But, York points out, it all worked out surprisingly well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got on really well,\u201d she says. \u201cWe never really fell out. There were a couple moments of tension, as there would be when you\u2019re spending three weeks with somebody. We never really got frustrated with each other, we didn\u2019t call each other names, which is a good point. The whole thing kind of worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Pippa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/sw16229.JPG\" "\\"Pippa")
Pippa York, British Cycling Awards 2018 (credit: Simon Wilkinson\/SWpix.com)<\/p>\n
Their travels together during the 2020, 2021, and 2022 Tours \u2013 the dawn of the Poga\u010dar age \u2013 eventually resulted in a book, \u2018The Escape: The Tour, the Cyclist, and Me\u2019<\/a>, published earlier this year.<\/p>\n Part-travelogue, part-memoir, the book recounts Walsh and York\u2019s time on Tour through the conversations they had in the car and at dinner tables throughout France, as well as providing an unflinchingly honest account of York\u2019s childhood in Glasgow and the gender dysphoria that emerged from the age of five, her career in cycling, and the long and painful process of transitioning.<\/p>\n When York and Walsh first met, as hungry, young representatives of their chosen fields, York was known as Robert Millar.<\/p>\n Millar was one of an exciting crop of pioneering English speakers that headed to Europe alone with their bikes, helping to revolutionise \u2013 or, as the marketing people would proffer, \u2018globalise\u2019 \u2013 the sport as it entered the heady, technicolour age of the 1980s.<\/p>\n During a 15-year career in the peloton, Robert Millar won three stages of the Tour de France, finishing fourth overall at the race in 1984 \u2013 a GC result only bettered by a British rider when Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour \u2013 and claiming the King of the Mountains prize.<\/p>\n The purest of pure climbers, Millar also finished second once at the Giro and twice at the Vuelta, including the infamous 1985 edition of the Spanish grand tour, when the Scottish rider, then leading the race on the penultimate day, was ambushed by rivals working together to ensure victory for the home favourite, Pedro Delgado.<\/p>\n But during those years of success and adulation, Robert Millar hid a secret. From a young age, York experienced gender dysphoria, braving the stairs of the Pollokshaws high rise to venture into town in girls\u2019 clothes. Cycling \u2013 both for the escape and the chance to shave her legs without judgement \u2013 became the titular escape.<\/p>\n But retirement from the peloton in 1995 brought depression, divorce, a reckoning, therapy, a long, painful transition period, and a private life shattered by the tawdry excesses of the tabloid press. Tentative steps followed during the 2010s, before Pippa York emerged back into the cycling world, and into life on the \u2018other side\u2019 \u2013 of journalism, that is.<\/p>\n However, speaking to the road.cc Podcast, Walsh admits that during their long weeks spent in the car together, as a self-professed \u201cfanboy\u201d of Robert Millar, he couldn\u2019t quite shake off the Scottish climber.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I read back what we wrote about the conversations we had for the book, there was an inner voice in my head saying, \u2018David, just let Robert Millar go! Stop haranguing Pippa about Robert Millar.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut I genuinely was fascinated by Robert Millar because, for me, Robert Millar is the best British or Irish climber I ever saw. I\u2019d rate Robert Millar, in the pure climber sense, better than Chris Froome. Froome was obviously more of an all-rounder, a brilliant time trialist, and a brilliantly effective climber.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if there was a brutally hard Tour de France stage \u2013 I\u2019m thinking of the first mountain stage of the 1983 Tour, when Pippa won in Bagn\u00e8res-de-Luchon, it was chaos, devil takes the hindmost, attacks from the start \u2013 Chris Froome wouldn\u2019t have won. But on a day like that, Robert Millar could win.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, when I\u2019m in the car with Pippa, I want to know about Robert Millar, I want to find out more.\u201d<\/p>\n But for Pippa herself, that distinction between Robert Millar The Cyclist and Philippa York is one she also finds to be complicated.<\/p>\n \u201cWho was I, as that person, \u2018the cyclist\u2019? Did it come about because of my childhood, and who I am when I\u2019m not being the cyclist, when I\u2019m not in that competition mode?\u201d she says, reflecting on how she dealt with gender dysphoria at the same time as competing for cycling\u2019s top prizes.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re two very different people in the same body and same mind. But I have to have a complete distinction between both of them.<\/p>\n \u201cI fairly quickly separated both issues into compartments \u2013 and as cycling took up more of my life, I revisited the gender stuff less. But it would still come up now and again. And that would depend on where I was as a bike rider \u2013 the longest time I went for was a year without the dysphoria coming through.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to let go of that competition mindset once the bike race is over, but on certain days it\u2019s quite difficult to do that. And if something happens and my gender dysphoria became apparent during a competition, then that would be quite difficult to process.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it could be any little thing, I see something, or someone says something, and that could be a trigger for me to revisit my childhood, or that young person life that I wasn\u2019t having. And it\u2019s quite emotional to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe cycling isn\u2019t a compensation,\u201d she stresses. \u201cBut it allowed me to concentrate fully on the moment, and the gender issues wouldn\u2019t come through. In that sense you can look at it like, because I\u2019m so invested in my cycling career, it allowed me to bury the gender stuff a lot more.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd there\u2019s a certain amount of truth in that \u2013 but I also just wanted to race push bikes, that\u2019s what I wanted and intended to do. And the moments I decided to do that fully, I could forget about the gender stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n That single-minded determination to succeed also meant that York soon erected psychological barriers, designed to prevent anything that didn\u2019t equate to better performance and results breaking inside. A handy tool to have when dealing with something so immensely private, and so alien to the queasily macho world of 1980s professional cycling.