The 1996 Games were the first in history to allow professional cyclists to compete. I was the defending Olympic champion in the 4000 m pursuit – except that I wasn’t going there to defend it. Graeme Obree had won the world title in Bogotá the previous year and he got the nod ahead of me. I’d have loved to ride both the time trial and the pursuit, but I could understand the selectors’ reluctance to pick a rider whose preparation for a four-minute event had been a three-week stage race.
Unlike 1994, when it had taken me weeks to recover from riding just half the Tour, I came out of the 1996 edition feeling fantastic, ready to compete and desperate to get a result. But the season of unwelcome surprises continued. Once again our power-measuring devices told me I was in the form of my life, once again it wasn’t enough. I finished third, behind Spain’s Abraham Olano and Miguel Indurain. Even the time trial no longer seemed to belong to me. I was in a maudlin mood.
Graeme Obree had it worse in the pursuit, posting one of his slowest times ever, and didn’t make it through the opening round. His result prompted the selectors to take a punt on me for the upcoming World Championships to be held on the newly built track in Manchester at the end of August. It was my last target of the year.
Conceived as part of Manchester’s failed bid to host the 1996 Olympics, the velodrome had a difficult birth. It was a joint venture between Sport England, Manchester City Council and British Cycling, but they couldn’t agree on what the facility should be: a multi-sport stadium or a cost-effective training venue for the British team. The squabbling continued until 1992 when my Olympic success finally gave the project the push it needed. A compromise was agreed and the funding secured. I now had a world-class facility just an hour from my doorstep. The velodrome would play a pivotal role in the next two decades of GB cycling success.
After six weeks away from home, I took a rare weekend off to go camping with Sally and the kids in Barmouth on the North Wales coast. ‘Off’ meant taking a bike but only training in the mornings. Along with friends, we spent our time on the long sandy beach, daring each other to go in the freezing water. On Saturday evening, we went to a local fair where Ed and I had a go on the waltzers, which made him sick. It was a token visit to the real world before diving back into sport. I rode home.
Early the next morning, Pete Keen and I arrived at Manchester Velodrome where we’d scheduled some track time before the championships to evaluate equipment. We used power cranks and the controlled indoor environment to compare different combinations of wheels, helmets, frames and positions. Since my gold-medal ride in Barcelona, the Lotus bike had achieved mythic status, but we’d never actually evaluated what the real difference was in performance between the famous S-shaped carbon monocoque and a conventional machine. Although the original Olympic bike wasn’t available to us, we had the Lotus 110 frame that I’d been using for time trials. By swapping out the chunky aluminium rear ends, it could be converted to a track bike. We’d be testing the futuristic frame against a more conventional steel model, built by Terry Dolan from teardrop-shaped tubing and based on the bike I’d used in the Atlanta time trial. Both the Lotus and the steel prototype were married with a carbon fork/handlebar that I’d designed myself.
It was a compact component – the triathlon bars mounted directly onto the forks – and it allowed me to tuck myself low into my preferred time-trial position despite the Lotus’s full-size wheels front and back. In fact, with this set-up I could adapt to whichever sponsor’s bike GAN required me to ride. It was my first foray into the world of carbon design and I’d commissioned the small UK manufacturers Hotta to make the part for me.
Repeated trials indicated that the Lotus was superior to the steel frame. We surmised that this was partly down to aerodynamics and partly to the flexy nature of the steel with its flattened tubes. Having chosen our frame, we worked our way through wheels and helmets and eventually came to the most important thing of all, my position. You can tinker with tubes all you like, but it’s the rider that represents about 80 per cent of the frontal area and therefore the great majority of the drag. Changes here would likely have the biggest impact on speed.
As well as the handlebars I’d designed, we had another set made by Peter Cooke, a friend and engineer at Liverpool University. These mimicked Graeme Obree’s new arms-outstretched position – the ‘Superman’, as it had been christened by the media. Graeme had devised the new set-up after the UCI had banned his previous tucked configuration, and it had helped him win the 1995 world pursuit title. Having seen him profit from his pioneering thinking before, other riders were now following his lead; both male and female Olympic pursuit titles had been won using it.
