Dublin. The crowds were just incredible, guys were hanging out of trees and windows to get a look at the race.
“People forget how big those events were. They were absolutely massive and the best riders in the world were there.”
With Sean Kelly when they were team mates at PDM; Kelly in the green of Tour de France points leader.
He’s also reminded that just one Irish rider won a stage of the Giro d’Italia before him – and only one since.
“I still remember it well,” he recalls of that seven hour, 236 kilometre trek from Savona to Sauze d’Ouix in 1986.
It was his biggest professional win and only his second at that stage of his career. The fact he beat the likes of Greg LeMond and Roberto Visentini made it all the more impressive.
“It was unbelievable, as a young lad I had only ever dreamed of riding as a professional, and there I was competing in the Giro d’Italia and being able to compete and win a stage.
“It was just an unbelievable feeling. Only a few years earlier I was riding races in the Phoenix Park.
“It didn’t change my life by any means, though, it gave me a bit of confidence but it didn’t change my life. I had won a stage of the Tour of the Basque country that year as well so.
“I more or less knew at that stage where I was, I knew I wasn’t one of the best riders by any means. But I knew I wasn’t at the back of the bunch either.
“So I knew, on my day, getting into the right break, I could compete with anyone, as long as the right people were there and the situation was right. I had good placings before that and I knew I was capable of it.”
Riding the 1987 Nissan Classic in the colours of Fagor, on the right, and in the wheel of Sean Kelly. World champion Stephen Roche is on the far left.
Earley was a very clever rider, and with his oversized glasses, looked more like a college professor than a pro cyclist. And he needed all his racing smarts to win that day at the Giro.
“In fairness, if you look at the results that day and the people behind me (Visentini, LeMond, Giuliani) there’s some amazing guys not that far behind. But I was lucky because I was away in a break for a long time and the rest of the riders behind me got caught and I didn’t.
“I jumped at the right time and stayed away. I won it by the skin of my teeth, and that’s the beauty of cycling. You get into the right break and things happen. I’ll never forget that.”
Earley, far right, with Paul Kimmage, on the left, and Stephen Roche. A young Miguel Indurain is on the extreme right.
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A Tour de France win would follow three years later and he’d notch a number of top 10s in big races, including seventh in the World Championships in 1989.
He also become National Champion in 1994, but perhaps the one moment that trumped all was when he helped Stephen Roche become World Champion in 1987.
Earley, along with Kimmage, Alan McCormack, Kelly and Roche made up the team; the latter two seen as two of the favourites for the title in Villach that day.
Earley’s job was simple; bring back any break that Kelly and Roche weren’t in. And when they did make the selection, he was free to drop out if he wanted, knowing his job was done.
Winning the 1989 stage 8 of the Tour de France into Pau to add to his Giro triumph three years earlier
Indeed, Roche and Kelly made the decisive split and Roche won the worlds with a late attack.
“That was an unbelievably proud day for the Irish team and for me to be there as part of it was very special,” says Earley, from Coolock in north Dublin.
“There were all the big nine-man teams there; the Belgians, the French, the Italians, the Germans and we were there contending with our five-man Irish team.
“It was unbelievable to have two riders up there with the best in Kelly and Roche. Everyone knew they were two to watch but they delivered. People can forget how good they were.
“You’d have to ask someone outside of the sport to gauge how good they really were because you know what cycling people will tell you; they were the best.
“Cycling wasn’t big at all before then and if it’s a minority sport now it was a far more minor sport then, but they gave it identity.
“People knew about the races they were in, and not just the Tour de France. The sport is a lot more mainstream now because of the internet and television but back then it was different.
“I don’t know really how big it was back in Ireland because I wasn’t there, I was away racing and training but it’s unlikely we’ll see another two like them.”
Winning the Giro stage
Earley retired in the mid 1990s with no regrets and knew when the time was right to call it a day.
“My condition was trailing off and I was showing the physiological responses to age; training becomes harder, you don’t recover as well. You need to do more for the same gains.
“I was 12 years a professional cyclist and I loved it, but the suffering I went through…” he says, his words tailing off.
“But I’m lucky I had the career I did. I won big races. I made a decent career from it and travelled an awful lot. But I knew when the time was right to go.
“I never cracked, but at the end of my career I knew I was at the end of my career. I wasn’t enjoying it as much.
“Cycling has been a big part of my life but it doesn’t go on forever. I do charity cycles now and get out a few times a week, but more socially.”
Nowadays he makes his living as an osteomyologist and sports therapist in the tiny village of Hilderstone 35 miles south of Manchester. And he still keeps tabs on the goings on.
"I don’t sit down all day and watch it, but I’m aware of results and who’s doing what and I’d watch the Classics and the Grand Tours because I love the sport. It has been a huge part of my life for so long and will remain so."
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