New: The Icons Series

The Handmade Cyclist is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

To mark the occasion we're creating a new series of 10 limited edition prints featuring 10 riders who shaped our world. The greatest, the most charismatic, the most controversial, the most fun male and female riders who have inspired and entertained us through our cycling lives.

We'll be releasing a new print every month between March and December, each strictly limited to 50 copies. When they're gone, they're gone!

This first one is a personal hero.

Growing up in Ireland in the 80's, we were not Laurent Fignon's biggest fans. Too uncompromising, slightly austere, stubborn... his main crime was not being one of our local icons Stephen Roche or Sean Kelly.

As time passed and our world-view widened, our view changed. We came to appreciate what a phenomenal rider he was, capable of utterly dominating even Bernard Hinault on the road to winning two Tours, or winning Milan - San Remo twice. That stubborn streak was in fact a ferocious will to win, the uncompromising nature an honesty and directness that eventually won more friends than enemies before his untimely death from cancer aged just 50.

Always ready to take on his opponents head on, our favourite quote came when confronted by someone rather cruelly asking him about his most infamous defeat, losing by 8 seconds to Greg Lemond in the 1989 Tour de France.

"Hey, aren't you the guy who lost the Tour by eight seconds?"

"Non, monsieur. I'm the guy who won it twice."

Icons Series 001: Laurent Fignon is available now.