In the early 1980s, Spanish cycling modernized rapidly. For the first time, national television broadcast the Vuelta a España live. Newspapers and radio suddenly started expanding their race coverage. The exposure brought in sponsors, budgets increased, equipment improved.

Mendiburu, then technical director of the Vuelta, was one of the agents of change.

“Televisión Española used to show only a twenty-minute highlights package at night. When the 1982 Vuelta finished, they told us: ‘If you bring Hinault next year, we’ll broadcast the race live.’ I went to Paris to ask Félix Lévitan, the Tour organizer, to help me. He convinced Guimard, Hinault’s director, and told me it was a done deal — that I should speak with him to agree the conditions. We brought Hinault. It was the first Vuelta shown live, and it was a huge success: Hinault battling Lejarreta, Gorospe, Alberto Fernández, the first summit finish at Lagos de Enol… Hinault won, but it cost him his knee. He had surgery, missed the Tour, and the following season he wasn’t the same…”

“After that, everything moved very quickly,” says Paco Rodrigo. That same year, 1983, Etxeondo sponsored its first pro riders and was worn on the podiums of both the Giro and the Tour. “We’d been printing T-shirts in our farmhouse, supplying the amateur Orbea-Danena team — and suddenly we were in the front row of world cycling. Sometimes events overtook us. We had more success than we had any right to expect, and from our small workshop we had to attend trade fairs across Europe and set new standards. But I didn’t feel daunted — I felt energised. Zor and Reynolds gave us huge exposure. We sold a lot. We were making more money and I could see the brand also earning prestige, proving we could compete. Just look at the riders we had: Alberto Fernández, Chozas, Pino, Gorospe, Arroyo, Delgado… It was a generation that had shed its inferiority complex. So did we.”

Pedro Delgado was 23 at the time. He rode his first Tour and dazzled with three second places in mountain stages. Delgado even briefly threatened Fignon’s yellow jersey before cracking in the final week.

“We went to the Tour because José Miguel Echávarri insisted,” he says. “Spanish teams hardly raced abroad — there were races year-round at home, so they didn’t feel the need. Echávarri was young and ambitious. He applied for a place in the Tour, and off we went — full of insecurities. The first stages were ridden at crazy speed; we were petrified. Every time there was a crash, the peloton would shout at the Spaniards and Colombians: ‘You don’t know how to ride!’ We were second-rate cyclists. In that first week, just getting to the finish felt like a victory. Then the mountains changed everything. Arroyo won the Puy-de-Dôme time trial, I was second, and that evening in the hotel Peter Post, the director of the mighty Dutch Ti-Raleigh team, came over to congratulate us. I didn’t think much of it. But Echávarri said: ‘Do you realize who just congratulated you? We’ve earned the peloton’s respect.’”

Delgado suddenly found himself fighting to win the Tour.

“Our mentality changed quickly. Until then we felt we were racing with a handicap— the French, Belgians and Dutch had better bikes, better clothing, more professional teams. In reality the gap wasn’t that big, but we carried that complex with us. We got rid of it fast.”

One of the advances Delgado remembers was in clothing.

“Etxeondo arrived and, finally, we had a jersey instead of a blanket,” he laughs.

Until then they had worn coarse wool jerseys, poorly fitted, hot in summer and heavy in the rain. Lycra transformed performance apparel.

“Paco was meticulous. He’d prepare a lighter jersey for hot days and a thicker one for cold days. That was new. We were the envy of the peloton: shiny Lycra shorts, tight time-trial skinsuits, headbands to keep sweat out of your eyes… Our clothes were like second skins.”

Delgado remembers how often Paco would badger the riders for their feedback.

“In those first Lycra shorts, for example, the chamois would crack and come unstitched almost immediately. We’d say, ‘Come on, Paco — this is a disaster!’ And he would work until he solved it. He was always obsessed with improving. We were all young — the directors, the riders, the clothing guy. We learned together.”