by Jens Voigt
My training continued to evolve when I went to CSC in 2004. CSC was a very forward-thinking team, but the change in training wasn’t radical.
One thing was that there was more of a difference between hard days and rest days. Hard days could be even more intense than they were at Crédit Agricole, but rest days were really that, real rest. With Crédit Agricole, we might do a three-hour ride on a rest day with some light intensity. But with CSC we might actually take the day totally off.
Still, the hard days could be really hard, and it wasn’t uncommon for us to mix a six-hour day with intervals. In the middle of that, we might have some 20-minute medium-intensity intervals followed by some climbs with sprints. We could alternate between different levels of intensity within a long ride. A normal day of training with Bjarne would generally have an hour or an hour-and-a-half of intervals. Again, we would train in three-day blocks—not unlike the old East German days—but in a very different fashion. On the first day, for example, we would concentrate on medium-intensity intervals. The next day, we would do more speed work, and the third day would be harder again.
With Crédit Agricole we didn’t have the SRM power-meter technology, where we trained according to watts and power output. Instead, most of our training was based on our heart rates.
Bjarne was one of the first guys to really use the SRM system, and he had us all training according to our watts. Today everyone does that. It’s the status quo. But back in the day, plenty of riders and teams did not yet organize their training around power output. As a result, our training became more individualized. While we would often start out training together, everybody just went at their own pace according to their heart rates, speed, and power outputs once we started the intervals.
A typical first day might include a series of 40/20s, for example. Basically, a 40/20 is when you push a big gear at 80 rpm on a climb for 40 seconds, followed by 20 seconds of spinning the smallest possible gear. Big guys like me might push around 450 watts during one of these intervals.
The second day might be a speed day, when we would do four 20-minute team time trials, with our pedal cadence hovering around 110 rpm.
On the last day, there would often be big-gear intervals. One of Bjarne’s favorites would be these intervals where we would do five minutes sitting and then five minutes standing, while pushing a big gear the whole time.
One thing that was really different, however, was that in between intervals, we would really go easy, whereas on Crédit Agricole, we would still move along at a good pace. But Bjarne would say, “No, no, this is about the intervals! Don’t kill yourself in between.” That said, the overall training was simply harder with Bjarne than it was in the Crédit Agricole days. There was more quantity and more intense quality work. We did a lot of training camps in Italy, where Bjarne was living at the time, and honestly, there were times when I was just ready to buy a ticket and go home. There were moments when I actually said to Bjarne, “Bjarne, I’m just fucked. I can’t keep going, let alone recover to be ready for the next race!”
Bjarne would just look at me and say, “Trust me. I’ve done this before. I can tell when you’re tired enough!” And I’ve got to say, he was generally right in that regard. Heck, my first year with Bjarne, we actually finished one, two, three in the Tour of the Mediterranean, a big early-season French race. That was pretty impressive and provided me with an immediate demonstration of the value of Bjarne’s approach.
Looking back, I would say that Bjarne’s approach was just too hard for the young riders. Every year I saw neo-pros come to the team, and they were always really motivated. They wanted to show themselves, to prove themselves. They would come to the early-season training camps and do all the intervals full gas, but then you wouldn’t see them for two months afterward. And when they would show up at the races, they were just dead.
For older, more mature riders like me, however, Bjarne’s system was perfect.
There was a lot of thinking and planning behind the training programs. And then, of course, when it came to diet and equipment, Bjarne was really ahead of his time.
With CSC, we always had our time trial bikes set up and ready to go at the first training camp early in the year. And in those camps, we always had split days with two rides. We would ride on our TT bikes for two or three hours just to get used to riding in a time trial position for extended periods. You know, it’s funny. Even late in my career, I still would see teams putting their time trial bikes together the night before Paris-Nice in March. That just killed me! I’d be like, “Are you kidding me? Are you really that stupid? You’re just going to give up five or ten seconds like that because you’re not prepared on the tech side?” Heck, Paris-Nice is often won by five or ten seconds! It never ceased to amaze me how unprofessional some professional teams could be.
Today, a lot of teams have become more sophisticated with their training and technical development, but Bjarne was definitely one of the first.
And after some teams began catching up to us in terms of technology and equipment, Bjarne really started to focus on food and diet. In the beginning, we had plenty of cookies and goodies. But after three or four years, we really focused on eating right. Specialists came in and lectured us on fats, for example, and how the body breaks those down. And we were one of the first teams to have a truck with our own kitchen that would follow us around to races, cooking healthy meals.
For a few years, all this attention to detail, be it in training, diet, or equipment, gave us a huge advantage on the road. Afterward, other teams took the same approach, such as the Highroad/HTC team and Team Sky after that. But you can only benefit from marginal gains like that for a couple of years before other teams catch up to you.
At the end of the day, the circle is round. You can shape it into an ellipse for a moment, but it is round. A bicycle has two wheels. You’re not going to completely rework the idea. But Bjarne was always looking for an edge. He used to say, “Training hard is easy. Training smart is the hard part!”
