Rough Ride

by Paul Kimmage

  'Yes,' I replied, 'once. What about you?'

  'Yes, regularly.'

  I looked at him: he wasn't lying.

  After a week of kermesse racing in Belgium I rejoined the team for a race in Montreal. I loved the circuit, which was the Olympic road race circuit of 1976, and rode well on it. I was in the thick of the action right from the start and got myself into the winning break, but I didn't have the distance in my legs so I abandoned before the finish. Still, I won over 1,500 dollars in sprint prizes so my team-mates were very pleased with me. Unfortunately, neither Vallet nor his assistant Jacques Michaud were at the race to witness my performance.

  On returning to Grenoble, I visited team headquarters to ask about my programme of races for the end of the year. The team had ridden a lousy Tour. In its last week, Giles Mas, Regis Simon and Michel Bibollet were told by Vallet to look for a new job for the following year. Bibollet was particularly upset. At the start of the Tour, Vallet had told him not to go looking for another team, and that he would be signing him later in the race. Michel was delighted – security for another year. But signing-on day never arrived, and at the end of the race Michel was shown the door.

  I didn't know if he was going to get rid of me. I asked him. He said he wasn't sure. He assured me that he personally wanted to keep me in the team, that I was a great team rider but that the sponsor Monsieur Braillon wanted only winners on the team. He told me of a new team that Patrick Valke and Stephen Roche were setting up. He said that Valke had assured him that he would take me on if Monsieur Braillon didn't want me. He told me that the ball was in my court, that it was up to me to convince Braillon in the two months of racing that remained that I was worthy of my place. So that was it: Vallet wanted me, Braillon didn't. Could I believe him? I was disappointed and confused. I desperately wanted to believe that Vallet wanted me in the team, but couldn't convince myself that he did. I told Colotti and Claveyrolat of my situation and both said they would canvass on my behalf. Colotti was very supportive, and argued with Vallet to keep me on. Vallet wouldn't commit himself, and for the month of August I lived in uncertainty. Andre had also been told to look for new employment. The news did not surprise him. He had ridden poorly all year and he was resigned to the fact his career was at an end, but he was still bitter.

  I too became bitter. I resented the riders on the team who had signed contracts. Their 'I'm all right Jack' attitude sickened me, even though I fully realised that I had acted in the same way previously. I started to panic. What the hell was I going to do? A rider's career was measured in results. I had given three years of mine to helping others obtain results. Only RMO knew my worth as a team rider. I thought of asking Kelly or Roche for a dig-out, but decided against it. If they offered I would accept, but I would never go begging. My relationship with Vallet deteriorated. A week after returning from Montreal I got a new dose of champignons. We were riding a two-day Paris-Bourges, and I was so uncomfortable that I could hardly sit on the saddle, never mind race. Vallet was not very understanding, and I knew straight away there was no way I would be in an RMO jersey in 1989.

  I treated the champignons and they quickly disappeared; but I couldn't find decent form. I went to the world championships in Belgium in September determined to do the ride of my life. I failed miserably and abandoned with five laps to go. As in Austria the year before, I cried on entering our pit. But this time the tears were of bitterness and not joy. The season had been a complete and utter disaster.

  It was Roche who came to my rescue. We went back to the hotel after the world championships ended and he called me into his room. 'Don't worry about next year, Paul, I'll look after you.' I thanked him and accepted gratefully. Stephen was that type of fellow. If he promised, he delivered, and even though he didn't know who he'd be riding with I never once doubted that we'd be riding together for 1989. Some of my sacked team-mates got word that I had found a saviour. They knew Stephen and I were good friends and asked me to talk with him on their behalf. I didn't like Frank Pineau and told him to his face that I wouldn't speak for him. The two others, Mas and Rault, I liked. I just hadn't the heart to tell them that I couldn't canvass on my own behalf, never mind theirs, and promised them both I would talk to Stephen for them. I never did, just hadn't the balls. I was afraid he would think I was asking too much, so I said nothing. Jean-François Rault rang Ann a few times and left his number for me to return the call, but I never did. He never found a job. I would have liked to help him, but I was powerless.

