Cyclopedia (42 page)

(FOR A GLOSSARY OF RACING-SPECIFIC TERMS, SEE
FRENCH
, THE LINGUA FRANCA OF EUROPEAN RACING)

SOIGNEUR
For a century, these men were the
éminences grises
of professional cycling, providing massage, magic remedies, and advice to the riders. There were no qualifications other than who a soigneur had worked with. They began working life as gravediggers, fishmongers, and bus drivers. Knowledge was handed down through the generations.

The breed was declared extinct early in the 21st century after the most notorious, Willy Voet, published his scandalous
Massacre à la Chaîne
in 1999 (
Breaking the Chain
, Yellow Jersey, 2000), detailing the various nefarious practices these dastards got up to in order to enhance the performance of professional cyclists, some of whom had no idea what was going on. The term “carers” is now used.

The first was “Choppy” Warburton, the only Briton to figure in their ranks. It almost doesn't matter what Warburton did, his nickname alone means he qualifies, but he was also banned and had a client or two (famously the Briton Arthur Linton) who died. He was immortalized, rifling through his drugs bag, by the artist TOULOUSE-LAUTREC.

Early soigneurs had multi-sport backgrounds; FAUSTO COPPI's mentor Biagio Cavanna came through soccer, boxing, and six-day racing and had underworld connections. Cavanna was blind, which helped when it came to cultivating mystique. It was Cavanna who gave Coppi much of his reputation for being unpredictable and fussy: massaging in the dark, using white not red wine vinegar, having total silence in the hotel. It all added to the reputation of the blind man—his hands worked better when it was quiet—who was not popular with the team management, partly because of Coppi's dependence, partly because of the percentage of Coppi's winnings that he took.

Cavanna is one of the founding fathers of the profession, because of the breadth of his brief: masseur, talent scout, confessor, moral adviser, trainer, provider of early DRUGS and drinks made of orange juice, fruit pulp, and grain. He was known variously as
maestro
—which also means teacher—the “Miracle Worker” and the “Muscle Wizard.”

The TOUR DE FRANCE doctor Pierre Dumas described the soigneurs as witchdoctors, whose “value was in their valise”—in other words, in the remedies they carried. Sometimes their maxims were simply perverse, such as the long-standing belief that cyclists shouldn't drink much in hot weather and that they should eat salt fish when training to harden them up. They would buy patent medicines, scratch the labels off, and sell them at 100 times the price.

Their clients were often credulous characters who would pay through the nose for magic potions such as Cavanna's
la bomba—
a mix of cola and mild amphetamine—and the go-faster mixes known in France as
la topette.
The effect was in large part psychological, because placebos worked as well: Voet describes one rival soigneur who had a “time trial special,” which one rider in his charge simply had to have; Voet switched it for glucose solution, and the cyclist still flew.