I was reluctant even to try this new position because I thought a) it looked silly, and b) it somehow wasn’t proper bike riding. Balanced against my curled lip was the knowledge that a) Pete and I were supposed to represent the rational, scientific approach to cycling, and b) we’d been caught out before. So for the final test of the day, I had my triathlon bars detached from the Lotus and the steel Obree bars mounted. They were as elegant as antlers on a shark.
Once I discovered what they felt like, though, I couldn’t have cared less about the aesthetics. Within three laps of the track, and before checking any of the power data, I knew that this position was remarkable, significantly better than anything we’d tried so far. I could sense the change in speed and the increase in cadence. Without wind tunnels, power cranks, aerodynamicists or physiologists, Graeme Obree had done it again: discovered an advantage that would revolutionise the world of pursuiting. At least it would for another few months before it too was banned.
For the second day of trials, all tests were conducted using only Graeme’s position. As we worked, both Pete and I could see the opportunity that had just opened up. These three-minute efforts were being run off at 55 kph, which was hour-record pace. My 1993 distance had since been beaten four times, by Graeme Obree, Miguel Indurain and twice by Switzerland’s Tony Rominger. The 55.291 km he’d ridden in November 1994 had seemed untouchable to us, but here I was touching it in the Superman pose. To double-check, we quickly added an extra run to the schedule: a steady 20-minute effort at about the pace required to set a new record. It wasn’t definitive but it was close enough.
At the end of that day we did something we’d never done before. We decided to put the cart before the horse and attempt a new hour record as soon as possible, using the form I’d generated during the Tour de France.
That evening, I phoned Pete Woodworth to tell him of our findings and intentions. Surprisingly, he was very much against the idea and wanted to schedule the attempt further in the future, so that it could be fully capitalised on as it had been in Bordeaux. Having had my confidence in predicting form badly shaken over the last few months, I didn’t want to risk losing this opportunity. I dug my heels in. Pete, not understanding my emotional state and confident that we could reproduce this form at a time of our choosing, still disagreed. It was the first real argument we’d had and it strained our relationship severely. Two days later, after a four-and-a-half-hour meeting, Pete was on board and started to put measures in place for an attempt in three weeks’ time, eight days after the Track World Championships.
That just left the familiar conflict between the bike I wanted to ride and the one I was contracted to ride. By now GAN’s official frame supplier was Eddy Merckx, an even bigger legend than Greg LeMond to risk offending. We called Roger Legeay who flew over from France on 21 August for a meeting. As record attempts were extracurricular to my team duties, I put it to Roger that I would make this one only if allowed to set the best mark with the best equipment. Eddy was welcome to have his name and logo on the bike, even though it wasn’t one of his. Roger called Eddy, who agreed. As for Lotus, they had no say. Roger had bought the frames and could put on any sponsor’s name he liked.
My first big success of the 1996 season came in spectacular style on 29 August, in the pursuit final at the World Championships in Manchester
. It was Superman vs Superman – Italy’s Andrea Collinelli was using the position too. Collinelli started fast and died in the final kilometre, giving me the perfect lead-out to smash the world record for 4000 metres. The time of 4:11.1 stood for nearly 14 years (thanks to the UCI, who outlawed the position soon after the championships).
Celebrations were brief. The next day Pete Keen and I went back to the velodrome for a full-length trial at 53.5 kph. I circled the track to the sound of Pete’s whistle echoing around the dimly lit and now deserted space. His signal indicated exactly when I should be hitting the pursuit line if I was on schedule. Sixty minutes later we were both happy. It had been hard but not hell – we could do this.
The trial also produced some valuable information about the Obree handlebars. Unnoticeable in a 4000 m pursuit, the arms-outstretched position had caused cramping in my triceps after 30 minutes. The configuration was tweaked to roll my arms inwards and under, so as to let my skeleton take a little more of the strain. Two ‘arm breaks’ – that is, getting out of the saddle for a stretch – were also scheduled into the attempt.
