Bob Roll

Bob Roll (born July 7, 1960) is an American former professional cyclist, author, and television sports commentator. He was a member of the team until 1990 and competed for the team in 1991. In 1992 Roll moved to Greg LeMond's Z team and added mountain biking to his racing accomplishments. Roll continued racing mountain bikes professionally through 1998.

He has written Bobke: A Ride on the Wild Side of Cycling, Bobke II, and two Tour de France Companion volumes. ("Bobke" is Southern Dutch for "Bobby".) He has also had many columns published in VeloNews.

Cycling career Roll started cycling in 1981 in his home region of Northern California. He spent two years in the States racing before heading to Belgium to race. Two years later he became a professional cyclist for : his first race was the 1985 Giro d'Italia. During the 1988 Giro d'Italia Roll's job as a domestique pushed him to the limit, causing him to pass out at the finish and his heart to stop beating.

In 1998 a young Lance Armstrong, continuing to recover from testicular cancer, had recently dropped out of the Paris–Nice cycling race. Armstrong's training coach, Chris Carmichael, invited Roll to journey to Boone, North Carolina, to talk with Lance and do training rides with the young Armstrong for several days. Armstrong was extremely discouraged by his recent European cycling results and was close to retiring. Armstrong was refocused after eight long days riding in the rain with Roll, whose tale of the ride is in Bobke II; Armstrong's is in It's Not About the Bike.

Post cycling Roll continues to enjoy riding road and mountain bicycles for recreation, and is a member of the veteran cable television broadcasting team (along with Phil Liggett, MBE and the late Paul Sherwen) who serve as road cycling expert-commentators for the NBC Sports Network cable network's coverage of the Tour de France, Vuelta a España, Giro d'Italia, Paris–Roubaix, Tour of California, and other international cycling road races.

Roll has appeared in a series of Road ID Tour de France television commercials as himself, riding a bus along with "Tour Mania" (a costumed-disguised rowdy faux rock group played by well-known professional cyclists, such as George Hincapie).

Major results

Sources:

1985 10th Overall Coors Classic 1st Stage 9 1986 1st Stage 3 Rocky Mountains Classic 1st Stage 3 Vuelta de Baja California 1st Stage 3 (TTT) Redlands Bicycle Classic 1987 1st Affoltern am Albis Criterium 6th Eschborn–Frankfurt 7th Overall Milk Race 8th Tour du Nord-Ouest 1988 1st Stage 3 Tour de Romandie 1990 1st Stage 2 Tucson Bicycle Classic 1992 5th Overall Tour of the Adirondacks 1997 1st San Francisco Hill Climb 1998 1st San Francisco Hill Climb

Grand Tour general classification results timeline

+ Legend — Did not compete DNF Did not finish