  I felt sorry for him. Six months earlier he had won the marathon classic Bordeaux-Paris. He was promised the post of assistant directeur sportif for 1989. Jacques Michaud would be promoted to team manager. The squad needed a manager, as Vallet had signed Charly Mottet and was strengthening the squad. The French national champion Eric Caritoux came on the market, and Vallet offered him a deal. Caritoux agreed, but insisted that his former directeur sportif Christian Rumeau be given a job with the team. Caritoux signed, Rumeau was made assistant directeur sportif, Rault was given his marching orders. I thought they should have had the decency to keep him on for another year as a rider.

  The Nissan Classic was my last race with the team. Unlike 1987, I wasn't allowed the pleasure of selecting the team and simply felt thankful to be in it myself. As a result, Andre and Clavet stayed at home. Jean-Claude was picked, but his wife lost a baby the day before we travelled, so he couldn't come. He was replaced by Esnault, and the others on the team were the Belgian sprinter Michel Vermotte and the two Danes Alex and Per Pedersen. The day before the race I was visited at the hotel by the sports editor of the Sunday Tribune, Stephen Ryan. He wanted me to write a diary of the week for Sunday's paper. I agreed.

  The Nissan Classic is a five-day race. For four days I rode my arse off. I desperately wanted to succeed in front of the home crowd, and I tried hard on every single stage. Nothing went right. I punctured at the worst possible times, fell off on the climbs when my gears wouldn't work properly – and some little bastard stole a pair of brand-new sunglasses from my hotel room. After two stages I was starting to feel pretty pissed off. On the morning of the third day I met a girl in a wheelchair just before the start. Her name was Deborah Kane. Her father Dave had raced with my father, and Deborah had once been the top female cyclist in the country. She was racing in England when she rode into a parked lorry. She suffered horrific injuries and was paralysed. We had a good chat before the third stage and she smiled radiantly. I could not believe she could still smile. Her smile did something to me. I suddenly felt terribly fortunate and greatly moved by her enormous courage.

  The last stage was a seventy-mile loop around the streets of Dublin, to be televised live by RTE. The stage passed five miles from Coolock, where I had grown up as a kid, and the highlight of the day was the three laps around the beautiful Howth Head. I have always loved Howth Head. When I was a fourteen-year-old schoolboy with a head full of dreams I would train around it three times a week with my pal, Martin Earley. We dreamed on that hill. It was the Alpe d'Huez or the Galibier or the Tourmalet and we were Merckx and Thevenet and Van Impe. As we lined up for the start, Martin turned to Kelly and said, 'Watch Kimmage today.' The flag dropped and I had but one aim: no one, but no one, was going to beat me over Howth Head.

  Because of the live television coverage, attacks started from the gun and the first loop in south side Dublin was really fast. By the time we crossed the Liffey the first selection had already been made and I was part of a forty-man leading group. I knew something was going to give as we dashed out along the seafront at Clontarf – it was just a matter of choosing the right attack. When Allan Peiper took off with Pascal Poisson, I didn't hesitate. These were two drivers, two strong men. I jumped across. We rode really hard, and I had a lead of about a minute approaching Howth harbour. We swung left up through the village and started the climb. There was a great crowd all the way up and I was cheered like I had never been cheered in my life. The cheers sent goose-pimples all over my body, and I di
dn't feel the pedals. I went to the front at the bottom and stayed there until we reached the summit. I was first over the Head. Vallet drove up alongside for the first time on the descent. He told me I was doing too much work and should ease up. I nodded in agreement but immediately forgot his orders. He was absolutely right. I was riding too hard, but he didn't understand. This was Howth. This was part of me. Nothing else mattered.