A special helmet had been constructed by Giro, GAN’s official supplier, that was sculpted to fit the contours of my shoulders and back. In 1996 aero helmets weren’t required to have any protective function, so it was little more than a wearable carbon fairing. On the tip of the helmet’s teardrop tail we attached piece of velcro that stuck to my skinsuit as soon as I sat in position, making a perfect seal. Combined with the Obree position, the Lotus frame and my rounded shoulders – something I never thought I’d find a use for – it was probably the most aerodynamic package any cyclist had ever assembled.
Conditioned by the high temperatures of the Tour and the suffocating humidity of Atlanta, I was more heat-acclimatised than I’d ever been. We knew that air resistance dropped as the mercury rose – we’d had a lot of experience with that in Bordeaux three years earlier – and we experimented with the velodrome’s thermostat to see just how much I could cope with: 28 degrees seemed to be the sweet spot.
On the day, even Manchester’s air pressure joined the team effort, dropping to an unusual low and giving us a sort of altitude effect. Heat, low pressure, physical condition, aerodynamics, everything was optimal. At 6.32 p.m. on 6 September, I set off in front of a capacity crowd who made so much noise I was afraid for my hearing. Over the next 60 minutes, I produced the best performance of my sporting life. So good there’s almost nothing to say about it. There was no drama or jeopardy. I wasn’t fighting my body or the bike. The attempt didn’t hurt and yet I felt there was no faster I could possibly ride: the sensation you get when you’re genuinely peaking. By the end of it I’d beaten Rominger’s untouchable record by over a kilometre to set a new mark of 56.375 km. My form had finally found an outlet.
The post-hour party was possibly more impressive than the ride. Friends, colleagues and family gathered in a private room back at our hotel for a marathon celebration. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t last the distance, having been exhausted to start with. Eventually, long after I’d retired, Eddy Merckx announced he too was going to bed. His statement was met with a challenge from an incredulous and drunk Roger Legeay, ‘The great Eddy Merckx, abandoning? Taking off his number and giving up? Surely not.’ Suitably goaded – and also drunk – the Cannibal sat back down again heavily and took a bite out of his glass. He finished the evening wearing a Rolling Stones tie around his head singing ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’.
CHAPTER 12
The Beginning of the End
It was 4.30 in the afternoon, 12 December 1997, and I was sitting in our office in Meols with the two Petes. We’d gathered for our annual post-season debrief and planning session, and we weren’t far into it before I had a realisation.
For the first time since turning pro – since I’d begun racing – there were no suggestions on how to progress, be better, move forward. It was all about aiming to repeat successes of years past. None of us could identify any areas for significant improvement, any ‘stretch goals’ that would see me advance as an athlete. These gatherings were supposed to be our councils of war, identifying new fronts to attack. Now my team seemed to think the best I could manage was standing still. It was at that moment I lost interest in being a professional cyclist. Because I agreed with them.
We sat and plotted, but without the enthusiasm and passion of previous years. Pete Keen already had a new role as Director of Performance for British Cycling and his energy was now being channelled into setting up the World Class Performance Programme with the new Lottery funds that were flowing into the sport. I couldn’t blame him (although I did at the time). He’d started to think of life after Team Boardman and so had I.
The 1997 season had been our all-out effort – in fact, an unacknowledged last-ditch attempt – at turning me into a real GC contender. The main goal had been a high overall finish in the Tour de France, with all my preparation aimed at being able to stay with the favourites in the mountains. In order to do that I needed a higher power-to-weight ratio, and since my power was pretty good to start with that meant losing weight. To provoke my body into a fat-burning response I’d spent the first half of the year on a relentless programme of low intensity, non-stop rides of eight hours or more.
For a week in May I set off around the country to make the all-day jaunts more palatable, with Sally driving ahead to meet me in obscure places for dinner. We wound our way through the Lancashire hills, across the Yorkshire Dales and the Lakeland lanes. Each morning I’d get up early and ride off towards the next destination, often 150 miles away.
