It's a while since we had one of these.
This week's entry is a little-known gem selected especially for Bierzo Baggie.
No Tengo Tiempo
by the Spanish electronica ensemble Azul y Negro.
The track was used by the Spanish television network TVE as the signature music for its coverage of La Vuelta Ciclista de España (Tour of Spain) from 1982 to 1985, including the infamous 1985 Tour. That was the year when Scots rider and legendary climber Robert Millar led the race with only two stages to go.
Millar should have won the Tour that April, by all standards of performance, and according to the established customs of racing etiquette, but his eccentric personal style (sometimes mistaken for arrogance) left him with a fatal lack of friends in the peloton.
Millar was far too good to care about such details - his combative approach generally depended simply on putting pedal to the metal on the steepest hill he could find and leaving his opponents panting far behind in his wake.
But on the penultimate stage down from the mountains of Segovia that year, Millar's luck ran out. First a puncture, and then a delay at a level crossing (some say the railwaymen conspired against him) left him dangerously isolated and far off the back of the field.
The Spanish teams attacked (some would say unsportingly, but fantastically effectively) and Millar lost over seven minutes, enough to give the yellow jersey to Pedro Delgado, who won the race after the customary uneventful cruise into Madrid the following day.
Delgado went on to win the Tour de France, achieving national superstar status some years before Miguel Indurain, but found his reputation tarnished by a positive drugs test in the fading light of his career.
Applying the Marion Jones principle, that now makes Robert Miller Vuelta champion for 1985. According to me, at least.
Millar, meanwhile went on to win a couple more famous stages in the Tour de France, earning the King of the Mountains title several times, but, unlike Delgado, he never won a major tour. He now lives in obscurity on the Scottish island of Islay.
Meanwhile, back to the music. It's post-punk electronica at its best and worst. Think Kraftwerk, mixed with Yazoo, and sung in Spanish. Que aproveche.
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