At Speed: My Life in the Fast Lane (14 page)

Even when I was lean, I had never had the kind of muscles that would rise in impressive, contoured ridges just below the skin’s surface. In races and on television, I always somehow managed to look fat. My weight was something that I worried about but also that I’d learned, with time, to control. Every year I’d take a month off at the end of the season, and having weighed 69 kilos at the Tour (about 152 pounds), I’d go up to 76 kilos (167 pounds) by the time I started training again in November. It was the simple and predictable consequence of burning fewer calories than I consumed and attending events and parties where I’d drink and eat things that during the season wouldn’t pass my lips. It was also a question of structure; at that time, I had none. I would be getting last-minute calls to attend such and such an event, in this or that location, and bought whatever food was available in airports or shops on my route. Other riders could perhaps do the same and put on no more than a couple of kilos. Unfortunately, however, my metabolism wasn’t as fast as my sprinting or my backchat.

In spite of a few kilos of extra insulation, I wasn’t worried when I arrived in Australia for the start of the Tour Down Under. It was enough just to be racing, bearing in mind that exactly a year earlier I’d been lying sick under a duvet. I had none of the health issues that had beset me in the 2010 season, and I was much happier in my private life. In Australia, I felt strong … but fat, and any hopes I had of nicking a stage win or two ended with a bad crash 4 km from the end of the second stage. If I finished battered and bloodied there, the next day insult was added to injury when I found myself in a group of stragglers on a hilly finishing circuit—and moments later we were slaloming in and out of traffic, the police and race marshals having
prematurely reopened the road. Only thanks to some pretty nifty bike-handling did we make it to the finish unscathed.

After Australia, my next race was the Tour of Qatar in February. Completely flat and essentially six different combinations of the same cobweb of roads crossing the Qatari desert, this race was notoriously fast, windy, and good preparation for the spring season. For me, once again, it started terribly. At 2.5 km long, the prologue was the kind of short, sharp effort in which I’d often excelled in the past, and, sure enough, at the first time-check I was still very much in the hunt for a win and the first leader’s jersey of the race. The course was straightforward except for a couple of speed bumps. Supposing that the best way to hold my speed would be a low bunny-hop, maybe just grazing or narrowly clearing the apex of the bump, I’d jarred my rear wheel on the first one but stayed in control. Approaching the second bump, I repeated the same steps; I jerked with my arms and felt the bike take off, but this time the impact was too heavy and catapulted me over my handlebars and onto the road. I’d hit my head in exactly the same place as in Australia, and though not as hard this time, it was enough to completely compromise my race. Because I was beaten up and not contesting any of the sprints, Mark Renshaw was able to ride for himself that week and also enjoyed the role reversal of having me as his domestique. He picked up one second place, one stage win, and the general classification. Looking back, I think that Qatar was what convinced Mark that, if the team did fold, it was perhaps time for him to stop working for others and sprint for himself.

From Qatar, I hopped across the Persian Gulf and finally took my first win of the season in the Tour of Oman. That week, Renshaw wasn’t racing. In a certain sense, our paths were already beginning to diverge.

It was also in that period, as the spring classics approached, that I made at least one firm decision about my future: I didn’t want to carry on working with Bob, even in the increasingly remote eventuality of him finding a new sponsor. I’d assumed for a while now that HTC wouldn’t renew its contract with the team, but the company had shown an interest in working with me on an individual basis. The press had reported that there had also been conversations between Bob and the audiovisual retailer RadioShack, whose team needed to somehow reinvent itself after Lance Armstrong’s second and definitive retirement, but those talks, too, would come to nothing. Bob was now so busy trying to win sponsorship that he was barely ever attending races, yet still implying in e-mails or via our directeurs sportifs that a deal of some sort was likely. I had lost all faith and patience with it, and couldn’t now envisage a situation whereby we would continue to work together.

