Rough Ride

by Paul Kimmage

  This wasn't a complete lie. I did like the region, and as I knew that there would be very few job opportunities in Ireland for a not too famous ex-professional cyclist, there was a good chance that I would stay on. But still, I must admit to playing the role of Uriah Heep quite well. I should have been given an Oscar.

  It worked. I had only spent two days in the city when a man from the company invited me to dinner at his house. Marc Mingat worked in the firm's public relations department and was ideally placed to fill me in on Marc Braillon's moods and humours. Mingat would give me the feedback on Braillon's meetings with Thevenet, so that I always knew the temperature of the water before taking a bath. I was invited to assist at the openings of any new company offices in the area. Braillon would be present at these, and I always made sure I was well dressed without being flashy. Braillon didn't like anyone toot flashy. It was rumoured that one day Braillon was looking out the window of his office and saw one of his employees arrive in a huge, flashy car. He fired him. Braillon himself drove a Mercedes 300 but it was a drab mustard colour; it was classy but not extravagant, and he expected his employees to follow suit. There was one golden rule never to be broken: in our interviews with the press we were to talk not so much of the company but of the company chief. We were to talk not of RMO but of Marc Braillon.

  I shared a room at the football club with the Brazilian Mauro Ribeiro. Like me, he was a new professional. He spoke excellent French but with a very heavy Latin American accent. By moving to Grenoble at the start of the year he got to know the other French riders in the area much better than me. But this was a double-edged sword, for they also got to know him. He wasn't liked. I learnt this from Thierry Claveyrolat and Patrick Clerc. Thierry was a former team-mate of Stephen Roche's at La Redoute. He lived in the village of Vizille, twelve kilometres outside Grenoble. Patrick had raced with Sean Kelly at Sem; he lived at Brignoud, north of the city. Both had trained regularly and had travelled to races with Ribeiro since the start of the season and complained that he was always the last to put his hand in his pocket when it came to paying for coffee on the way to a race. When I told them I was sharing a room with him they gave me an awful slagging and, wanting desperately to be accepted, I abandoned any notion of defending him and decided to play along. I didn't like him anyway. When I saw him taking a vitamin injection after the Haut-Var race in February, I instantly branded him a junkie even though this was unfair. He was, however, tight with his money. It's funny but because he never spent much, I assumed he didn't have much. And because I was a better rider, I assumed I was better paid; so I was always prepared to pick up the tab when it came to buying papers, cakes and coffee. But I was wrong; he was just tight.

  I learnt this in a conversation with Marc Mingat. Marc informed me that Ribeiro was paid £500 a month more than I was and had two return flights to Brazil paid for by Braillon each year. Braillon had an office in Rio de Janeiro and it was good PR to have a Brazilian on the team, so when Ribeiro came on the market he was snapped up. This revelation turned me completely against Ribeiro, and I told the others the news – which turned them against him also. This was a mistake and very petty of me, but survival was the name of the game and the revelation would gain me some extra points.

  A week after moving to Grenoble we flew to Holland for the Amstel Gold Race. It was a bit like Liège-Bastogne–Liège and I rode really well, finishing as the top rider on the team, in twenty-first place. Two important stage races were approaching, the Quatre Jours de Dunkirk and the Tour de Romandie. I knew I was starting to find good form and I desperately wanted to ride in the Romandie. Dunkirk would be cobbles and crosswinds and I knew I would be much more suited to the hard climbs and more sheltered roads of Switzerland. In stage races teams were limited in the number of riders they could enter. At Dunkirk it was eight and at Romandie six. There were eighteen riders on the team, but places for only fourteen, which meant four would remain at home without racing. Not racing meant having to train each day alone. There was no way of simulating racing so inevitably the rider's condition would drop, making it hard for him to impress when he raced again. I didn't want to ride in Dunkirk but it was better than being at home. Thevenet explained he was sending all his pure climbers to Switzerland and that I should be grateful to ride in Dunkirk, as four riders would ride in neither race. I wanted to argue that I was a pure climber, for I felt I was, but decided to say nothing. Dunkirk was better than nothing.

  I rode poorly all week except for the last day, when we had a hilly circuit race around the town of Cassel. Here, I was given instructions to go up the climb as hard as possible. My teammate Regis Simon was lying second overall to the Belgian Dirk de Wolf and we thought the heavily built Fleming might crack on the steep but short slopes of Cassel. I gave it everything I had and split the bunch to bits, but we could not get rid of De Wolf, and Regis finished second.

  A week later we were in Bordeaux for the marathon Bordeaux-Paris where the format had been changed since my debut the year before. The old tradition of the twenty-minute break at Poitiers where we had stopped to link up with our motorbike pacers had been abandoned and it was to be run along the same lines as the other one-day classics. On the morning of the race we went out for a light spin in the vineyards. Wine didn't mean much to me at the time, and the team leader Bernard Vallet couldn't believe my lack of enthusiasm as we rode through Margaux past some of the best and most expensive wine chateaux in the world. His excitement about wine amused me. Back in Ireland wine was what the priest poured into the chalice every Sunday. Guinness, now, that was a real drink. I couldn't understand this Frenchman nearly bursting into tears about us riding around a few fancy houses and fields of grapes. But his passion was obviously real, and in an effort to impress on me the value of the vineyards he said, 'Polo,' (this was my nickname) 'if you owned forty feet of that land you would never have to throw your leg over a bike again.' At lunchtime he ordered a good bottle of red which I found no more than OK, but after that I started to take an interest. Now I am a wine fanatic. Margaux, Rothschild and Yquem are châteaux I cherish, although their outrageous prices mean they aren't often enjoyed in our house.

