Bradley Wiggins: My Time

by Bradley Wiggins

  There’s another story about when they were riding team time trials at Motorola. Sean was legendary on those stages; the other guys used to be really afraid of how hard he would make it for them. In one of them, Andy Hampsten, who was the Motorola leader at the time, wasn’t able to come through. Every time Sean did his turn and put the gas on a little, Andy would be screaming at him to slow down. Eventually Sean cracked; he turned round and said, ‘Fucking Andy Pandy’, and from then on that’s what he kept calling him.

  There was a tale George Hincapie told me about the first time he raced with Sean at Motorola, in the Tour DuPont in the USA. It was probably 1995, Sean was riding on the front, the pace was full on up these rolling hills, and George was struggling a bit, maybe forty, fifty riders back in the field. He said at one point he looked up and he could see Sean peeling back off the front and coming back down the line. Sean saw George and he said, ‘Hey boy, what the hell are you doing there? Get to the front you …’ And the thing was that George didn’t argue with him, he just did it. Sean had that authority and respect from everyone. He led by example. But he’s not an intimidating person at all, in spite of that aura he had.

  Sean never tries to push himself forward; he never does what some former riders do, which is to tell you how good they were in their day. He tells his stories and he’s clearly proud of what he did, he really is, but he doesn’t try to put himself in the limelight. I know that everything I’m doing he would love to be doing too, but not in a way where it’s about him. He would love to have been out there with us, riding on the front at Paris–Nice, Romandie and Dauphiné, the way he did at 7-Eleven and Motorola.

  When he does his job he just wants to see the riders succeed. He’s never critical. All he asks of people as a directeur sportif is 100 per cent commitment, to give their all, and as long as they do that he’s happy. As we went into the mayhem of the Tour de France, it was Sean who would be guiding us from the Team Sky support car. And I wouldn’t have asked for anybody else in that front seat.

  The particular feeling of confidence I have had in my best years is a hard thing to explain. It’s not confidence that you are unbeatable but confidence that you have done the work to the maximum of your ability, and all you have to do now is empty the tank, be the best athlete you can, and accept what you get from it at the end. I knew coming up to the Tour that what was ahead of me was not going to be pleasant, but it was what needed to be done. It was certainly not going to be nice. In fact, it was going to be horrible. There was going to be no showboating on climbs; it was going to be a matter of suffering in the last kilometre of a mountaintop finish when the guys around me were getting dropped.

  I knew I had done the work that would enable me to do that. Going into a race knowing you’ve got the form is completely different to when you don’t know and you’re just hoping you’re going to do well. The interest from the media was quite enjoyable at times in 2012; I kept reminding myself that I was the favourite for the Tour and everyone was saying that. There’s not many people who go into the Tour de France with everyone saying they are odds-on to win. It’s quite a big mantle to wear because you have to deliver, but I was confident we could go on as we had all year. I was trying to enjoy that experience as much as possible rather than let it get to me and say, ‘Uh oh, I don’t want to be the favourite.’ You have to accept it and get on with it. It wasn’t going to change how we were going to race. The year before I was trying to shrug it off a little bit; I got a bit defensive when I was asked about getting on the podium – I’d had so much of it in 2010. It was the total opposite this year: everything was based on logic, evidence, rational thinking and questioning. So if you’re asked, ‘How do you feel about being favourite for the Tour?’ you can only say, ‘Well, I have won all these races this year. It’s reasonable to say.’

  I felt relaxed and businesslike. There were good reasons to be confident: the team we had built, the way the guys in that team had been riding, the fact that Andy Schleck wouldn’t be at the Tour and neither would Alberto Contador who had been banned since February, which meant that there were two less riders to worry about. All those factors add up and give you greater confidence and belief. They don’t create pressure. I never started thinking, ‘Oh no, everyone’s going to be watching me.’ Pressure is what comes when you realise you haven’t done the work and think, ‘I may fail at this.’

  Things had gone just as well back in 2009, but there was a big difference in 2012. Three years before I had nothing to lose because nothing was expected of me; in 2012 the stakes were far higher. In 2009 I could have cracked on the Ventoux the day before Paris, finished 9th overall, and still have run top ten in the Tour, which would have been fantastic. I was in that relaxed state of mind you have where there is nothing to lose and everything to gain. By the last week of that Tour I was going to finish top ten in the Tour whatever happened; no British cyclist had managed that since Robert Millar in 1989. Now, however, we were trying to win the Tour. Finishing 2nd would have been a fantastic result, finishing on the podium at the Tour would have been great, but we were trying to win the Tour. There was a hell of a lot more to lose; if I flopped the inevitable questions would have been asked – Could you have done less in March? Did you peak too early? Is that the reason why it didn’t work?

  What lay ahead in the next three weeks was completely different to what I’d had to do in Beijing. Racing on the track is largely a numbers game, certainly in the timed events and sprints where Great Britain excels. You know if you have a certain power output in training, that that will give you a certain time for a certain distance on race day and you can win, because no one else out there can do 4min13sec for a 4,000m pursuit, for example. It was the same with the team pursuit, and it’s similar for Sir Chris Hoy, Jason Kenny and Philip Hindes in the team sprint. They know the time that means a medal.

  The data we had been working on for road racing in 2012 was not power output or speed, but VAM (see here). The average VAM for a big climb on the Tour in 2010 was 1,530–1,600: 1,530 on Plateau de Beille, 1600 on l’Alpe d’Huez.

