We were able to pester the "Voice of Cycling," Versus commentator Phil Liggett, on his cell phone at a coffee shop in his home village after just finishing a ride.

schmalz As a matter of full disclosure, I should mention that we have a running commentary that follows the Versus coverage of the Tour every year that you can read if you like, but it will probably end in a restraining order.

Liggett (laughs) A restraining order you say?

schmalz Yes, but we are very thankful for your Tour coverage. So, who do you think will win the Giro this year?

Liggett Well of course, the Italians win it most years — in fact, we haven’t had a foreign winner since Pavel Tonkov won it back in about ’98. So I reckon it will be an Italian. Di Luca will want to take revenge, I guess, over the way he’s been treated in the drugs scandal since last year. I think he’s got himself sorted out in that respect, so he will be in there with a shout. As for Astana, they’ve come in as a big surprise to everybody and it will be a real difficult situation for them to try and find the form to win a three week race with ten days notice. But they might just have the firepower and I think with Contador, Kloden and Leipheimer they’ve got a triple-headed attack. Luckily for them, the hardest part of this race is in the last eight days, so they’ve got a chance to work up to the fitness that they require by that last week of the race.

So I’d put any one of those, the guy who gets the best breaks would be the answer to win the Giro overall. And Giberto Simoni because at 36, it will probably be his last Giro. He holds the second best total podiums position other than Felice Gimondi who’s been on the podium nine times. While Simoni’s been on it seven – with two wins included, plus a second, and four third places. I know he wants to do well. And I would’ve suggested David Arroyo, but the poor guy fell off his bike yesterday and broke his collarbone, so he’s out.

schmalz As an announcer, you must really appreciate the Italian riders because they have so much personality and flamboyance. From Cippollini to Simoni to Chiappucci to Pantani, and even Salvatore Commesso with his rolled up sleeves, they must give you so much more to talk about than other nationalities.

Liggett The Italians are still superstars in this world of cycling, and in their own home country it’s still a huge sport there. In the days of the 50s, 60s and 70s the Italian cyclists were gods, and they far out-sold their football counterparts. I think it’s less so now, but a success in the Tour of Italy by an Italian is extremely important to the nation; and this is why, of course, they’ve won over two-thirds of the 90 events. It is so important that they ride well. Even the Barloworld team, which is basically a South African set up, is managed by an Italian, Claudio Corti, an ex-world champion, and it’s his first chance directing a team in the Giro; and he will want to guide some of those riders to success just to reflected glory, if you like.

But I don’t really see anyone other than Astana outriding the Italian squads this year. Astana are motivated obviously because they have a point to prove, being left out of the Tour de France. And knowing the French and the history of the French, they’re not going to swallow and say, "Come on in guys" as the Tour of Italy has. So they want to make this one count, and just show everybody how good they really are.

schmalz I know you’ve come down in the past against the use of race radios, where do you see the use of radios going in the future?

Liggett Well, I can say that next Friday, I’m in Geneva because the world body of the UCI has asked me to sit on a panel to formulate new rules, and this will go forward after our committee meeting in Geneva to the Road Commission of the UCI to decide on the future of race radios. I was very flattered to get the call-up because I made no overtures to the UCI, and all of a sudden, I got an email from Switzerland saying, "Would I take part in this discussion group?"; and on the group would be a couple of cyclists, I don’t know who they are; a couple of managers; and a couple of members of the press – of which I presume I am one – and race organizers. And we’re trying to find the balance – to take away the puppet-like mentality of the riders who are waiting for the shouts from the director sportif in the car behind. Because these guys have got televisions in the cars these days, and a race radio, and they can see the front of the race as well as the back of the race, they know who’s making the group going.

