Sunday night's edition of BBC Radio 4's obituary show Last Word paid tribute to remarkable Irish cyclist and winner of the 1958 Ras Tailteann stage race, Mick Murphy, who died back in September.
Murphy was a circus acrobat and strongman who entered the Ras after just six months' training, and won despite breaking his collarbone and having to steal a farmer's bike in order to finish one stage.
The Iron Man, as he was known, lived in a ramshackle house in Kerry with no heating, boarded up windows and a sheet of corrugated steel for a door.
A genuine eccentric of the heroic era of cycling, Murphy trained using home-made weights with cement blocks on the ends, and ate raw meat. After a stage of the Ras he would ride into the country and using a small knife he always carried drain a cup of blood from a cow, which he would drink. The idea, he said, came from the Masai warriors and he believed it gave him strength.
It's the first item on the show and well worth a few minutes of your time.