Weight loss was supposed to be a means to an end: the missing element that might help place me on the podium in Paris rather than just in the prologue. Instead it became an obsession, something I could seize on and be in control of in my otherwise unpredictable and high-pressure world. I weighed myself three times a day and monitored the calorific content of every morsel I consumed. On one occasion, after six and a half hours in the saddle, I finally pitched up at the Eureka café near Chester, the local cyclists’ watering hole, only to see the readout on my SRM computer screen showing 4940 calories burned. Instead of pulling in I rode past for a few hundred metres with my brakes on, just long enough to see it tick over to 5000.
By the time I got to July I weighed 67 kg, three kilos lighter than I had ever been as a rider. I took my second Tour prologue win, from Jan Ulrich, and with it my second yellow jersey. I wasn’t too worried when I lost it the next day to Mario Cipollini: my energies were focused on the race overall, not a few days of glory in the first week. GAN regained the jersey in any case on stage five when Cédric Vasseur escaped to win alone. The management were delighted and as the race wound its way towards the Pyrenees the team was in good spirits.
Tactically, I’d not put a foot wrong through that first week, but almost as soon as the race hit the lower slopes of the first real mountain I was dropped. It was the Col du Soulor, the same climb I’d been distanced on in the Pamplona stage of the previous year’s Tour. It wasn’t by much, only a couple of minutes at the summit, but it was enough. I knew in my heart of hearts that was it. I was never going to be a GC contender: there was no way I could keep up. It all became moot on the descent when I crashed in thick mist and sustained a back injury that would force me to retire a few days later.
It had all started so well. In 1994 there’d been three stage wins in the Dauphiné, two world titles and a yellow jersey in the Tour. In 1995 I’d finished second in the Dauphiné to Indurain himself. But from that point on my GC trajectory flattened and results in general became more erratic. Prologues were still winnable, just, but in stage races I could no longer stay with even the second tier guys on the climbs, or recover from day to day.
Pro life had soured. Somewhere along the line it had turned from being a great adventure, full of elation and discovery, to a confusing, frustrating and depressing place where results didn’t seem to abide by any predictable rules.
Earlier that yea
r, while searching for a new sponsor, Roger had drawn back from the day-to-day running of the team and engaged Denis Roux, one of his old riders from the Z-Peugeot days, to take up some of the slack. Officially, he had come on board as a coach but Denis was soon fulfilling the duties of a team manager. After a short honeymoon period he’d become a champion of the blame culture. As far as Denis was concerned, the team’s increasingly lacklustre results were all down to the riders, who were either too fat, too lazy, or too fat and lazy. The winter training camps that had seen us mix long, hard rides with drinking and fun on the rest day, were now only about training and critiquing what the riders ate. Roger didn’t actively participate in this morale-sapping approach, but neither did he step in to stop it. It wasn’t all the management’s fault, I had already turned my head to look towards retirement, to dream about what was going to come after. The atmosphere in the team throughout the following year just quickened my pace towards the door.
In the last few months of 1997 Roger had finally managed to secure a backer. But there was a funding gap. The deal with GAN ran out at the end of the season and the new sponsors, Crédit Agricole, couldn’t step in until they’d finished handling the ticket sales for the 1998 football World Cup in France. The potentially disastrous cash flow problem was finally fixed through the magnanimity of GAN, who agreed to stay on for an extra seven months, and the flexibility of the UCI, who sanctioned a mid-season change in sponsors.
The 1998 Tour would be our farewell race in the old white, yellow and blue, although I wasn’t confident of being able to come up with the parting gift of a prologue win. Perhaps I was just trying to mentally prepare myself for another disappointment, but despite my performance ambitions now being refocused purely on winning time trials I headed to Dublin for the start convinced that I didn’t have the form. A look at the circuit, though, gave me hope – and an idea. It had a nasty sting in the tail, a sharp left-hand bend less than a kilometre from home that forced riders to come to an almost dead stop before starting a shallow climb all the way to the line.
Triumphs and Turbulence Page 15