For a few weeks, at least, I think Bob had decided that whether I stayed or not wouldn’t matter hugely. At Milan–San Remo, I was put firmly in the shade by another HTC rider, Matt Goss. The pre-race plan had been for everyone to stick with me except Peter Velits, who would work for Gossy. In the morning, perhaps because of nerves and not for the first time before an important race, I had felt suddenly nauseous and started vomiting. The symptoms continued once I had got on my bike, ultimately leading to my capitulation on the crucial climb of La Cipressa. I had been dropped earlier in the race, on Le Manie, and the entire team, even Velits, had stayed with me and exhausted themselves by towing me back to the peloton. This had left Gossy completely isolated in the front group, but he hid brilliantly in the wheels and duly blitzed the sprint. To anyone who had known Gossy as an Under 23, it frankly wasn’t much of a
surprise. On turning pro, I think he had perhaps set himself back first by signing for Saxo Bank, a team that didn’t support him as much as it should have. In the last year and a bit, though, having switched to our team, Gossy’s talent had finally bloomed.

I was thrilled for him. Naturally, so was Bob. With my victory tally for the year stuck on one, Bob may now have been less alarmed by the prospect of me leaving, since he had a ready-made replacement in Gossy. The reality was that we are completely different riders—Gossy is perhaps stronger and more versatile, though I am the faster sprinter. We are also very different people, for all that we had instantly clicked when he joined the team. Gossy is funny and outgoing, but nothing like the same gift to headline writers (probably a good reflection on him!).

Despite feeling much fitter, the spring of 2011 was starting to bear a disturbing resemblance to the previous one. After San Remo, my next big target was Gent–Wevelgem, the one Belgian classic that has traditionally favored sprinters yet had always eluded me. The most iconic feature of the race and the most important strategically was the double ascent of the cobbled Kemmelberg climb. On the first lap of the 2011 race, I had punctured on the Kemmel and been forced to chase, but I had caught and comfortably stuck with the main peloton when we tackled the Kemmel for a second time. The hard part was done, but then, as so often in the classics, the race took an unexpected and, for me, irremediable turn. I was caught momentarily behind an innocuous-looking crash in the middle of the bunch, when I suddenly felt the back end of my bike jar and looked around to see the Movistar rider Ignatas Konovalovas with his front wheel jammed into my rear triangle. I stayed upright but lost too many valuable seconds dodging the bodies that had also slowed or fallen
around us and changing my wheel to have any chance of rejoining the main peloton. Gent–Wevelgem was turning into—and would continue to be—my bogey race: Only once in three appearances to date in the “sprinters’ classic” had I actually been able to sprint for the win, and that was way back in 2008, when I’d finished 17th due to poor positioning.

My fascination with Gent–Wevelgem and the other cobbled classics ran as deep as the treacherous, jagged ruts between their famous pavé stones. I’d realized very early that I’d never have the body shape to be a climber, and as a teenager learning about professional cycling I was drawn to the races that celebrated qualities that I
did
possess, like speed on the flat, and tenacity. Since turning pro in 2007 I had also, very willingly, undergone Brian Holm’s indoctrination into the “cult of the cobbles.” As far as Brian was concerned, the hard men of the north, the Flandrians such as 1970s classics maestro Roger Vlaeminck, were gods. Other riders paled by comparison and were mere “hairdressers” in Brian’s eyes.

With Brian fueling the passion that I already had, I’d been pestering my team managers for years to let me take part in the most dangerous and punishing of the cobbled classics: Paris–Roubaix. In 2008, Allan Peiper had made a deal with me: I could do Roubaix if I won two stages at the Three Days of De Panne and Gent–Wevelgem. I had kept the first part of the bargain but not the second, and Allan wouldn’t cave. Now, though, partly because I’d shown some promise in the 2010 Tour de France stage that borrowed some of the Roubaix route, and partly because they couldn’t take any more of my earache, he and the other directeurs finally relented. My best legs were also, finally, coming out of hibernation; after my second stab at the Tour of Flanders, where I had mainly worked for the team in the first half
of the race, I had won the Grote Scheldeprijs for the third time the following Wednesday.