  Bernard Vallet had prepared especially for Bordeaux-Paris and at the team meeting two hours before the race Thevenet insisted that all our efforts were to be directed towards helping him. We raced out of Bordeaux in the black of night, each rider with a set of front and back lamps. Visibility was a problem and our eyes were strained to distance ourselves properly from the wheel in front. The crack was good though, some of the lads would turn off their lamps and try to sneak off without being seen. It is a bastard of a race. I started to fall asleep on the bike at around seven next morning when we had ridden 300 kilometres. It seems an exaggeration, but it's not. My eyelids were so desperately heavy that my head would keep falling forward, until I realised what was happening and woke up. Caffeine tablets would have been the answer but as I was 'pure' and regarded this as doping, they were out of the question. An important break developed near the end of the race with just Patrick Clerc from our team present. Thevenet ordered Dede and me to the front to chase it down. We had to ride our eyeballs out to bring it back, but we did; and then a fresh attack developed but this time Vallet was there. Dede and I were dropped thirty kilometres from Paris and we immediately got into the team cars. As an amateur the objective had been to finish. As a professional it was to win, or help someone else to win. Our work was done and there was nothing to be gained in struggling on to Paris. To say I was tired was an understatement. I had been in the team car two minutes when I fell asleep. I showered and we got a taxi to the airport, where I slept again. I slept on the flight to Grenoble, in the taxi to the football club, and as soon as I arrived I went straight to bed. My fascination with Bordeaux-Paris was now over and it was definitely a case of never again.

  The Dauphine Libérée stage race was fast approaching. Nine days long and with stages climbing some of the biggest mountains in the Alps it is the second biggest sta
ge race in the country after the Tour. But because it took place in RMO's back garden, i.e. in the Grenoble region, it was equally important to our beloved sponsor. This was the reason Thevenet gave for leaving me out of the team. He wanted the best nine possible and I was no higher than twelfth on the team ladder. I accepted the decision, and prepared myself to ride the Tour de l'Oise, a short, three-day event which took place at the same time. A week before the Dauphine, Thevenet organised a training run over one of the Alpine stages and invited me along. It was my first opportunity to attempt the really big climbs, and I was excited to find out about what until then had only been photographs on a bedroom wall. Thierry Claveyrolat was the team's best climber, but I managed to stay with him almost to the top on three of the mountains and he was surprised I was climbing so well. Two days later one of the selections, the veteran Jean-Louis Gauthier, pulled out of the team, leaving a place vacant. Thevenet had heard that I had climbed well in the training run against Claveyrolat and offered me the berth.

  The race started with a prologue time trial on the shores of the beautiful lake at Annecy, then moved across to Lyon, St Etienne and then back across to Chambéry, Albertville and Grenoble. On the third stage to St Etienne, Thierry Claveyrolat outsprinted Laurent Fignon for a prestigious stage victory. By winning a stage, Thierry had saved the team's honour on its home ground. The pressure was now off, and we could enjoy things just a little bit more. A plan was drawn up for the following stage to Charavines, where we reckoned our sprinter Francis Castaing had a good chance. Castaing was perfectly led out by Regis Simon, Vincent Barteau and Pierre Le Bigaut and looked set for the win, but then the La Vie Claire sprinter Jean-François Rault moved up on his shoulder. Sensing Rault's presence, Castaing moved across, pushing the Breton into the barriers, but Rault quite rightly refused to be intimidated and stuck his elbow into Castaing to protect himself. Castaing insisted and they both crashed at forty miles an hour. Le Bigaut, Simon and Barteau could not avoid the two bodies sprawled across the road and they fell also. That night Castaing was heavily criticised for his unprofessional behaviour. Le Bigaut and Barteau were knocked out and missed the remainder of the race. By endangering the lives of his team-mates Castaing had committed a professional fault.