  We completed three laps of the Head and headed east, and then south towards the finish in the city centre. I started to feel the pinch with twenty miles to go. We were joined by two Fagor riders, Sean Yates and John Carlsen. They were riding like trains, and immediately I knew there was no way we could be caught. On the run into the city centre Vallet drove up and told me to do some 'talking' to try and win the stage. I approached Sean, who was a good friend, and asked him if he was interested in doing a deal. He never answered me, so I understood that to mean 'No'. I wasn't surprised. Yates and Peiper were great mates. I knew they would be working together so I didn't bother talking to Carlsen or Poisson. I was knackered when we got on to the circuit. Peiper broke clear and won on his own. I was fifth, but the television exposure had made me a hero. I was interviewed after the stage and next day on a popular radio programme.

  Dublin was my last race for RMO. Of my three years with the team the first two under Thevenet are the ones I will remember most. If Stephen hadn't rescued me I'm sure I'd have left the sport very, very, bitter; but joining a new team, Fagor, changed all that, and I could afford to be nostalgic.

  It had always been my ambition to ride for at least one year on the same team as Kelly or Roche. By finding a place for me at Fagor, Stephen had saved my career. But I would never have accepted a place if I hadn't believed that I could be of some service to him. I wanted to survive on my own merit and didn't want to spend the rest of my cycling days feeding off Roche's generosity. To succeed I needed a good winter and I spent it in France. I was determined not to make the mistakes of the previous year, so I set myself a strict training schedule involving diet, weights, jogging and mountain biking. Ann and I returned to Dublin for two weeks at Christmas. I was careful not to eat too much and continued to train hard. During our two-week stay I met the editor of the Sunday Tribune, Vincent Browne. To my great surprise, he offered me a job with the paper. I tried not to show it, but I was secretly delighted. I had to refuse, however. I just didn't have the confidence to write full time and I wanted to devote just one last year completely to the bike. But I was delighted he had asked me. The thought of one day going into journalism excited me. At last I had an escape route. It would be easier now to accept the hardship and suffering, knowing that at the end of it all I could find a good job. I returned to France very pleased.

  I trained hard in January. One morning I was out early in the suburbs of Grenoble. There was an icy fog and it was freezing cold. I came across a Ford transit van driving slowly in the opposite direction. It was painted black and had black glass on its two sides. It took a few seconds for me to realise it was a hearse. There was a coffin inside and two people followed behind in a car. The scene chilled me to the bones. I decided there and then to leave the country as soon as my career as a bike rider was over. I didn't want to die in this place, to be brought to my resting place in a clapped-out old Ford with just two people crying over me. My family and friends were in Ireland. As soon as it was over I would return there.

  I met up with Fagor for a training camp at the end of the month. It was a very weak team. Most of the good riders had left after disagreements with the team's management. My old RMO team-mates Regis Simon and Vincent Lavenu had also found jobs here so the ambience wasn't too bad. We rode six hours on our first spin and I was pretty knackered when it was over. Next day I was stuck to the road and turned home after just two hours. I felt drained and run-down. When I went for massage that night, the soigneur asked me if I wanted to take a B12 injection. I did. Silvano Davo was Italian. He had looked after Stephen at Carerra and had left with Stephen for Fagor. He was temperamental, as only Italians can be, but I liked him and was confident he would never give me any illegal medicaments or shit. Normally I would take my first vitamin injection three months into the season, but, damn it, I needed it. So I took it and next day felt much better. While at the training camp I roomed with Stephen. It was great. I enjoyed being Roche's man, and wanted to be at his side at all times. I was surprised he wasn't sharing a room with Eddy Schepers, his loyal lieutenant of three years. Eddy was a rider of class, in his own right, and he was very level-headed and straight. I liked him.

  On the last evening of the training camp a group of Belgian tourists sat down at the table next to us. As soon as they realised they were sitting with Stephen Roche they started pestering us. One fellow in particular was obnoxious. He was drunk and smoking like a trooper. I couldn't understand Stephen talking to them all night. When he came up to the room I asked him about it.

  'Why didn't you tell them to fuck off?'