And I think a rider, at some stage, should be left to use his own ability. Of course, at the end of the day, if the guys shouts, "Attack" and the rider hasn’t the legs, he can’t attack and that’s the end of the message. But there is the other side of the coin, which is the security side, and I do have a big sympathy here. Once you’re on the open highway and say, for example, there’s been a crash of even the official cars ahead the race. You need the opportunity to warn the riders that the road is blocked, and the only way you can do it is with a radio. On the descent of a mountain you can’t even get along side the riders on the back of the peloton. I’m going to suggest they nominate one rider on the team, as they would on a football squad and he will wear the earpiece. He will take the orders from the director sportif, and it’s his job to tell the other riders on his team, and execute the plan. It makes it a bit more of a thinking man’s race, rather than a bunch of robots with great ability charging off the front and countering all of the moves and spoiling it for, well, the TV viewers, if you’d like.

schmalz It seems to have made the sport a little duller and it’s put a lot of the tactics into the director’s car.

Liggett It does. For example, our Premiership Football League is the greatest football league in the world, and once the team is on the pitch, the manager is only allowed in a little area in a box where he can only shout his head off – he’s got no radio contact – it’s up to the captain of the football team to tell how the team should tackle and what gaps they should fill, etc.

schmalz It’s also nice to know that it’s not just the strongest guy that wins the race, it can also be the smartest guy or the best tactician.

Liggett That’s absolutely right, and in the end you have to have the ability to do whatever tactic you want to put into operation. Even if the manager is shouting in your ear to "Chase this rider down!", if you can’t come with the legs; you can’t chase anyone down. I still think it’s nice to have the ability of reading a race for yourself or with the team captain and do what he wishes. Because, after all, if your name is Leipheimer and you want someone to help you out of a mess, he should be able to tell the guy to help him out of the mess.

schmalz True, but now, a real controversy, how do you feel about David Zabriske’s mustache?

Liggett Sorry?

schmalz How do you feel about Zabriske’s mustache?

Liggett Well, I don’t know how anyone races in any facial beard, to be absolutely honest. I would find when I was sweating, it would be absolutely awful.

schmalz When you were a commissar in the 70s, did you ever toss out fines for extra long sideburns?

Liggett (laughs) No we never had any race rules to cover that. Except for black socks – black socks were not allowed – they had to be white. Of course, black socks these days are often the thing to do – thanks to Lance Armstrong.

schmalz Was there any particular rider when you were a commissar that seemed to give you a lot of trouble?

Liggett Occasionally the British professional seemed to always be after me, but at the end of the day they always asked me to referee their races. So I couldn’t have been too bad. I’ve had guys drop back to the car and use four letter words at me and I just said, "Look, don’t say any more, or I’ll just disqualify you." And I’ve had to disqualify guys who were just blatantly cheating – which I hate doing. And riders would say, "You’ve put him out of the race, you’ve ruined his career!". And I’d said, "Well, hang on, I wasn’t in the drag of the car that was behind" or whatever the guy was doing – holding onto a door handle or something. Being a commissar is often unenviable, but it’s very satisfying being a commissar if you’ve done a good job.

schmalz When you were racing in your earlier days in the UK, were the rules still the same? Could you do mass start events or did you just have to do time trials?

Liggett No, I was fine, I was purely a road racer, although I did a lot of time trials. What happened in the old days was, I think, time trials became the norm from when road racing was banned until about 1945 or something like that. And then we’d run London to Brighton and the first road race was in North Wales in Llangollen, which was organized by the rebel British League of Racing Cyclists. I was always riding road races, I rode time trials, but didn’t have to. And even when I started racing in ’61, whenever we did enter a time trial, the letter was headed "private and confidential" – it was still a secret as to where you rode the race.

schmalz Which sort of race and which sort of finish suited you as a racer?

Liggett I was a road racing guy – primarily a sprinter. And I was a reasonable climber. There’s nothing nicer than climbing a high mountain, and guys can’t go with your pace. It’s a wonderful feeling to be so strong. If I wanted to be anything in the world as a top cyclist, it would be a great climber. You don’t win as many races as a sprinter, but it’s a wonderful feeling – you really are the best man in the race when you climb away from the field.

schmalz It seems currently in cycling there are many layers of bureaucracy that can sanction or have an effect on what racers do. You have the UCI, WADA, the race organizations, and the team directors – all who can pull racers in many different directions. Is there any way to take care of this?

