Bob Roll

Bob Roll
	Bob Roll at the 2003 Tour of Hope in Washington, D.C.
Personal information
Born	7 July 1960 (age 64); Oakland, California, United States of America
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Professional teams
1985–1990	7-Eleven–Hoonved
1991	Motorola
1992	Z

Bob "Bobke" Roll (born July 7, 1960) is an American former professional cyclist, author, and television sports commentator. He was a member of the 7-Eleven team until 1990 and competed for the Motorola 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. Roll is known in the cycling world, and to his global cable television fans, as "Bobke".

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 7-Eleven: his first race was the 1985 Giro d'Italia.^[1] 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.^[2]

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.^[3]^[4] 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;^[5] Armstrong's is in It's Not About the Bike.^[6]

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.^[7]

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:^[8]^[9]^[10]

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

Grand Tour	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990
Vuelta a España	—	—	—	—	—	—
Giro d'Italia	78	—	—	61	114	—
Tour de France	—	63	DNF	—	—	132

Legend
—	Did not compete
DNF	Did not finish

Bibliography

Roll, Bob (1995). Bobke: A Ride on the Wild Side of Cycling. Boulder, Colo.: Velo Press. ISBN 1-884737-12-9. OCLC 41853737.
Roll, Bob; Roll, Bob (2003). Bobke II. Boulder, Colo.: VeloPress. ISBN 978-1-931382-28-1. OCLC 53097074.
Roll, Bob; Koeppel, Dan (2005). The Tour de France Companion 2005: A Nuts, Bolts & Spokes Guide to the Greatest Race in the World. New York: Workman ; Godalming : Melia [distributor]. ISBN 978-0-7611-3798-6. OCLC 58053518.

References

^ Maestas, Amy. "The Durango Telegraph". archives.durangotelegraph.com. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
^ "Former bike racer Bob Roll rolls into TV career with offbeat wit". The Mercury News. 8 May 2012. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
^ "Coach Remembers When Armstrong Almost Quit". Associated Press. 2005-07-25. Archived from the original on 2006-05-23.
^ Litsky, Frank (1999-08-01). "CYCLING; Finding His Missing Desire in the Mountains". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-04. Armstrong needed a training partner. When Carmichael suggested Roll, Armstrong said, "That's perfect." And when Armstrong called Roll, Roll's wife, Chiara, urged her husband to accept. "I think Bob has incredible talent and personality," she said. "He could boost anybody's morale. Bob made Lance remember all the good things about cycling."
^ "Blog Archive » What About BOB?". MissingSaddle. 2006-05-26. Archived from the original on 2012-02-04. Retrieved 2012-07-20.
^ Lance Armstrong, Sally Jenkins: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, Chapter 5, (ISBN 0-425-17961-3), Putnam 2000.
^ "Bob Roll". NBC Sports Pressbox. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
^ "Bob Roll". www.cyclingarchives.com. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
^ "Bob Roll". FirstCycling.com. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
^ "Bob Roll". www.procyclingstats.com. Retrieved 11 August 2023.