Magic Spanner

by Carlton Kirby

  So there we are, heading down from the top of the mountain. What we discovered when our car limped into the village down in the valley ahead was that we had just experienced the mess of a dual contract. Two villages were each given funding to build the road. The authorities divided the money so that contractors from each district would be employed. All they had to do was build their half of the deal and meet in the middle. The village we ended up in had the task of building along the valley bottom and halfway up the slope we were on. The town we had left had funds to build up and over the top and halfway down. The two contracts would be complete when the roads met halfway down the north side of the mountain. Well, the first part of our journey clearly showed that those foundations were non-existent. The village we ended up in had done a proper job. They had dug in their road properly. So when the two parts of the road met, there was a problem. One half differed in height from the other by a margin of around 1.25m (4ft). I know this because we got airborne where the roads met.

  Dan Lloyd is a decent driver and, I have to add, a half decent pilot. If time stood still as we sailed through the air, it went even slower when the nose of the car slid a full 20m (65ft) along the surface at perhaps 65km/h (40mph) with no wheels in contact with the ground. How we didn’t flip over, I will never know. During what must have looked like a remarkably well-delivered stunt, we each uttered a different but equally short word, drawing both out into very long words due to sheer terror. My S--T!!!!! merged with Dan’s F--K!!!!! We now knew why this road was never opened.

  ‘This trio of pairs.’

  During the 2016 Tour, the organisers, in their wisdom, decided to evacuate the whole shebang from the top of a mountain through an enormous borehole that was being constructed for a hydroelectric facility. As the cars and trucks tried to descend the steep gradient of around 25% through a dark tunnel of around 15km (9 miles) in length, Sean commented what ‘total idiots’ all the other drivers were. Their brake lights were ablaze. ‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘They’re using their brakes and they are going to fail. The only way down this safely is to be in your lowest gear.’ Sure enough, cars started to bump into each other as the brakes wore out. It was a miracle no one was hurt. If there had been a fire, just about every TV commentator, pundit and podium girl would have been dust. The tunnel would have been a furnace chimney, for sure. We spent perhaps an hour in the choking fumes of engines, burning brake pads and toasty clutches. It was horrible. Finally emerging from the tunnel, some cars being towed out, we found ourselves behind the barrier trucks that are last to leave the race finish area and which had simply waited for the crowds to clear and make their way down the regular roads. The master evacuation plan had failed spectacularly. We were the very last to get off that cursed peak.

  ‘A man that can scare a cat with a glance.’

  19

  And So to Bed – Hotel Stories

  Those who don’t ‘get’ me have my sympathy. They’re stuck with me entering their home via their TV, a motormouth that just can’t be plugged. These folk usually take to social media to tell me how I am ruining their sport and should just exit stage left and not come back – or words to that effect. And like I said, I do have some sympathy. Being comfortable in your home is a part of the right to sanity and sanctuary. One strives to be at peace and comfort in one’s own space. In a busy world, we surely have a right to feel at ease for at least part of the day. So they get uppity and take to Twitter, where they find a posse of like minds ready to have a go, telling me I am but a small fish in a big pond and that I should move over to allow for a more acceptable commentator who’s happy to talk time cut-off equations and minor rider career history rather than bang on about vistas, vultures and vin rouge. I get their point. But let me tell you, dear detractors, I am indeed a big fish . . . massive. And this fact unfortunately makes for some uncomfortable days indeed. Let’s go to bed . . .

  ‘Bonsoir, je m’appelle “Keer-bee”. Kahh, ee, airh, bay, ee-grek.’ Wait for the key. ‘Un question: est-ce que un grand lit?’

  The answer to the question as to whether or not I have a big bed is going to frame the rest of my stay in this particular establishment. Will it be king bed or cot? Will I have to modify the room or not? My mouth is going to turn either up or down at the edges, depending on what comes next.

  ‘Non monsieur, un simple. Le reservation est pour un simple person.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘Bollocks. C’est un mot anglais.’

