Shut Up, Legs!

by Jens Voigt

  One thing that helped me keep my head up was that, on a personal level, I was winning races. Over the years, I have won something like 65 races with International Cycling Union points. I had a good career. It’s not like I was beaten all the time. No, I had a good, long career with some good wins. I was always fortunate, too, that there was a place for my style of riding. I made my niche as a long-break rider, and there has always been room in the sport for that sort of opportunistic style of riding. There are always days when the big favorites just aren’t going to chase you down. There are always days in a long stage race where groups go out and make it to the finish. So I had my chances—plenty of them—and I took them.

  So for me, at least, it was easier to explain defeat. I could just say, “Okay, maybe I’m not a big stage-race rider, at least not overall. Maybe I just can’t climb well enough or ride time trials fast enough because I’m simply a big guy, and I create more air resistance.” And I was okay with that. Again, I won 65 races over the years. That’s better than a kick in the teeth!

  In what was definitely one of my all-time great moments on a bike, I celebrate the team time trial victory in the 2001 Tour de France with my Crédit Agricole teammates. (Yuzuru Sunada)

  CRÉDIT AGRICOLE DAYS

  “If you try to win, you might lose.

  But if you don’t try to win, you’ll lose for sure!”

  I spent six years with Roger Legeay on the GAN and Crédit Agricole teams, and they were definitely six of my best years as a professional. It was here where I met lifelong friends such as Stuart O’Grady, Thor Hushovd, and Bobby Julich.

  Probably my best memory from those years was that of the 2001 Tour de France, which was not only a breakthrough for me, but for the entire team. On Stage 2, we decided to go on the attack, and shortly after rolling out of Calais that day, I got into an early breakaway. We were eventually caught by 12 other riders, including Stuart, as we raced into and across Belgium. And although we didn’t win the stage that finished in Antwerp, it positioned Stuey perfectly to take over the yellow jersey the next day, which started a great run for the team that year.

  With O’Grady in yellow after Stage 3, we controlled the race for much of the first week, and it set us up perfectly for one of our greatest rides ever: the team time trial (TTT).

  Now the team time trial is a very special event, because it’s really about the team. The riders all start together, and a minimum of five must finish together. No team is stronger than its weakest element, and the team with the strongest riders in the race can be beaten by a team that simply rides better together, which was very much true of our team in 2001.

  For Roger Legeay, the TTT was always an essential event. He just loved it and took it very seriously. Don’t forget, Roger had worked with guys like Greg LeMond and Chris Boardman. He had seen how Greg won the 1989 Tour de France by 8 seconds in the final time trial, and he saw Chris win the prologue time trial in both the 1996 and 1998 Tours de France. So he took time trialing very, very seriously.

  He had seen how Greg used special aerodynamic handlebars to beat Laurent Fignon in 1989. That impressed Roger, so he was very good about getting the best equipment for us. He actually rented out the entire Le Mans 24-hour speedway for two or three days so we could do special training. Can you imagine that? Renting out this legendary automobile track just for one cycling team?

  And every day, as we trained on the track, Roger would drive behind us and shout through a loudspeaker attached to the hood of the car to tell us exactly when to pull off and whom to jump in behind as we were fading back. We had certain signals to communicate, like if we needed to skip a turn and sit out for a bit.

  But mostly what I remember throughout the whole 60- to 70-kilometer effort was Roger yelling various instructions to us every 20 to 30 seconds. “Derrière Anthony Morin, Jens! Derrière Sébastien Hinault! Jens à la 6ème position!” That really was a big help, because we didn’t have to waste time thinking about stuff like how long to pull, and that way we avoided getting behind a tiring rider. So we learned how to be the most efficient we could possibly be. And that paid off big-time in the Tour de France.

  And I will never forget when we won the team time trial that day in Bar-le-Duc. It was just a huge day for us, superb! And we won that race because we really were the strongest and smoothest team. But everything didn’t go perfectly. The stage started in Verdun and rolled past all these World War I battlefields. All along the course, about every kilometer, we would pass a soldier dressed up in a commemorative blue WWI uniform. But it was raining the whole time, so it was very dismal. And quite dangerous. We had a puncture and had to wait for Bobby Julich. Then, when Anthony Morin also punctured, we just had to leave him. It was just like, “Sorry, Tony, go back to the second team car, get a new wheel, and do the best you can. We can’t wait for you!” So it was not an easy day for us—far from it!

  But despite the setbacks, we really had a good train rolling, and we beat huge teams such as US Postal, ONCE, and Team Telekom. With Stuey in yellow, we were the last team to start, which really helps in a time trial, because you always know where you are compared to your opponents; you hear their time splits ahead of you. It was one of those magical days when we were just clicking. Midway through the day, we sort of knew that if we didn’t “biff” it in a corner or something, we were going to win. We were really flying. You could feel it. And we were taking time from our opponents at each time check, yet we weren’t going all out! I can still remember Roger on the radio telling us, “Okay, guys, you have the fastest time splits. Don’t take any risks! You don’t need to speed up! You’re going to win!”

