Every time a reporter visited Federico Martín Bahamontes at his club room and office in Toledo after he retired in 1965, certain elements of the interview would never vary.
Seated behind his huge desk with a full-size bust of an eagle on one side in honour of his nickname, Bahamontes would launch into lengthy accounts, asked or unasked for, about how he became the first Spaniard to win the Tour de France and the first rider ever to capture the Tour’s King of the Mountains classification six times.