  Inevitably I am at the rear of this less than classy hotel, which, thanks to a trouser press in the lobby, sits at the top of the one-star gaffs locally. I open the door, which swings with a rusty squeak. And my shoulders drop. The musty afterglow of a thousand previous guests hangs in the air. I navigate my way along 2.5m (8ft) of brown, bubbled-up lino towards the long, thin, shuttered window, intent on airing this hovel. The room is so narrow my wheeled suitcase brushes against both the wall and my place of rest.

  ‘This is shit,’ I mumble for the umpteenth time.

  I pull in the windows and push out the shutters. No burst of light, just an echo as the flimsy old wooden blinds smack the wall either side of what looks like a lift shaft to hell. It’s the communal air hole to the rooms of all the poor sods who have to stay here for the night. I look up and about five floors above me I can tell there is sky, but the hanging washing of a cyclist, likewise condemned, blocks my view as a drip of water from a hand-washed sock plinks into my eye.

  ‘This is shit!’

  And the echo repeats . . . shit . . . shit . . . shit.

  It’s not all glam in the world of cycling. Just ask super-sprinter André Greipel, who suffered such terrible rooms on one Giro d’Italia night after night, he suggested it might be some form of gamesmanship.

  You see, races sometimes go to rather remote locations, and this means rooms are not in plentiful supply. So basically, whoever you are, you get what’s available. This can mean vast quality differences in your allotted room from one night to the next. Stars of the sport the riders may be, but on a Tuesday night in deepest Puglia that does not necessarily mean there will be many stars applied to their hotel sign. Many have none.

  For me, I am not too bothered by a hotel’s location. I’m not after a view. I get that all day. All I want is a bed I can turn over in without having to make what I call a ‘rotisserie manoeuvre’: up in the air, spin, land back down. And a bit of air con if we’re in mozzie country, please. That way, if it’s hot, I don’t have to open the window and then get savaged. I’m convinced the reason others are not troubled by flying teeth is simply that the entire mosquito population prefers to eat me.

  So I kick off my size 10 shoes, noting that end-to-end they bridge from bed to wall. There is a sink behind the slender, plywood, wobbly wardrobe at the foot of my bed. This is a small mercy as I douse a towel and drape it around my neck, in the way of a boxer, to keep moderately cooler than would otherwise be possible without air con. Lying down with my computer resting on bended knees, I try to catch up with the post-race news. Inevitably there is no internet, so I tether my phone and get on with it. The light from my computer is the only illumination. This allows me to forget the rest of the darkened room beyond my glowing bubble.

  After an hour I close the laptop and let my legs slide down the bed. ‘Oh for f--k’s sake.’

  Before the back of my knees meet the mattress, my feet hit the wardrobe, which fits precisely into the gap between the end of the bed and the sink. The bed is shorter than I am. I shout out ‘Bollocks!’ so loud that I get a knock from my neighbours on either side. One shouts back ‘Catso’; the other appears to have a more polite tone while grumbling something in Polish.

  Thinking I just have to get on with it, I attempt to sleep in a z-form. This conciliatory mood was not, however, shared by my inner subconscious, the part occasionally given to spontaneous violence.

  It was the sound of breaking glass that woke me up. That and a sense of confus
ion that I now appeared to have an en-suite shower. There was a knocking on the door too, accompanied by not a little concern being expressed by what turned out to be the night porter.

  I flicked on the light to find my wardrobe at an angle of 45°, lying through the smashed window. To get there, it had forced the sink off the wall and the subsequent spout from the damaged pipe was now spraying the ceiling – and everything else, for that matter.

  It’s amazing how quickly you discover what’s important to you at moments such as this. The door was thrown open by a bald guy with a pass key. Meanwhile, I was stumbling around bollock naked shouting, ‘My f--king computer! Where’s my f--king computer?’ My friend was being equally vocal, presumably shouting something back about his bruised hotel. I couldn’t tell.

  I must have pushed over the wardrobe in my sleep. The flimsy quality of the unit was given to instability. Had there been a camera in the room, it would have shown a man dreaming of escape, pushing with both feet against a wall perceived to be moving inexorably his way. But it turned out I wasn’t in the garbage-crusher scene from Star Wars; the smell was accurate, but the building not as robust. Over the wardrobe had toppled, taking the sink with it and careering through the window.