  I was riding very well and was lying seventeenth after the first mountain stage to Chambéry, but I cracked badly on the third climb the following day and slipped to thirty-fourth. I cracked completely on the last mountain stage from Grenoble to Puy St Vincent, but no one noticed too much for Thierry won the stage, and Thevenet waited patiently for the forty minutes it took me to finish. He patted me on the back, and then brought me to the medical caravan: I had been picked for a dope control. The seven-hour stage in the hot sun had left me dehydrated, and I found it difficult to piss. But beer and water were available and after a fifteen-minute delay I felt the urge. I was given a clear glass flask and told to strip. The prying eyes of the commissar surveyed me as I tried to piss and at first this irritated me. Then I tried not to think of him and imagined waterfalls and flushing toilets, and at last the clear yellow urine started flowing. I watched as he split my sample into two small bottles then gave each a code, which I chose, and the bottles were sealed with candle-wax, one for analysis, the other to be opened for a second analysis if the first was positive. I never heard any more about it so I presumed I was negative. Effervescent vitamin tablets and glass tubes of minerals and iron were all I had given myself, but even so I felt afraid – afraid that there would be some mix-up in the samples and I would be found positive. I could see myself outraged and proclaiming my innocence with no one listening. For no one ever listened to a 'positive' protesting his innocence. The shame of it! I imagined the headlines in the papers back in Dublin. KIMMAGE TAKES DRUGS. Oh, the shame of it! I was thankful that I was pure and sure I was negative.

  The race finished next day. Clavet was leading a competition for the first rider under the 'kilometre to go' flag. Sponsored by Fiat, the winner would receive a car, a Uno. To assure victory he had to make sure he won the last sprint. I had ridden well for him throughout the race, helping him wherever I could. With ten kilometres to go on the last stage he asked me to lead him out for the sprint. Castaing, Barteau, Le Bigaut, Mas and Vallet had all abandoned, leaving just four riders from the team still in the race. I was taken aback when he asked me because bunch sprinting was not my forte, but I agreed without hesitation. My job was to bring him to the front with a kilometre to go and then open the sprint for him. It was hard trying to get to the front and I felt sure I was going to crash as I tried to squeeze my way through the tightly packed bodies, but I hit the front at just the right time and on his prompting, 'Allez!' I opened the sprint. I was so pleased at having done everything right that I nearly forgot the idea was not for me to win, but Claveyrolat. He was following me but having difficulty in passing. Luckily, I remembered just in time and pulled across. Thierry won the prize and was lavish in his praise for my efforts. It had been a hard nine days but I had come through it well. Thevenet was pleased with my contribution, and for the first time I started to think about the possibility of riding the Tour de France.

  A week later we rode the Grand Prix de Plumelec in Brittany. Clavet, Dede and I were provided with a team car. We drove the 1,000 kilometres to Plumelec on Saturday, rode the 200-kilometre race on Sunday and then hopped straight back into the car for the long drive home, arriving at half-past four in the morning. Clavet and I both rode well; he was sixth, I was eighth and morale was high on the long return to base. This was the hardest part about being a pro – the travelling. The hours spent in cars and airports. But the Plumelec trip was great fun, for Dede was in great form and he kept us entertained with his never-ending stories of the crashes he has had in his cars. He had written off twenty cars in different accidents but each time he returned to drive as madly as ever. He is fearless and his philosophy of death is, 'The day, the date, it's all written down.'

  I was given two weeks off after Plumelec so I did some light training and spent my spare time wandering around the shops in Grenoble. The football centre was starting to get me down. There was no privacy and the young footballers were a bunch of ill-mannered, undisciplined louts. Ribeiro seemed to get on quite well with them, which puzzled me and turned me against him even more.

  It was at this time that we learnt that Patrick Clerc had been sacked. A few years earlier Patrick had been one of the classiest domestiques in the peloton. But a year before joining RMO he had had a poor season with the Spanish team Fagor, and they had not extended his contract. Thevenet contacted him about joining RMO, but on certain conditions. Before signing his one-year contract he was made to write a letter of resignation. In this way the sponsors craftily worked their way around a French Federation rule according to which the minimum length of a contract was a year. Because Patrick had not performed for the first half of the season, his letter of resignation was produced and he was fired. He was quite bitter when he rode his last race, the Midi Libre stage race, with us. I couldn't help getting the impression that in some way he resented us, as if we were responsible for what had happened.

  It was during the Midi Libre that I learnt I had been selected for the Tour. I was really pleased, for I had been hoping ever since the Dauphine. Now it was official. Back in Grenoble I planned some big training spins that took in some of the Tour's biggest climbs: Lauteret, Galibier, Granon and Izoard. I took notes on the gradient, surface and gear requirement for each mountain, convinced this could be a help three weeks later. I set my heart on winning one of these mountain stages, for in my mind I was still a climber.

  A week before the Tour we rode a four-day stage race in Brittany. We were told to take it easy, and to use it as training, but I was feeling good. On the first stage I managed to get into a break of seven riders and we sprinted out the stage win between us. I led into the last corner with the finish 200 metres slightly uphill. As I cornered, my right pedal hit the ground, lifting the back wheel and as it landed the rear ty
re rolled off and I slid into the gutter. I escaped with a few scrapes, but I was disgusted, for I had felt sure of at least finishing third. The stage was marked by Bernard Hinault abandoning the race. He sat at the back of the bunch from the start and frowned whenever anyone came near him. The 'Blaireau' was a weird fellow: he frightened me. I was always afraid of crashing in front of him and bringing him down. Sometimes he would attack and the bunch would string out in a long line behind him. Then he would sit up and start laughing, mocking us. He had a certain presence, a sort of godlike aura. He was a great champion, but I didn't like him.