To be honest, I was never consumed entirely by such fine points. Perhaps that’s one reason I never won the Tour de France. Perhaps I wasn’t consumed enough with the endless details. That’s a choice you have to make as a cyclist. Perhaps the guys who win the Tour de France are the guys who are capable of taking everything they do to the point of perfection. But if you dedicate yourself to achieving perfection, you probably won’t have time to go fishing. You’ll never have time to go for an ice cream because, well, ice cream is poison for you. You’ll never have time to go to the swimming pool with the kids, because sitting in the sun isn’t good for you, or the chlorine isn’t good for you.
I just could never think 24 hours a day about training, stretching, core-muscle training, and diet. I loved cycling and was dedicated to my profession, but it was always important for me to have a life, as well. And if that meant I needed to sacrifice 1 or 2 percent, then I was willing to do that to gain some quality and balance in my life. I was already a father by the time I turned professional. Family was always important to me. Cycling was not my only priority. I also wanted to be a good dad, a good friend, and a good husband and to give the people I loved a place in my life. Also, I come from the country. I come from a simple life, and I always wanted to keep life as simple as possible. Start out simple, because life will get complicated enough by itself.
I was also fortunate that I had a pretty high metabolism and never had to struggle to make weight like some riders do. As the years went by, with all the kilometers in my legs, well, weight just wasn’t an issue. And a lot of those kilometers were spent on the front. Let me tell you, when you’re riding tempo on the front for your team, or when you’re in a breakaway, you’re burning a lot more calories than when you’re sitting in the pack looking pretty.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to spend a lot of time focusing on the details. I always trained hard, and that was always enough for me to show up at races and be competitive without worrying about every single w
att I was producing. To me, it always came naturally. I was lucky in that regard, because I just couldn’t obsess over details.
You know, I do have an SRM system on my bike. It even has my name on it. But for years, I actually refused to use an SRM in races because I just didn’t want a computer telling me that I was about to explode in 20 seconds. If you’re an experienced bike racer, you already know that!
By the time I moved to Team Leopard in 2011, I was definitely more in the maintenance mode. I mean, when you reach 36, 37, you’re not going to improve. At that point in your career, if you can just stay at the same level, it’s a success. In fact, later in my career, I was sometimes lazy about sending my data to the coaches. But as long as I showed up ready to race, everyone was happy. Team trainers have to follow 24 or 25 riders at one time. So if they don’t have to worry about a guy like me, then that just makes their job easier.
SACRIFICE
“I am not accepting defeat here.
I do not accept this!”
Jens as seen by Stuart O’Grady (teammate on GAN, Crédit Agricole, and CSC):
Jens was nothing if not the ultimate teammate. I’ll never forget the first time we met him at a training camp. He showed up with the funny haircut and his funny accent and, all of a sudden, started throwing out these Australian expressions he’d learned from racing down under. We hit it off immediately!
Soon enough, he moved down to Toulouse to be closer to the boys, and he fit right in. We trained hard and we barbecued hard. We would go out and just smash ourselves on the bike. Back then, training was not so focused on specific intervals and stuff. We just went out and, BANG, someone would attack. It was basically a full-on race every day, but just among ourselves. And right away, you could see that he just had this massive engine.
Bloody hell! With Jens, there are just so many stories, because he was always there when you needed him. I don’t know how many times our job would be to cover the early breakaways in a race, and he was always there. He was just relentless! When you’re covering the early breaks, you have to follow all the attacks. Sometimes I would just need a break to recover. But when I would look up, Jens was still going! I swear he was attacking his own shadow sometimes! You just couldn’t stop him!
Perhaps our best moment came in the 2001 Tour de France when I had the yellow jersey, and then Jens got in a breakaway and took it himself. I was just so happy! There wasn’t anyone else in the whole peloton that I would have preferred to pass it to than Jens. He just gives to everyone. He gives so much out, so I was so happy be able to give something back to him.
In some ways, our careers were very similar. We both left Crédit Agricole the same year, and then in 2006, we joined up again at CSC. By that point in our careers, our roles started to change, and the team would often need us to simply ride tempo on the front to protect the interests of one of our team leaders. And again it was often Jens and me. We bonded even more then. I don’t know how many kilometers we shared at the front, but it was astronomical! We made a pretty cool team.
So when I say that he was the ultimate teammate, he really was, because, well, you could just rely on him every day from January until October.
I had a lot of great times helping my teammates win races, but probably my greatest moment on the CSC team came when my buddy Bobby Julich won the Paris-Nice race in 2005. I’ll never forget going into the final stage in Nice. I had the green points jersey, and Bobby had the yellow jersey. But we didn’t have any teammates left in the final kilometers of the final stage.