  Bizarrely, the worst bit was the disdainfully accusing look I was given as the porter picked up a soggy porn mag. He held it at arm’s length around shoulder height, and dropped it theatrically into the wastebasket. It was a good shot: he did this while looking directly into my eyes. I took a breath, about to explain that it must have been abandoned on top of the toppled wardrobe by a previous guest. But instead I just let out the sigh of a condemned man.

  I was given another room just behind the front desk, where the porter had clearly been resting until the commotion. The next morning I got a bill.

  ‘Up Towards the Pointy End.’

  The thing about the accommodation pendulum is that it swings both ways. Occasionally you can find yourself opening a door into nirvana. For all the swings left there are those that swing just right, thank you very much.

  The Milan–San Remo is a wonderful race. It’s called the Primavera, suggesting the first green shoots of spring, and it marks the real start of the cycling season. It’s a race longed for by fans and riders alike during a tedious winter. Say it quietly, but this is my favourite classic. Best time of year in the best country for food and optimism. It’s what they do. And to this list of bests I must now add a royal bed. The King of Italy’s bed, no less!

  I turned up at the Hotel Globo to see three stars on the wall by the gate. A step up, I thought.

  ‘Rather nice,’ proffered Daniel Lloyd, who was with me for this one. As an ex-pro, Dan recognised a winning ticket in this game of Hotel Lucky Dip. Arriving optimistically at the front desk, we slid over our passports, which are always demanded in Italy. ‘You can collect them in the morning,’ said a heavily tattooed manager. Dan asked if he could have his back sooner.

  ‘No, sir’ was the don’t mess with me reply from a rather superior man whose attitude didn’t quite match his body art.

  ‘Have I got a double bed?’ I asked. The guy issued the muffled chuckle of a man in the know. His shoulders hunched and jiggled silently as he turned to get the key.

  At this, Dan Lloyd gave one of his evil ‘You’re in trouble’ laughs.

  Experiencing schadenfreude is Dan’s happiest state. ‘This’ll be fun,’ he offered to himself, clearly enjoying my apparent misfortune and pondering the response.

  ‘I take you to the room,’ said what turned out to be the owner.

  ‘No, I can manage,’ I said.

  ‘No! I take,’ he barked.

  I was a bit taken aback.

  ‘Bloody hell, that’s weird,’ said Dan quietly to my back as I disappeared upstairs.

  What followed can only be described as other-worldly. We came up against a pair of double doors. The only doors on the first floor landing, in fact. I noted the marble stairs had not given way to wood, as is normal once you leave the usually showy reception areas of small hotels.

  He set down my case in front of a beautifully carved double door, stood to attention and stared at the door for a moment. It was as if he thought somebody was already inside. I waited uneasily.

  ‘This . . . is . . . your room!’ he said in a kind of ‘ta-da’ way as he flung open the doors.

  I was speechless.

  To say the setting was ornate is like describing the Venus de Milo as an armless statue. I can’t do the sight justice, even now. It was amazing.

  No inch of the amphitheatre was undecorated. The floor was mosaic, the walls all trompe l’oeil and gilding. Angels flew everywhere across a domed ceiling that mirrored the most ornate of Vatican cathedrals. The room was ‘in the round’ with an enormous circular bed, thankfully pushed off-centre to avoid looking like a sacrificial plinth. In a sop to modernity, there was a lounge area accommodating not one but three pale calf leather sofas. This was epic in both proportion and decoration. It was as if a bad set designer had been asked to create God’s bedroom but went a bit heavy on the gold.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Some noises came out of my mouth, but frankly there was so much to take in I wasn’t making sense. I sounded like I’d poured a whole tube of Barratt’s Sherbet Fountain contents into my mouth and was now attempting to corral my thoughts into words through a mosh of fizzy froth and powder.

  My host was more together: ‘I leave you now, your highness,’ he said.

  At this, I kind of woke up: ‘Sorry! Did you say “your highness”?’

  ‘This is the King’s bed. When he came here last time, before the bad days, the room look just the same. My family change nothing. Because one day he will come back. And we are ready.’