  At the finish, we were all hugging each other, the mechanics, the soigneurs or physical therapists, the riders, everyone! We just had an incredible bond on that team, and together we enjoyed one of my greatest-ever wins. It was a superb win for all of us.

  But the good fortune didn’t stop there. A couple of days later; I got the yellow jersey for myself, and then later, on Stage 16, I won my first individual stage.

  On Stage 7, two days after surprising just about everybody by winning the team time trial, I covered an attack by French star Laurent Jalabert. Now “Jaja” had already won the stage into Verdun, and although he was near the end of his career, he was still a big-name rider. Stuey was still in yellow, so my job was to follow attacks. But all of a sudden, I was in a breakaway with Laurent Jalabert, and he was gunning for another stage win. By the end of the stage, we still had about a two-minute lead on the peloton, and I knew then that I was going to take the jersey.

  It was just amazing, me, Jensie, in yellow! But it was also confusing, because I had taken the jersey from Stuey, my friend and teammate.

  Winning the yellow jersey is something no rider will ever forget. As soon as I crossed the line, everybody collapsed onto me. Until then, I was just this little-known German, and then, suddenly, I was at the center of the cycling world. All of a sudden, everyone was hugging me, tapping me on the shoulder, and laughing. I was giving interviews to television stations I’d never seen or heard of before, British TV, French TV, American TV. There were 5,000, maybe 10,000 people in and around the race, just waiting for me, just waiting for a moment to see the yellow jersey. But of those 10,000, maybe 9,500 had never heard my name before! Yet they were cheering for me because they knew that whoever was wearing the yellow jersey had to be good! It made me somebody. And things continued well after the finish. Heck, when I finally got back to the hotel, there was even a little local marching band playing for me!

  But like I said, at the same time, it felt very weird taking the yellow jersey from my teammate. The team, though, wanted me to cover the breakaways, because there were some hills on the stage with a hard final, and we weren’t sure if Stuart could stay with the pack on the climbs. With me in the break, though, it really helped our situation. Since it was clear that the break was going to stay away to the finish, none of the big riders attacked much in the final. As a result, Stuey was able
to stay with the main bunch, while I took the yellow jersey.

  It was the safest option for the team, but I absolutely felt guilty. So on the next day, when he won some time in some midrace bonus sprints and took the jersey back, I was quite happy, and even relieved. I was like, “I’m happy to have had the jersey for a day and can now give it back to you. It belongs more on your shoulders!”

  You see, in my eyes, Stuey really deserved the jersey. He had placed well in the prologue and had been doing all those crazy bonus sprints all week long, just trying to win a second here or two seconds there. He had just been full gas all week, mixing it up in the final sprints of each stage, just full on!

  I don’t know if people really have any idea of how stressful and dangerous the final kilometers of a Tour de France stage can be. There are pileups everywhere! It’s a NIGHTMARE! And all week long, Stuey was taking all kinds of risks as he tried to get and keep the yellow jersey. He was just so determined, and in my opinion, he deserved the yellow jersey more than I did. My road into the yellow jersey was much easier. I profited from the circumstances. So yeah, I felt relieved to give the jersey back to Stuey.

  Nevertheless, 2001 was a great year. I had 11 wins altogether, including an individual stage win again later in the Tour de France. And I think it’s safe to say that the “Jens Voigt style” of racing was well established by that time, because just about every one of those victories came in a long breakaway.

  Early in my career, I became well aware of the fact that I couldn’t outclimb guys like Marco Pantani because I weigh 78 kilos (172 pounds). Climbers like Pantani weigh maybe 25 kilos less, so there’s physically no way I could climb with them. And I knew I couldn’t sprint with guys like Mario Cipollini, so somewhere along the way, really early on, I understood that if I was going to do something in this sport, I needed to go for the breakaways.

  Luck in cycling is way too rare. I understood that I had to force my own destiny. I understood that I had to create my own luck!

  I remember what Chris Boardman told me in my first year at GAN. He said, “Jens, if you try to win, you might lose. But if you don’t try to win, you’ll lose for sure!” And those were words that I lived by. To many, my attacks often appeared suicidal. And they were, really, because, well, when you go in an early break, the odds are never on your side.

  I’d always preferred to have that little chance, that little possibility, that hope, on my side. By far, that was better than just going to the start line and basically telling myself that I was going to be beaten! Of course, there are days like that, when you just don’t feel good, and you know that you’re going to be pack fodder. But I certainly didn’t want to spend my whole career like that! I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to put my stamp on the sport. And after a few successes in the early breakaways, I realized that this was what I was good at. This was what I liked doing. And I realized that it was interesting for the public, the journalists, and the sponsors, too. Before long, the Jensie in me was born!

  FRIENDS ALONG THE WAY

  “Wow! That’s not human.

  Stuey is not human. He’s just wow!”

  Jens as seen by Thor Hushovd (former teammate and world champion):

  In cycling, there’s a real hierarchy, and mostly the big riders only talk to the good riders. But that was never the case with Jens. When I first came on the Crédit Agricole team in 2000, Jens was already a well-established rider who was getting good results. But with him, there were no barriers. Jens talked to everyone, even neo-pros and stagiaires like me.

