# Bob Roll

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. 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

| 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 |