by Paul Kimmage
On the night the Tour finished we were back on the Champs Elysées, but this time dressed in shirt and tie and pressed trousers. It felt great to be able to wear normal clothes again. For a month we had spent our days with a sweaty jersey on our backs and the greasy leather chamois of our racing shorts on our bums while at nights we were obliged to wear the drab old team tracksuit. Champagne was the beverage of the 'soiree' as we clinked our glasses to half-naked cabaret girls at the Millionaires' Club. It was a great night. Next day, I returned to Grenoble. As a way of trimming down travelling expenses it was decided that Dede and I travel home with the equipment truck. The journey was long and tedious as we had a long detour to drop Dede at his home in Rumilly before finally arriving in Grenoble. There was no tickertape welcome awaiting me. The football centre was empty as most of the apprentices were on their summer holidays, but as I entered my room I got a sharp surprise. A young black footballer was lying on Ribeiro's bed, and I noticed immediately that my personal belongings were not as I had left them. His name was Charles and he explained to me that Ribeiro had flown back to Brazil for two months and that he had been ordered to take his bed. This Charles seemed a nice enough fellow, but I was furious. After a month's suffering, what a way to travel home and what a home to come home to! I would have to look for an apartment of my own, for the centre was becoming impossible to live in. I had to get out. It would take time to find a suitable flat, but there was no question of me spending my two weeks' holidays with these arrogant brats. I decided to return home to Dublin.
I had not seen Ann for six months as she had spent the summer working in New York. I had phoned her from a coin box in Nantes on her birthday and she had spent much of the five minutes crying. New York was not working out; she was finding it hard to get work. Like thousands of others, she had gone there without a student's working visa and had no social security number. She had gone in the hope of raising money to pay for her studies, but her tears told me she would barely cover her travel expenses. I told her to fly home and she arrived two days before I did. It felt good to be back, surrounded once again by the warmth of one's family. To have your girlfriend throw her arms around you and tell you she loved you. It made it all worthwhile. The emptiness of the football centre was a million miles away. I felt like a star.
There were two city-centre 'criterium' races on in Dublin and Cork. Professional races with Kelly and Roche both riding. Sean, Stephen and Martin were all managed by a Dublin businessman called Frank Quinn. I was always sceptical about managers who scratched their backsides and demanded 10 per cent but Frank was different. He had a great human quality about him. He cared and this was important to me. At the start of the year he had offered me his services and I accepted. In my four years of professionalism I think it is the only manager-rider relationship which finished with the rider owing the manager money, but that's the way Frank is. He phoned the race organisers, informed them I was available and talked about a contract for the two races. It was very fair and on a par with what a new professional would get in France – about £250 per race. They offered him a pittance, claiming their budgets were all tied up. I felt really let down, insulted even. The organisers had flown over a load of continental pros for the events and here I was, one of only four professionals in the country, one of only five Irishmen ever to have ridden the Tour de France – and they could find no place for me. There was no place for Martin either. It was despicable. This took a lot of the good out of being home. I no longer felt quite the star and was almost looking forward to going back to France.
Thevenet phoned me in Dublin at the end of the two weeks and told me to fly straight to Amsterdam for the Tour of Holland. The flat, open plains did not suit me and I spent a very uncomfortable week. It was a huge come-down from the glories of the Tour and, not at all motivated, I abandoned with a stage to go. Of the four RMO riders present, only I had ridden the Tour. The other Tour riders were in France riding criteriums.
Criteriums were a French tradition in August. The Tour would generate huge interest for cycle racing in July, but in August there was nothing. The criteriums were a means of avoiding the cold turkey syndrome. A placebo for an addicted public until the autumn classics. The mayor of a small village would decide he wanted the stars of the Tour de France in his town and would contact a criterium manager. The manager would submit the price of engaging thirty professionals and the mayor would hand over the money. The manager then set about contacting the riders. He would sign up three or four really big names, the Tour winner if possible, the French champion, and two or three Tour stage winners. Most of the mayor's cash would be spent on these, for these were the men who drew the crowds. The rest of the peloton was made up of usually twenty-five small-timers or domestiques. It was at criteriums that the poorly paid domestique made most of his money. For the two to three-hour street race he was paid about £350. It wasn't 100 cent profit. It was the rider's job to look after his own accommodation, travel and food. To economise most domestiques travelled together. It was not uncommon for them to race in Brittany, finish about midnight then jump into a car and drive to the next race at the opposite end of the country. To save time, and money, the pre-race meal was usually a bag of chips and a sausage roll bought from a chip van at the side of the road. If there was the possibility of a few hours' sleep a cheap and often sleazy hotel would be found, anything to save a few francs. As a result, on arriving at the criterium they were often in no condition to race – but this was a minor detail. Amphetamines were wonderful for motivating a tired domestique to climb once again into the saddle. And as there were never any controls it was at criteriums that abuse was at its highest. The drugs were never used in the pursuit of victory, because all the criteriums were fixed. The people came to see the star winning, so the star always won. That way the punters went away happy and would return next year. No, the amphetamines were an insurance. An insurance that riders would 'perform'. The small riders were expected to animate the race. The routine was to attack off the front for a few laps, milk the applause and then let the star bring you back. By doing this you felt uninhibited when, at the end of the night, you approached the manager and asked for the contract. Contracts were always paid after the event. Amphetamines ensured you got paid.
