Peter Post, R.I.P.

One of the great in post-World War II cycling, Peter Post of Amsterdam, died yesterday at the age of 77. Most people may remember him as the creator and leader of the innovative and dominant TI-Raleigh and Panasonic teams of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, but he was a very good cyclist during a sixteen-year (1956-1972) career on the road and, especially, the track. Thanks to an enormous desire always to win--and a big, powerful physique--he was victorious in no fewer than 65 Six-Day track events. He probably would have won more had a crash in 1972 not put an abrupt end to his career. On the road, his biggest win came in 1964, when he won Paris-Roubaix, averaging 45.129 k/h, which is still the record. (In comparison, last year's winner Fabian Cancellara averaged 39.2 k/h). I mostly followed Post in his capacity of TI-Raleigh team director. (Although I was also excited when, for my 9th or 10th birthday party in 1969 or '70, my dad took my friends and me to the bowling alley Post owned for a while in the Amsterdam suburb of Amstelveen. I remember looking for Post, but have no memory if he was actually there during our visit.) Built around classics specialist Jan Raas, classics threat and time-trialist Gerrie Knetemann, and a cast of supporters capable of winning big races themselves, the team seemed to win at will in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One obituary today claims a total of 1000 victories for the team from 1974 to 1983. Occasionally, they'd also have strong contenders for victories in major stage races, as in 1980 when Joop Zoetemelk (five times runner-up before joining Post's squad) won the Tour de France. In that Tour, the team won no fewer than eleven stages. For years, Post's teams were virtually unbeatable in team time trials, and it was there the "Post formula" was perhaps the most in evidence. Not only was Post a real taskmaster, more than anyone at the time or before he was a team builder, warning riders that their individual interests were subordinate to those of the team (and the sponsor), that the goal for the team always was to win, and that there was nobody, no other team, that could--had a right to--consider themselves equals. This made him an innovator and it has become a central part of his legacy. No small part of the Post formula was about attitude. Riders also had to look good, on the bike and off, because that too was part of being a representative of the team and its sponsors. Post himself always dressed very well--not that he needed it to be noted or respected (his calm but compelling personality took care of that), but it nonetheless became part of his aura. Riders might complain at times about his hard hand, but usually you'd hear how well everything was organized, how well riders were supported if they did their part, the formula so obviously working. The rider who arguably was his most successful, Raas, also gave him the most problems, eventually in 1983 leaving the team to start his own, taking half of Post's riders with him. The two men probably were too much alike, and two of these strong personalities in one team proved to be unsustainable in the long run. Post had a very good second run with his new sponsor, Panasonic, this time primarily with non-Dutch aces such as Eddy Plankaert, Eric Vanderaerden, Phil Anderson, and Viacheslav Ekimov. During the early 1990s he himself began to indicate that professional cycling was developing beyond what his formula would accommodate. At least, I remember a comment about riders' tendency (pioneered by Francesco Moser) to work closely with doctors in a scientific approach to training and racing. Post was skeptical, if not dismissive, and pulled out his much quoted admonishment: riders should "just go" ("rije!"). Don't sit on a trainer with a tube attached to your mouth and sensors taped to your chest, just go out early (Post sometimes would call his riders at 8:30 in the morning to see if they were still at home, instead of out training) and log five, six, or seven hours among the elements. Whether he knew the new medical/scientific era was one in which things like EPO played such a big role (he most probably did--in 1965 he had quite openly declared that he could not do all the racing he did if he didn't take a little doping every now and then; probably amfetamines), by the mid-'90s it had become time to retire. I'll always cherish the memories of the TI-Raleigh years, when the victories just kept on coming, and as a rider I continue to draw motivation from that essential admonition: just cut the bs and go, "rije!"