  And he laughed.

  'Paul, you just can't turn round and tell people to fuck off. And anyway did you see the big tanned guy? That was the Mexican Pancho Rodriguez, a former world middleweight champ. He's the Belgians' bodyguard.'

  'Jaysus, just as well I kept my mouth shut.'

  Next day we drove to Aries for the first race of the season. We were staying in the same hotel as RMO, and instinctively I found myself going to their list pinned to the wall beside the lift and examining it to see who was sharing with who. Clavet was sharing with Ribeiro, Colotti was sharing with a new guy, Gilles Sanders. I paid a call to his room but as usual he was spaced out, his head up in the clouds, his mind already on the following day's race – Colotti loved racing. My first race with Fagor went off much better than I expected even though I didn't finish. It wasn't my fault: a bolt in my handlebars came loose near the finish and I was forced to stop. The second race was more disappointing. I relaxed too much near the end of it and got left behind when a crosswind split the bunch to bits.

  After the second race, the team split into two. Half were to spend the month racing in the south of France, the others were returning to their homes for a week and then flying to Venezuela and Miami for a stage race, the Tour of the Americas. Stephen was crossing the Atlantic, and as I was now part of his baggage I too was selected to travel. Before leaving I had a week back in Grenoble. David phoned me from the Sunday Tribune and asked me how the opening races had gone. He suggested that I do a weekly diary for the paper over the whole season. I hesitated. If I had won the two opening races of the year, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have turned him down. But I had made more sacrifices at Christmas than in any other year, I had trained harder than in any other winter, I had even taken a vitamin injection in the run-up to the race. And for what? I had abandoned the two opening races of the season. The writing was on the wall for me. As a pro cyclist I was Mr Bloody Average. Also-rans were nothing in this game, they are nothing in this world. You don't see too many sporting greats in dole queues, but they are often full of queuing also-rans. Writing a weekly column might open a few doors in journalism. It might keep me from the dole queue. I agreed.

  19

  JOURNALIST

  It didn't take me long to start questioning my commitment to writing a weekly column for the Sunday Tribune. The first 'diary' was a piece of cake, 500 words on the opening races in the south of France, which I sent back by reading it over the phone. It was more difficult in Venezuela. I had never been to South America and had, on just two occasions, been to countries where bidets and telephones were not ordinary instruments of daily life. Venezuela was ghastly. The capital, Caracas, exuded wealth, but ten miles into the suburbs I witnessed the most incredible poverty. The residential areas were acres of tin-roofed and, in some cases walled, sheds that a 'civilised' Western man would not use for a lavatory. I saw young kids with no clothing, just a piece of sack-cloth to cover them. It made me wonder about the morality of being paid to race a bicycle while people lived
in squalor.

  Riding a bike wasn't easy here. The streets were covered in oil, making them dirty and incredibly slippery in the wet. Petrol was cheaper than water, and it was more economical to let a leaking tank drip than to have it repaired. Election posters littered walls and shop windows. The candidates' names pushed their credibility to the limit. How can people seriously vote for a man called 'El Tigre'? There were dead dogs everywhere, and the vile smell of rotting carcasses choked the lungs and made me want to puke. The dreadful scenes moved me and I wanted to write about them. Writing about it wasn't a problem, but trying to send it home was a nightmare. Our hotel had no direct lines, so phoning it back was out of the question. Our team interpreter informed me there was a fax machine in the press room. I knew nothing about fax machines and was unsure that a handwritten document could be sent. But it was worth a try, so I gave him a copy and he sent it off.

  The first stage of the race was a long road stage from Valencia to Caracas. The second was a criterium up and down one of the principal boulevards of the capital and the third a circuit race in Maracay. The first two days went well: I was riding, dare I say it, averagely. The third stage was to have been a circuit race, but as we lined up waiting for the off I noticed a group of protesters blocking the road ahead. It was totally chaotic but the tense atmosphere provided the backbone for the piece I wrote for the Sunday Tribune.