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely built barriers to allow myself to function 100 per cent as a bike rider,\u201d York says. \u201cSo your life becomes pretty extreme. I wouldn\u2019t be willing to give somebody, like journalists, time if I judged them as not worthy of my time. If they weren\u2019t doing their job 100 per cent, I judged them in the same way they judged me.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a lot of people, that was a shock to them. I think a lot of journalists and people in the cycling world believe the rider is an object which they\u2019re allowed to study. I wasn\u2019t of that mindset! I thought, \u2018you\u2019re judging me on what I\u2019ve done today, so tomorrow when I read your piece in the paper, I\u2019m going to judge that too, and make a decision whether it was crap or great or whatever\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThat kind of feedback wasn\u2019t what people wanted, but it enabled me to sift through people that I would give time to, and the others I wouldn\u2019t give any time to, because it affected my recovery. For me, that was an easy decision.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I had to give an interview, I would think of how much time and how much of myself I was going to give. And if it started with what I classed as a stupid question, the moments afterwards wouldn\u2019t go very well! Swear words were introduced, and it would end pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Walsh, as a journalist tasked with extracting more than just swear words and post-stage grunts from Robert Millar, recognises those barriers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was clear that, like many people, Pippa felt that there was part of her that she wanted everybody to see \u2013 and that was Robert Millar, the successful cyclist, very single-minded, very ambitious, and very good at what Robert Millar did,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then there was the part of Robert Millar that Pippa didn\u2019t want anyone to see. And you\u2019ve got this conflict that lots of people have \u2013 lots of people spend their lives trying to hide some part of themselves from the rest of the world. It\u2019s part of the human condition.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what struck me about Pippa is that Robert Millar had this very successful career, and there was acclamation for Robert Millar, people loved Robert Millar. It wasn\u2019t just that he was a great climber, it was the way he climbed, like a Scottish Van Impe or a Scottish Charly Gaul, someone just born to ride in the mountains.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that part of Robert Millar that Robert Millar never wanted anyone to see, it never went away. And no matter how many years had passed, or how much success there was, Robert Millar wasn\u2019t happy being Robert Millar. And that makes me understand the enormity of what Pippa has done.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in the car with Pippa travelling from stage to stage, and I\u2019m asking all these questions about Robert Millar. And I find myself reverting to the fanboy \u2013 \u2018why couldn\u2019t Robert Millar be enough? You were such a brilliant climber!\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Pippa looked at me and said, \u2018being Robert Millar couldn\u2019t compensate for who I wasn\u2019t.\u2019 And then I feel like an idiot fanboy.\u201d<\/p>\n A lot has changed in the past three decades for Pippa York. She admits that, during her career, she was \u201cfive per cent happy\u201d living as Robert Millar, a contentedness rating which has since been boosted to 95 per cent following her transition.<\/p>\n Her relationship with Walsh, once a cold, practically non-existent stand-off between a reticent, single-minded bike racer and a young, hungry journalist fed up with one-line answers, has also changed, evolving into a genuine friendship carved into being on France\u2019s roads.<\/p>\n But has cycling changed much in the past 30 years? York isn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n Criticising what she regards as the overt focus placed on trans athletes by sporting governing bodies and their \u201cthird-rate failed politicians\u201d \u2013 \u201cWhat\u2019s the trans world record for the 100 metres? You don\u2019t know,\u201d she asserts \u2013 York concludes that \u201cit\u2019s all just about money and influence\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve separated sport out of the real world and into this Disneyland, where everything\u2019s perfect. And that\u2019s why we\u2019re all so annoyed about doping and cheating, and all these characteristics that exist everywhere else, but that are not allowed to exist in sport.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at cycling, what has really changed? There was a big change with the arrival of Lance Armstrong, and the Americans, and that money system. But what\u2019s really changed with the politics, and the distribution of wealth and resources in cycling? Nothing, nothing\u2019s changed.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything that has happened lately with the rise of women\u2019s cycling has been a struggle and a fight. It\u2019s been a constant reminder that they\u2019re classed as second-class citizens, that it can\u2019t exist in its own right, it has to exist alongside a men\u2019s race.<\/p>\n \u201cFor those in charge, change is difficult \u2013 it\u2019s a transition they don\u2019t want to take.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0road.cc\u00a0Podcast is available on\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>, and\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>, and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the\u00a0road.cc\u00a0Podcast. It\u2019s also embedded further up the page, so you can just press play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m a calm person, I\u2019m patient. If David really starts to get on my nerves, I can have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-163817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/robert-millar-peugeot-shell-michelin-jersey-flickr-creative-commons.jpg\" "\\"Robert")
Robert Millar riding for Peugeot in the 1980s (credit: Flickr Creative Commons)<\/p>\nRobert Millar (credit: Eric Houdas)<\/p>\n
![\"Pippa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/wp60285-2.jpg\" "\\"Pippa")
Pippa York and Matt Barbet host ITV4\u2019s coverage of the 2022 Tour of Britain (credit: Will Palmer\/SWpix.com)<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/david-walsh.jpg\" "\\"David")
David Walsh (credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez)<\/p>\n![\"Pippa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/pippa-york-robert-millar-memorial.jpg\" "\\"Pippa")
Pippa York beside a mural dedicated to her in Lennonxtown (credit: Graham Watson)<\/p>\n