‘Iron Man’ Mick Murphy
March 12th, 2009 | Published in general
Fantastic season closer episode of The Bike Show this week. Mick Murphy is a fascinating story, someone needs to produce a movie about him.
We also tell the story of possibly the greatest legend of the Rás: ‘Iron Man’ Mick Murphy, the blood-drinking, fire-eating hard man who won the 1958 race in quite extraordinary circumstances.
He built his own weights of iron bars and concrete to train, getting his rides in while traveling from town to town as a circus performer. At the end of the second stage of the ‘58 race, after he walked away from the pack to finish with a commanding solo lead, he went out for a 30-mile spin during which he stopped to lift stones for an hour and fill up his water bottle with cow’s blood from cattle grazing in a field.
Also required listening: the Peter Woods radio documentary about Murphy