Now the final stage of Paris-Nice almost always finishes on the Col d’Eze, this mythical climb outside Nice. Some years we finished with an uphill time trial, but in other years, like in 2005, it was the final climb of the race. And since the race is often decided by seconds, everybody knows this is the last chance to turn the tables. So there we were, going up the Col d’Eze. We knew we were going to be attacked heavily, but there was nobody there to help us out!
First Franco Pellizotti attacked, then Davide Rebellin attacked, then Alejandro Valverde attacked. Then, anybody who had anything left at all after a week of racing attacked. Pretty soon guys were going on all sides. It was crazy! But I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to let anything happen to my friend Bobby! I was the last man between disaster and glory. And I just said, “Bobby, I’m not going to let anything happen so that you lose the jersey on the last day! It’s just not going to happen! We’re not going to let any of them get away. I’m going to bring each one of them back one by one!” And that’s what I did. It was just one of those moments when I said, “I am not accepting defeat here. I do not accept this! Not for Bobby!”
Bobby sacrificed himself many times for me and my success, and I was determined to make it happen for him. This was going to be his day. It was my moment to show loyalty and friendship to him, and I knew that his wife, Angela, and his daughter would be there at the finish line. Ending up on the podium together with Bobby and seeing the tears and happiness in the eyes of his family made it all worthwhile. I have been asked many times about my best moment on the bike, and if I really have to pin it down to only one single moment, it would probably be this day. Simply it was so good to see my friend winning, and knowing that I gave it all I had to make his dream come true was really rewarding. Later, when Bobby and I talked, we both agreed that if I had wanted to, I could have attacked myself and taken the stage win and the overall win myself, but that made our moment together even better. It was clear that I did it for our friendship and not for selfish reasons. Needless to say we are friends forever.
For me, winning Paris-Nice that year was right up there with winning the Tour de France with Carlos Sastre in 2008, which for any cyclist is pretty much a dream come true.
I’ll never forget that Tour. We were so strong that year. Not only did we have Carlos but also we had Frank and Andy Schleck, not to mention Fabian Cancellara. Honestly, I think our worst rider on the team, our weakest link that year, was a Tour de France stage winner. We were just so strong that year that it felt like riders were afraid to attack us. That’s the kind of depth we had. We had the power of numbers working for us. And we made good use of it! We intimidated the competition and shut down the breaks whenever we wanted. Oh, those were the days when cycling was just easy and fun!
But, obviously, cycling is rarely easy and fun. During my years at CSC, we were often considered the best team in the world. Yet winning the Tour de France was another story. While we often placed well, victory was elusive. That all changed in 2008, of course.
From the beginning of the season, Carlos Sastre was our designated leader for the Tour. Carlos had finished fourth the year before, and we really thought he had a chance to win. The first time trial was short, so we knew he wouldn’t lose too much time early on, and then he would really be able to go on the attack once the race hit the mountains.
But Frank and Andy Schleck were coming on strong, too. Frank, in particular, was just racing brilliantly. He pulled to within a second of the Australian rider, Cadel Evans, who wore the yellow jersey on the last day in the Pyrénées. Then Frank grabbed the jersey on the first stage of the Alps.
I’ll never forget the stage that finished up the Hautacam climb in the Pyrénées. We had great tactics, and we had the legs to carry them out. As a result, we just blew the race apart, and a lot of our rivals lost time to us.
The race went over several key climbs before the finish, including the legendary Tourmalet Pass. As planned, Fabian Cancellara got in the early breakaway so that he could be in a good position and wait for us once we got over the Tourmalet. And I have to say, I was having one of the best days of my life. My job was to set a strong tempo on the Tourmalet to put pressure on challengers. I knew I had Frankie, Andy, and Carlos on my wheel, and my job was to drive the pace as hard as possible with them tucked right behind me.
Those days, when I was able to really turn myself inside out for the team, for my friends, go down as some of the greatest moments of my
life. I was just enormously proud! And when it happens on a climb like the Tourmalet in a race like the Tour de France, wow, it doesn’t get better!
The adrenaline rush is incredible! You’re swarmed by fans all around, yelling at the top of their lungs. Hands are reaching in from all sides. There’s just a police motorcycle in front of you, opening this sea of people. Yet all this time, you have to be focused on your job, on taking your teammates up the climb smoothly. You have to come out of each turn smoothly and not accelerate until your teammates have also exited each turn. You’re sort of in a tunnel, driving the race, but the race is the Tour de France. And you know your teammates won’t forget it. These are just goose-bump moments that you will remember forever. You know that in the preseason training camps the following year, people will look back and remember those rides.
Once I hit the summit, I knew big challengers like Spain’s Alejandro Valverde had already been dropped, so I went as hard as I could down the descent until we caught Fabian Cancellara, who seemingly just went even harder. Down into the valley and up again at the start of the final climb, we were just driving it. At one point, Bjarne even came on the radio and said, “Ah, Jens, are you okay? There’s still a fair amount of racing left.”
And I was like, “No, I’m good here. Trust me!”