  And let me tell you, it helps a young rider so much to get some attention and respect from the established riders. It helps them feel more secure. Straightaway I liked Jens. He was the guy I could always call for advice.

  Like Jens, I moved to Toulouse to live and train because there were so many Crédit Agricole riders in the area. And there, too, I looked to Jens. Some of the guys could really party. For the Australians living there, it just seemed to be part of their culture. But Jens knew how to draw the line. He could go to a party and just drink one beer. I was a young rider. I didn’t want to party. I wanted to win; I wanted to succeed as a cyclist. Jens showed me the way. He helped me navigate my way through those early years. He was my big brother.

  One of the great things about cycling is all the great friends you meet out on the road. And for me, many of them came while I was riding for GAN and Crédit Agricole. Perhaps it was because this was where I got my start in cycling’s big time, or perhaps it’s because I moved down to Toulouse to live and train with the boys. Little matter—many lifelong bonds were formed here with this French team.

  As I’ve mentioned, when I first arrived to the team, Chris Boardman was the top dog. He had broken the world hour record and was one of the world’s absolute best time trial riders. And he was very British! Be it his humor or the way he looked at things, you could just see that he was British. We often roomed together and had a lot in common. He, too, was a big reader and family man. At the time, he had four kids. It took me a while to catch up with him on that score—and actually I never quite did—but family was important to both of us.

  We would spend hours talking. It was obvious that he came from a capitalist environment, compared to me, and saw life from that perspective. And we had long talks about the role of the welfare state. I, of course, had grown up believing that it was good, while he grew up in England during the Thatcher years in a time when the welfare state was being called into question and reshaped.

  He was very interested in what it was like growing up in East Germany and how we trained, and I would try to learn from him in terms of technology, ergonomics, and so on. He was one of the first riders to really exploit the new watt-based SRM training that was first being developed in the 1990s. Chris was always looking at our sport from outside the box. He was always in pursuit of efficiency. Everything he did on or off the bike that had to do with cycling was centered on efficiency.

  Now I was still sometimes in my East German mind-set. I was brought up to believe that the more kilometers you ride in training, the better you will be. I would come back from a long ride and say, “Oh, Chris, I just had a great five-hour ride with the boys. I loved it!”

  And he would be like, “No, I hate that! I’d rather do two hours with some full-gas intervals and go home after three hours, you know, move on to other things!”

  Chris was a real iconoclast in his day, a bit of an outsider. But in today’s high-tech, neoscientific era of cycling, I think he would have fit right in. He often said, “I may not be the biggest talent, but I’m going to try to make the most out of the talent I’ve got.” And in many ways, his entire career was like that. He didn’t have a long career, only eight years, but he sure left his mark. He had a personal coach, when most riders didn’t, and his training was always very focused. In addition, he examined all aspects of the sport: aerodynamics, diet, you name it. He was so analytical that he could look at your plate and tell you how many calories were on it. And he was the first person to give me a real, proper warm-up program before a time trial. Really, when it came to performance, he left no stone unturned. In many ways, Chris was already doing what teams such as CSC, HTC, and Sky did in later years.

  It’s funny. Chris was my teammate for only a couple of years, but he had a huge impact on me. And in some ways, that impact lasted until the end of my career, because it was Chris who gave me the idea to go finish my career with the hour record. That’s exactly what he did, and I always thought, “Wow! What a great way to go out in style!”

  And then, of course, there was Stuey O’Grady. He had already been on the team for a couple of years when I joined GAN, but he had turned professional at a very young age and was actually younger than me. He, too, lived in Toulouse, so we trained together plenty. And as it turned out, he was on the team with me for the entire 6 years I was with GAN and Crédit Agricole, and we hooked up again later on CSC.

  Now Stuey was a true Aussie. And like all the Australian c
yclists, he knew how to both work hard and play hard. He could really drink like a fish, but he could also slay himself on the bike! But unlike Chris, Stuey was not so analytical. He was more like me in that regard, more intuitive about training. If he needed to do some intervals, he would go out and do some hard intervals. But he wouldn’t stay up the night before debating whether he should do one-minute intervals or two-minute intervals. No, that wasn’t his style. He was more like, “As long as I go hard and make the legs hurt, that’s good training.” He was just a badass. I mean it as the highest compliment when I say that he was a freak of nature! They absolutely don’t make them like Stuey anymore. When he retired, they just broke the mold, because you cannot make another Stuey! The way he could party so hard and perform hard at the same time was just unbelievable. Sometimes he would be seriously suffering from sleep deprivation and would still pull out these amazing performances. He was one of a kind! So many times I said, “Wow! That’s not human. Stuey is not human. He’s just wow!” He had this amazing ability to push through pain. He definitely came from the “Shut Up, Legs” school of suffering, perhaps even before me!

  Stuey was pretty much the opposite of another great friend, my best friend, really, Bobby Julich. Bobby was much more like Chris Boardman. He could spend an entire evening or afternoon thinking about which interval would be best for his current fitness level. He could spend hours reading SRM files and data. But Bobby understands it all, and that’s probably one of the reasons that he’s become one of the best trainers in the sport following his retirement in 2008.