  Bloody hell. A royalist Italian!

  He rolled up his sleeves to reveal the full extent of his tattoos. These were loyalty markers for a man simply biding his time until the return of the Italian Royal Family in exile. I’m not into tattoos, but these were amazingly well rendered. Like fine paintings.

  Pointing out their significance, he went on: ‘This is the King, and this is God. They are like the same! That is how it is.’ With that, he backed out of the room, gracefully grabbing both doors and bowing as he closed them symmetrically. I felt like I’d witnessed a dress rehearsal.

  I was lying down dead centre of the bed in a crucifix position, contemplating the cherubim and seraphim gazing down at me, when the room phone rang.

  I could tell by his tone that Dan was grinning as he enquired: ‘’ello mate, how’s your single room?’

  ‘Fine. How’s yours?’

  ‘Brilliant, actually. Nice view over the square, lovely big bed and bath. Couldn’t be happier! Heh, heh, heh. You got a minibar?’

  ‘Yes I have, but honestly I don’t think I can be bothered to walk all the way over to it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dan, get your arse down here.’

  We stood there together in silence, looking up at the ceiling.

  Eventually, Dan broke off in full attack mode. ‘Right, let’s go get a beer!’

  Dan had been beaten in the room stakes for the first time in a long while. He hates losing at anything. It’s an athlete-predator thing. So he duly declared beer o’clock to help him forget my shattering victory on this momentous Good Bed Day.

  20

  Party Time!

  Stelvio, Giro 2012.

  ‘Porca Madonna! The light! It says we have no fuel. Shit!’

  And so it was that Gianni Farina, a lovely guy but also the worst driver on Planet Earth, announced we were out of fuel in our attempt to go over the Stelvio, one of Europe’s highest mountains and not exactly awash with fuel stations. ‘Porca Madonna’, Farina repeated.

  If you ever hear this expression from an Italian, you know that he’s more upset than he can possibly tell you. It is blasphemy of the highest order. The only non-Italian I ever heard say it was Chris Froome during a race in Italy. I was stunn
ed, because he also knows the weight of it. It was directed towards someone barging him in the pack during a nervous start. My situation was more serious.

  ‘You, my friend, are a prize pillock.’

  ‘What is a pillock?’

  ‘You are! I told you to fill up earlier and you told me to “chill out”. How the hell are we going to get over this bleedin’ mountain, you complete idiot?’

  So there we were, halfway up a giant peak at an altitude that meant the temperature was around 16°C (60°F). There was a light mist falling and the night was now well installed. It was 9.30 p.m. I was fuming.

  ‘It’s OK, we turn around and we switch off the engine. We go down in neutral. Gravity you see, all is good!’

  ‘No, all is not good at all, my friend. Without the engine running, you have no power steering and no servo brakes. At the first serious corner you will lose it and . . . we . . . will . . . die! Do you understand?’

  ‘I still think we can do it!’

  ‘Well, I do not! We keep going on f--king vapours and you will drop me off at the first place we find with a bloody light on. You can collect me in the morning. If, that is, you survive your downhill bobsleigh ride.’

  Now, this all probably sounds a bit prima donna-ish. But honestly I was just about at the end of my thinly stretched tether. Dan Lloyd had gone off earlier with a far more capable film unit to do some background reporting on the top of the peak. So here I was, alone with my producer buddy from Rai Uno’s commercial department who, it has to be said, had a rather relaxed attitude to all things logistical. Like fuel.

  Earlier I had been forced to grab the steering wheel on two occasions as Farina had been distracted and the car began to drift dangerously. How this man had ever passed his driving test was beyond comprehension. He must have paid somebody to do the test for him, I speculated. Then again, how could he possibly find someone who even closely resembled him? He is spectacularly hard to describe due to the cloud of smoke that hung permanently in his midst. I’m certain that, while awake, he had never taken an adult breath free of tobacco smoke. His hobbit-like frame was shrouded in a charity shop sports jacket, clearly donated by a much bigger man many years earlier. It fitted him like a glove . . . an oven glove.