During the Tour Vallet had promised me he would find me a few contracts. He was a big name and had a lot of pull with the criterium managers, but it was like a lot of the promises he made – empty. I reckon I am the only rider to have finished the Tour in 1986 who didn't ride a single criterium that year. It was one thing being a petit coureur and French, but quite another being a petit coureur and Irish. They could ring up the criterium managers and demand favours; but I hated crawling, and besides I was afraid. I knew that the criterium would draw me close to the temptations of drugs and I didn't want that. I was afraid of being tempted, too many complications. If one of the lads offered me a charge, in good faith, before a criterium, how could I possibly refuse without offending him? I still wanted desperately to be one of the boys. If I refused a charge, I knew they would never totally accept me. And so being absent from the criteriums suited me just fine.
At the end of August we rode Paris-Bourges, a two-day stage race. It was my first contact with Gauthier since the day he had abandoned in the Tour. He was in good form and told me privately that he had received an offer to race with the Z Peugeot team in 1987. He had decided to accept. I was surprised as I felt sure he had made up his mind to retire. He had, but talking about retiring was one thing, actually doing it was another. There were not an awful lot of avenues open to a 32-year-old former maillot jaune of the Tour de France. He had had one or two offers of employment but none that pleased him. The local amateur club from his region had made him an attractive offer if he wore their colours for a year, but the thought of racing again as an amateur disturbed him.
There was a nice, relaxed atmosphere in the Paris–Bourges. Dede had been offered a new contract for 1987 and this cheered him up greatly. And when Dede w
as happy, we all were. He was always the life and soul of the party. I was knackered after the first stage and decided to go to bed early. I was not rooming with Gauthier but with one of the others, whose identity must remain secret. I had slept solidly for more than an hour when my room-mate came in and woke me. 'Paul I have a girl, and I'm on to a sure tiling. In a few minutes I'm going to bring her up. You just keep your eyes closed and pretend to be asleep.' I laughed and told him I was knackered and to stop pulling my leg. He went out and five minutes later he was back with a girl. There was a slight hesitation when she saw my sleeping body in the adjoining bed. 'That's Kimmage, the Irishman, he's a very heavy sleeper,' he assured her. I was lying there with my eyes closed, paralysed. He was serious. He was going to have intercourse with this girl on a bed almost touching my own.
At first they talked. She was competing in the women's race to be held next day. She asked him about his life as a professional and marvelled at his prowess. He played her along beautifully for fifteen minutes – then the clothes came off. The two bodies flopped down on the room's second single bed. I kept my eyes glued shut. I never saw anything, I didn't have to, the noise they made left nothing to the imagination. I thought about pretending to wake up, but this would only cause embarrassment all round. During dope controls I felt embarrassed when the commissars stared at me while I was urinating. How could he possibly have intercourse with a girl when there was someone else in almost the same bed? I couldn't believe it. Then I noticed the smell, a burning smell which I couldn't quite place. What could possibly be burning?
They lay motionless for five minutes and then she asked him if she could take a shower. He escorted her to the bathroom and carefully closed the door. He ran over to my bed and shook me by the shoulder. 'What about that, Polo, do you want a go now?' I insulted him, but this only seemed to please him more. 'What the hell is burning?' To dim the light in the room, he had placed a towel over the bedside lamp. He ran over to it, lifted the smouldering remains off the bulb and threw it out of the window. His partner finished her shower and re-entered the bedroom, no doubt amazed at the sleeping powers of the Irishman still unconscious on the other bed. He bid her goodnight and she left the room.
Next day as we started the second stage he was still euphoric about his conquest. He would ride up behind me and burst into a fit of laughter. Then he would go around the bunch telling all his mates about it and bring them to me for verification. The typical reaction was, 'I wouldn't have let him into the room unless I was sure of getting a go.' Or, 'I would have woken up, pushed him off and jumped on myself.' I don't know if all sportsmen are as gross as this. Not all cyclists are, but most of them are. There is this crude, savage side to them. I don't know if it's the demands of the sport that cultivate it, but it certainly exists. A typical example is the following:
Pierre: 'What's up with Louis? He's not sprinting very well.'
