'It wasn't a case of 'I want to be a pro', it was a case of 'I'm going to be a pro'' – the epic journey that took Pippa York from young wannabe to Tour de France star and beyond

Pippa York took Cycling Weekly's lifetime achievement award for 2025. This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 4 December 2025. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

These days most British bike racing fans can easily reel off handfuls of world-beating home nation luminaries. So much so, it’s becoming hard to remember when British cycling had practically zero presence on the Continent. But that’s how it was: in the 1980s, you could count on one hand all the UK riders you might spot at the Tour de France. One rider you most certainly would have included in that tally was Philippa York – known then as Robert Millar.

Glasgow-born York became the most successful British pro in years, with Tour de France stage wins plus a historic fourth on GC plus the mountains classification win in 1984 elevating her to a superstar status among British fans. At the same time, York was enduring a personal struggle with body dysphoria that ultimately saw her transition to female in the 2010s. Since then, she has forged a successful career as a cycling journalist, drawing on her racing experience to comment insightfully on today’s action.

After "messing around on bikes" for fun in her early teens, York was drawn to the world of bike racing via clips on ITV’s World of Sport. "I thought, 'this looks interesting… got to be better than the life mapped out for me, working in a factory'," she tells Cycling Weekly. And so began the escape – a recurring theme in York's life, and one which eventually became the title of a new book, 'The Escape: The cyclist, the Tour, and me', written with cycling journalist David Walsh.

Dreaming of escape

The escape was from a life in the factory, and from the city itself – by means of the bike. "We lived in central Glasgow," she says, "and my only way of seeing something different was to ride a bike. I got sucked into thinking I could try racing.” Finishing last in her first race, York was not initially competitive. Even so, she "enjoyed the speed and the danger and the excitement," she says. "I thought, this is quite good; I could see myself doing this.” The rest, as they say, is history. "I often tell the story of how I came last in my first race and I was first in my last race, [the 1995 National Championship],” she smiles. “In between, things happened."

Those “things” included countless battles across the roads and mountains of Europe. York came up through the ranks the hard way, before the luxury of British Cycling performance pathways, through sweat, toil and often tears.

"It wasn't a question of, 'I want to be a pro rider', it was 'I'm going to be a pro rider'," she says. "I figured out that all I had to do was progress a couple of per cent every year. It sounds reasonable on paper, when you're a young person," York laughs.

Border raids

Having joined Glasgow Wheelers and connected with notables such as Arthur Campbell and Billy Bilsland, York began making border raids into England, racing her way to the top of the domestic scene. All the while she was working full-time on a four-year engineering apprenticeship – and would have finished it, had glory not come calling. "It was the 1978 Commonwealth Games [in Edmonton, Canada] and I decided that if I was going to be Commonwealth champion – because I saw no reason why I wouldn't be – I needed to do this full-time. So I packed in work with six months to go on my apprenticeship, much to the horror of my parents."

York didn't end up winning the Commonwealth road race, but she did net the National amateur road championship, the Tour of the Peak and the Scottish Hill-Climb Championship – and took those titles to France with her the following season. There, riding for the celebrated ACBB club, it took her all of one season to win the Merlin Plage trophy, establishing herself as the nation's best amateur. The pro dream was slowly becoming a reality.

Having signed with the French Peugeot-Michelin team for 1980, with its iconic chequerboard jerseys, York began adjusting to the life of a domestique. "I wasn't happy with getting a pasting in most races," she says. "It's a bit of a shock to the system the way that races were run then. You would set off quite slowly, and then the last hour the race would kick into action. You'd go from 30kph to 60kph in about two minutes. And that would never stop. I found that quite difficult." York made steady progress through the ranks, as was typical of the best pros back then – long before the era of 20-year-old hotshots catapulting to greatness in a couple of seasons.

After solid progress over the next few seasons, 1983 proved to be a breakthrough year for York, with a first Tour de France stage victory, taken at Bagnères-de-Luchon. The following year, 1984, was the apogee of her career, finishing fourth overall at the Tour and resplendent in the polka-dot jersey – most fans of a certain age can still picture the image in their minds. York's escapades in the mountains may have been memorable and impressive, but they never came easy, she says. "I've had to work at it. [Climbing] is my natural talent, but when you step into the pro world, everybody has natural talent."

Career highlights

There were more highlights to come beyond that 1984 Tour pinnacle, including two Vuelta a España GC runner-up placings in 1985-86, as well as a Giro d'Italia mountains win and second overall in 1987. York pinpoints as a personal career highlight her victory at the 1985 Tour of Catalunya – a race where she was no shoo-in for the win, with Sean Kelly as her big rival. Just three seconds separated them.

"Sean Kelly was number one, and had been for a couple of years. So, it wasn’t a given," York says. "In terms of where I saw myself in the hierarchy of the peloton, I needed a result like that to reinforce [my standing] – that I wasn't there just by chance or through others’ bad luck."

As Robert Millar, York had a reputation, certainly among journalists, for being spiky. She recalls giving short shrift to even Walsh, now her co-author, back in the 1980s, when he asked unwelcome questions. As a result, when they began working together, Walsh professed to being a little afraid of York. "He's been scared of me because [back then] I had a wall up and didn't want him to waste any of my time," York says. "If he came to me with a question about Sean Kelly, as I think he did once or twice, it would really annoy me. Don't ask me how they feel, because I don't know. Just just piss off and leave me alone," York chuckles at the memory.

The gender issues she was wrestling with at the time also played a role in her defensiveness. York says she has become much more open since transitioning. "There's no secret to hide anymore. So you can be kind of more open with people and more open with yourself," she says.

Retirement comes with its own challenge, as York acknowledges. "Through that period quite a lot of people go, 'Right, who am I going to be now?' This is what I'm known as, but who am I? For me it was doubly complicated, because there was this gender stuff to deal with.” What was her answer to those questions? "I had to let go of the ego and the ambition, the attitude. I'd done that part," she says. "It was time to move on. I didn't need to be a public person. I just became a normal person. Now I can stand in the queue at the supermarket with everybody else and not think I'm wasting my time."

Initially post-retirement York sank into a period of depression as she came to terms with leaving her old identity behind. She compares her gender transition to her cycling career, coming in steps, each one a decision to be taken carefully. "I took it fairly easily, because you're never sure the next step is the right one until you take it," she says. "Each step becomes a judgement: 'Am I being truthful with myself, that this is enough and I'm OK here?'"

Strength to strength

Even if you don't remember York's career in the 1980s, you will very likely recall her emergence as Philippa York in 2017. She had been writing a well respected and insightful column for some years for Cycling Weekly's sister title Cyclingnews, and announced her transition on the website. Since then her journalistic career has gone from strength to strength and, infused as it is with the knowledge and insight of a former pro. As a writer, York enjoys being able to delve into the intriguing characters, "the difficult people", and their relationships, and work out what's going on. "You'd be sitting in a peloton of 200 people," she recalls. "You've got characters you're becoming interested in, how they're functioning. I look at my journalism like that. I love the bickering between people," she chuckles. "The rivalries and competition comes down to the personalities involved and how they deal with the critical situations."

In 2020, York returned to the Tour de France, alongside Walsh, for the first time since her pro career. It was an anxious moment, she says, given everything that has come and gone, but she describes the experience as almost entirely positive. Fitting in at bike races is easier now, she says: "Every time I go to Europe, I kind of step into this role of work. Me being me isn't an issue."

Pippa York's book, written with David Walsh, is called 'The Escape: the Tour, the cyclist and me'. It was recently named as the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.