Paris–Roubaix itself was everything that I’d expected and harder. While the Tour of Flanders is also famous for its cobbles, the pavé in Paris–Roubaix is bigger and even rougher. Imagine riding down a riverbed in a shopping cart, at over 50 kph in places, and that will give you some idea of the sensation. For a day or two before the race, my excitement had been driving Bernie nuts, partly because he knew what was coming and partly because he couldn’t comprehend how anyone would be relishing that amount of suffering. He had a point, although I would argue that my race might have been quite different had it not been for a mechanical problem and bike-change in the first hour. Complaining about punctures, however, or broken spokes or wheel changes at Paris–Roubaix is a bit like booking a holiday in Manchester and complaining about the rain; it comes with the territory. I didn’t make it to the finish in the legendary Roubaix Velodrome, but then neither did 86 of the other 194 starters.

April 2011 would also see me make another debut, this time on Twitter. My manager, Chris Evans-Pollard, had been extolling the microblogging site’s virtues as a promotional tool for a while, but so far I’d resisted. Our team press officer, Kristy, certainly had nightmares about me opening an account. Finally, though, with Mark Renshaw also applying some pressure, I signed up at the end of April. Fortunately for all concerned, I did it at a time when I was content in my private life and didn’t have too much free time on my hands. The days when I would spend whole afternoons reading the online cycling press and their message boards—and usually getting riled by something or someone—were now long gone.

One thing I wasn’t particularly satisfied about that spring was, funnily enough, the number of good commercial opportunities coming from Chris. In the five years since I’d turned pro, I had learned—slowly and often the hard way—that while money would never be my primary motivation, ignoring the financial side of the job was irresponsible and didn’t do me any favors. Me being me, and being a perfectionist, I also notice and get annoyed when I can see someone in my team or entourage not achieving the standards that I expect of them, especially when that affects me. I had been with Chris for just over a year at this point, after my previous manager, Fran Millar, stepped away from athlete management and to take a job at Team Sky. I could theoretically have stayed with Fran’s agency, Face Partnership, but she still owned some of the business and that clearly threw up a conflict of interest. Chris, who already managed Victoria Pendleton, seemed like a good alternative. He was in his midthirties, smart, and personable, and he appeared to have significantly raised Vicki’s profile. I had hoped that he would do the same for me.

I had been willing to indulge and give Chris the benefit of my considerable doubt until the Giro in May. The Giro, the race itself, was a good one for me, starting with another sensational win for us in the team time trial in Turin. Back in 2009, I had screamed at my Italian teammate Marco Pinotti when he lost my wheel on the final corner, fearing that it might cost us vital seconds and me the pink jersey. But Marco quickly corrected his mistake and all had ended well, with the team winning the stage and me in pink. It therefore seemed perfectly fair and natural for Marco to lead us over the line in the 2011 team time trial, particularly as he was wearing the Italian
national time trial champion’s green, white, and red jersey, and the 2011 Giro was being billed as a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification. He also deserved it, having ridden superbly. Marco and I could scarcely have been more different—he was studious, undemonstrative, totally disinterested in fast cars and designer clothes—but I had always respected him and even specifically asked to room with him once or twice at races.

I took the pink jersey off Marco in Parma the following day, for one day only … but it was no cause for celebration. For the third time in succession, I had failed to win the first sprint in a major tour. Perfectly teed up by Renshaw, I had waited a split second too long. I had seen Alessandro Petacchi appear over my right shoulder and then deliberately swing left and right across the road to block my path to the line as I tried to get around him. My anger boiled over into furious arm-waving in Petacchi’s direction as we came over the line, but ultimately what really got my goat was the inconsistency of the commissaires. I had lost points and, effectively, the green jersey at the 2009 Tour after a far less pronounced “deviation” in Besançon. By the media’s estimation, Petacchi was a “cunning old pro, showing savoir faire,” whereas I was regularly portrayed as an “outlaw” and a “kamikaze.”

A week would pass before I had any chance to make amends, which I did emphatically with successive wins in Teramo and Ravenna. For a few weeks I had been troubled by a nerve problem in my back—a tiny twinge that caused a mental block more than a physical one and that left me permanently bracing myself for those spasms when I kicked hard. Finally I was able to blank it out and let go, with the result being this pair of comfortable wins. After the second
one, as the race prepared to enter the high mountains, I pulled out of the Giro as agreed with the team before the race.