Serge: 'Yes, he had a bad crash while going for the stage win last week, and as he wasn't wearing gloves he ripped all the skin off both hands.'
Pierre: 'That's bad luck, I'm sure he'd have won a few stages here, he was going really well.'
Serge: 'Yes, but the worst part is that he can't even have a wank.'
I didn't ride well in the Paris-Bourges. I didn't ride well in any of the end-of-season races. The Tour had taken a lot out of me and I was just going through the motions at races in August. September was another quiet month. I rode three one-day French classics before lining up for Paris-Brussels, which was to be my last race of the season. I didn't want to ride, but was told I had to make up the numbers because the team needed ten starters to be paid travelling expenses by the race organisers. The night before the race I talked to Gauthier, who told me how he had abandoned the year before. The day before the race he put his bike in the car and drove to a little village fifty kilometres from the start at Senlis. He parked the car and then cycled back to the team hotel. Next day he raced the fifty kilometres from Senlis to the village, abandoned down a narrow side street as the peloton traversed the village, jumped into his car and drove home. It was too late for me to try the same stunt, but I planned something else. On the morning of the race I signed on the start sheet, dressed in my shorts and jersey. Just as the race was about to start, I hid in the toilet of a cafe across the road. When I was sure they had gone I discreetly slipped out of the cafe, jumped into the car and headed for Calais and the ferry to Dover. I crossed to England and caught another ferry to Dublin. Home. My first season was over. Well, not quite.
The Tour of Ireland, or Nissan Classic, was due to start a week later but RMO were not sending a team so I wasn't racing it. Stephen had planned to ride it in a composite team, but his knee was still giving him trouble and he pulled out. This left a place to be filled. Frank phoned the team's sponsors, Ever Ready, and proposed me as a replacement. They agreed, and on the day I arrived home Frank phoned me and told me I was riding the Nissan. I was a little bit out of condition and spent the three days before the race in frantic last-minute training. The team was made up of two Belgians, Jef Lieckens and Carlo Bomans; two Englishmen; Sean Yates, Tony Doyle and myself. On the first stage to Galway, it rained heavily. The bunch was in one long line and was being buffeted by strong crosswinds as we raced along the Oranmore road to Galway. I had bad stomach cramps and felt really weak. I was dropped. It was a cruel disappointment. I would have to ride into Galway and complete the small circuit on my own, minutes behind the whole bunch. I knew my mother and father were waiting for me and I felt quite ashamed. Just before arriving on to the circuit I rode past the team hotel. I thought very seriously about getting off and making some excuse. Any excuse. Anything to avoid the shame of riding the circuit on my own. But I kept going, Ever Ready were paying me a contract. By abandoning it, I would not be honouring it and this would not be professional. I finished the stage in a foul humour and cursed myself.
The rest of the week went off much better and I started to ride quite well. After the third stage to Cork I roomed with Sean Yates. I liked Sean. When I was an amateur he had helped me take the yellow jersey in the Tour of Britain Milk Race. He is one of the nicest and most down-to-earth blokes I have met in the game. He had a little gadget for examining blood. You pricked your finger for the sample, placed the droplet on a slide and examined it through a sort of small microscope. I asked him to test me and on examining my droplet, he said I was lacking in iron. I asked if he had any with him and he prepared me a syringe with vitamins and iron. Sean, like most of the pros, rarely went to the soigneur if he felt he needed something. He would simply do it himself. The idea of sticking a needle in myself repulsed me and I asked Sean if he would do it for me. He refused. 'You have to learn some time. Now is as good a time as any to start.' He gave me a piece of cottonwool with methylated spirits and the syringe, or flèche as it was known in the trade, and I went to the bathroom and closed the door. The door was always closed just in case anyone walked in. I often wondered about my father walking in and seeing me with a syringe in my hand. What would I have said? 'Eehh! Sorry, Da, this is not what you think.'
The syringe had to be inserted in the muscle of the buttock at about the same height as the coccyx. We had a choice of buttock, left or right, but it was equally painful. I had watched the lads do it before. There were two methods. The most painful was to place the point of the needle against the skin and slowly start pressing. Or, you could throw the syringe like a dart, so that it penetrated the flesh quickly. I decided to opt for the second method. I stood for at least ten minutes and made several efforts at throwing the syringe, but each time I was unable to release it. This infuriated me. When finally I found the courage to do it, I was so tense and my buttock muscle so contracted that the needle hit the flesh and bounced off on to the dirty bathroom floor. Furious, I picked it up, squeezed the piston and squirted the liquid down the toilet bowl. I threw the empty syringe in the bin and left the bathroom, cursing. Sean had a huge grin on his face and offered to make me another one, but I re
fused. I later retrieved the syringe from the bathroom bin, as it was a golden rule never to leave anything that might surprise the cleaning maid. But I was thoroughly disgusted with myself.