Liggett You’re absolutely right, I’ve said to Paul Sherwin on occasion, "I think if I had my time again, I wouldn’t want to be a professional cyclist anymore", because you really have to do just about everything. To take your dope controls now you have to have your biological passport, you have to have your regular medical check-up to cover the rules of the UCI every three months. You have to succumb to the spot checks which are numerous now out of competition. So you have to spend a lot of time telling the world bodies where you are on every day of your racing life. And if you change your plan from "I might want to go to the pub tonight" to "No, I’m going to stay in tonight"; you’ve got to send a fax to say you’re not going to the pub; because if they show up and you’re not there – that’s a missed test. That’s the basis of just staying in line as far as the drugs are concerned.

And it’s not just the UCI that dishes out the penalties, it’s the Olympic Committees and it’s the drug agencies. OK, if you don’t take drugs – and you shouldn’t, it shouldn’t be a problem, but there’s so many borderline cases and how much faith have you got in every test being accurate? I really wouldn’t like to be a professional bike rider, quite honestly, as it is now. I love cycling and these guys – that’s why they do it. I don’t think I know of any one bike rider who’s ever been a top pro thinking of all the money he was going to make. That was never the name of the game. He was thinking of the big races he’d love to win. Nobody ever asks what the first prize was in a bike race, it’s the fact that he’s won it that matters. And they seem to be prepared to go through all of these huge pitfalls and traumas just to get to that level of cycling.

schmalz You’ve seemed to have become the voice of cycling, especially in the US, but on some of these long Tour stages, where a break has got away and things have become a little monotonous, I have to wonder how you make it through when you have about 3 or 4 hours to fill with commentary?

Liggett Some days when we’re going live at say, 2 o’clock and the race is going to end at 5:30 and we know this guy is leading by 25 minutes, we just look at each other and think "We’re in trouble here." And I say to Sherwin, "You’d better start thinking about some great stories, man, because if these cameras are locked onto this one rider, who is a no-hoper, we don’t know much about him…" But we do when we get on air because we’ve run around finding things out about him – if we can find anyone that knows him.

Cyclists are cyclists, I’m not too worried about the cyclists – they’ll look after themselves. But we want to keep the viewers who aren’t cyclists – and that’s the big audience. They are going to be bored to death unless you can make them keep that television on. I like to do a little bit of lighthearted commentary. I do seem to have a great following from women – middle-aged and elderly women who seem to just love watching cycling because it’s my voice. I just pray they stay loyal on those days. But they can be terrible.

schmalz Cycling announcers are a special case because you have to watch the video feed to find out what’s going on as opposed to say, a baseball or football announcer who’s actually in the stadium. How are you able to pick out everybody now that we are in the era of sunglasses and helmets? How often do you get riders wrong? It’s probably pretty easy to get riders confused if you can’t see their race number.

Liggett It can be a nightmare and we’ve taken top cyclists on as expert commentators. Like Lance Armstrong for example, on the last day on the Champs Elysees; he sits behind the monitor at the finishing line for the Tour and he says to us "Hey guys, how the hell do you recognize any of these guys. I don’t recognize any of them and I raced against them." A lot of times if there’s a break of 40 riders, I’ll pick out the specialists in the break, and figure out who the sprinter will be. And sometimes I’ll call this guy crossing the line, and hope to the heavens that somebody else on the team wasn’t a good sprinter – because I haven’t a clue.

schmalz Has any racer ever come to you after a stage and discussed what you said about them during a stage – either bad or good?

Liggett Not really, people like Robbie McEwen come up and they’ll laugh at me and they’ll say "Well, you thought I lost that – didn’t you?" And then I’ll say, "I really did think you lost that Robbie, yeah." And then he’ll say "Well, that shows you, then", and he just rides off, laughing. I’ve never had a bad word from a cyclist, or had them say, "You don’t know what you’re talking about, you know, you’re talking through your hat." I’ve never had that happen, thank heavens.

And that’s when Phil’s phone went dead. it’s a good thing – or we might still be chatting.