This Saturday’s Race of the Falling Leaves will mark the final major competitive outing for the Spanish rider José Luis “Chechu” Rubiera, who is bringing his career to a close after 16 years in the peloton.
“I think it's time now to enjoy my family and spend more time at home”, he explained, feeling that the timing is right to hang up his wheels. “I consider myself very lucky to have had the good fortune to do what I liked best during all these years. I enjoyed and did my job to the best of my ability. I felt the love of many fans around me and I was proud to have such support with such a modest record.”
Now 37, Rubiera turned professional with the Artiach team back in 1995, then spent the next five seasons with the Kelme squad. He moved to the US Postal Service team in 2001 and backed Lance Armstrong in five of his victorious Tour de France campaigns, earning praise for his strength. He remained with the set-up in the years since, staying on board when it evolved into the Astana team in 2008 and into RadioShack this season.
Rubiera’s best personal results came earlier in his career, before he started focusing more on being a domestique deluxe. He won a stage and finished tenth overall in the 1997 Giro d’Italia, then over the next few years went on to place sixth and seventh overall in the Vuelta a España and eighth in the Giro d’Italia. He won another Giro stage in 2000.
Other notable results include second in the Vuelta a Burgos (2002), third overall in the Volta ao Algarve (2005) and Vuelta a Castilla y Leon (2006), a stage win in the Tour of Qinghai Lake (2007) and in the 2008 Vuelta a Murcia.
He had hoped to ride the Vuelta a España this year, thus having a chance to race up the Alto de Cotobello summit finish on stage 16. The Asturian climb was renamed the Cima Chechu Rubiera in his honour. However his RadioShack team was not invited to the race, and so he missed out on the tribute.
Team manager Johan Bruyneel speaks highly of him, and said that he would be missed. “I am proud to have worked with Chechu for ten years,” he said. “We could always count on him as a team captain. His role was to guide the team on the road and to share his experience with all the young riders. I cannot count how many hours Chechu raced in the front of the peloton. They don’t make Chechu’s [like] anymore. Also, off the bike, he was important for the Team. He is the classiest guy I’ve ever met in cycling.”
Rubiera will line out alongside Jani Brajkovic, Mathew Busche, Chris Horner, Markel Irizar, Gregory Rast, Ivan Rovny and Haimar Zubeldia in Saturday’s event. His actual final event will be the Criterium in Oviedo on October 30th, but Saturday’s event is the last time he will compete in a major international race. It will give him a chance to say goodbye to others in the peloton.