Tag: Soigneurs

In the 80’s there weren’t many female soigneurs in the pro peloton, but along came the 7-Eleven and everything changed. Trudi Rebsamen was amongst the first, Ed spoke to her about cycling ‘in the day’ and her late partner Steve Tilford.

There are no palmarès to check for this guy, he’s one of cycle sport’s back room, ‘unsung heroes’ – but he’s worked with some of the sport’s biggest names; he takes us behind the scenes to look at the life of a soigneur in modern cycling. Mr. Andrew Hillman, aka ‘The Hillmanator.’

If you look at those sharp black and white cycling pictures from the 70’s and 80’s on social media, beside or behind the featured star rider there’s often an uncredited figure – as likely as not that’ll be the rider’s soigneur. And in the case of some of the biggest stars of the eras from Eddy Merckx to Bradley Wiggins that soigneur is liable to be the gentleman we’re about to present to you; Mr. Pierrot de Wit from Brussels.

So what brings a surfer dudette to West Flanders? The smart answer would be-ha! The team car! Robyn Taylor is a CSC soigneuse, she comes from Brisbane and has arrived in the male dominated world of pro cycling via water polo, surfing, The AIS (Australian Institute of Sport), and the now-defunct Team Fakta. Robyn found a few minutes to talk to us between stages at the 2006 de Panne 3 Day.