  VAM is a measurement that has to be treated carefully. It depends on the length and steepness of a climb – a shorter, steeper climb, such as the summit finishes in the 2012 Vuelta, will have a higher VAM, well over 2,000m/hour – but it depends on wind, heat, altitude and whether you are solo or in a group. What can be said is that in comparable conditions for the same climbs, VAMs are lower than in the recent past, pointing to cleaner cycling. On the penultimate day of the Dauphiné, on the Col du Joux Plane, we had been climbing at about 1,630 VAM. The critical thing for us is that there aren’t many riders these days who can go that fast, and there weren’t many who had been able to stay with us on that stage. So that gave me confidence that physically I was in the right place at that time.

  The catch, however, is that the Tour is not just about the numbers. Our job now was to take those numbers, the physical ability they represented, and perform day after day after day. Whatever the numbers may say, no matter how good they look on TrainingPeaks or on your SRM box, there are things in the Tour that you simply can’t control, which I was very much aware of after 2011. There are things you can do to make it less likely that you’re going to crash: for example, you can stay closer to the front in the dodgier stage finishes. You can get riders in your team to put you in a better position in the bunch. But sometimes in the Tour you just need luck on your side, and that’s the one thing you simply can’t account for. But there was no point worrying about whether I was going to crash out of the Tour or whatever. I never ever started to think about it. If something was going to happen it would happen and I would have to go home.

  That sense I had that things were going my way was reinforced the moment I landed in Belgium to begin the Tour. I’d done all that work. I was fine-tuned. I was ready to go. My body was in good shape. Given all that, I took a private jet to Liège as an investment. I made a point of paying for it myself because, having done everything I had d
one, there was no point in compromising it by getting a low-cost flight to the back end of beyond and spending half a day travelling.

  So I went out training that Wednesday, did my fine-tuning on the bike, then took a jet out of an airfield close to my home, straight to Belgium. And it was funny, I arrived, there were a few cameras snapping away and the soigneur from Sky who collected me said, ‘Cadel’s just arrived.’ He had flown in ten minutes before me, in his own jet as well, but my soigneur said that no one was there from the team to pick him up. He was getting really irate. We got straight in the car and drove past Cadel standing there with his bike next to him, I started thinking, ‘We’re at the Tour, here we are.’ And I got the feeling the race had started on the wrong foot for Cadel, even if in a very, very small way.

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  BACK IN THE MADHOUSE

  SERAING, 29 JUNE 2012: the first ‘proper’ stage of the Tour has finished. I’m feeling furious as I climb off my bike at the top of the hill, hand it to the mechanic and climb into the bus. I’m raging. The insanity of the early stages of the Tour has been rammed home: I have just been reminded it’s not going to be easy. I’m in the form of my life. All I’ve got to do is get to the open road and I can win this race. I’m confident of that. It’s infuriating to think I’ve got the legs to win the race but there are going to be so many other things coming into play in the next few days: people not giving a damn; people coming out and chopping you so you go down and then that’s your Tour over. I could lose all this because of some idiot; and I might never get this opportunity again.

  There is an element of luck in this: it’s a dogfight. I don’t like that side of it. I like having an open road and letting my legs do the talking. There are riders who are going to get dropped and they are getting in my way; it’s a selfish way of looking at it but that’s how it is. I could lose all this in one little crash. Mick Rogers was riding right behind me; someone rode into him with 20km to go and that was it; Mick lost four minutes. Your Tour could be over on day one through something as simple as that.

  In the first week of the Tour there are times when it’s an absolute lottery whether you crash or not, unless you are in the very front line of the peloton. I had left the Tour in an ambulance in 2011, but that wasn’t on my mind: this was the year that counted. That’s why I was raging. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Oh God, I remember what the Tour’s like. This is going to be how it is every day now.’ I was coming in as favourite; part of me thought the other riders would give me space. In all those other races we’d been given quite a bit of respect in the opening stages, so it was a bit of a shock on day one: you know what, actually no one cares. There was a lot of frustration. I realised: ‘You’re going to have to fight for this. Not in the physical sense as in when they start attacking you, but you’re going to have to get stuck in in these sprint finishes and give as good as you get’.

  The opening phase of the Tour is always crazy, chaotic and nerve-racking, and the 2012 race was no exception. Each year you come away from France and you forget how it is, because it’s only like that at the Tour. It’s never quite as hectic at other major races. Each year you hope it’s going to be better, you think the Tour was mad because it was a certain year, or because you were somewhere particular like Brittany where the roads are narrower, but every year it ends up just the same. It’s something we are used to, but it’s still incredible when you come back to it. My goal for the early part of the Tour was simply to get to the point where the way was clear in front of us. That meant either the stage finish at Planche des Belles Filles after seven days, or the time trial in Besançon nine days in. So we were in for a week of mayhem.

  For once, the waiting game for the couple of days before the prologue time trial wasn’t too tense. I always room on my own when we have nine riders at a race, so I have my music and everything with me. I like being in my own space, just enjoying my own company. The night before the prologue I was sitting in my room listening to The Jam. John Dower, who was making a film about my year, asked me, ‘How do you feel at the moment?’ and I remember saying, ‘I can’t wait.’ I was feeling 100 per cent confident and I was enjoying being favourite for the Tour. I knew I’d done the work and performed. All year, I hadn’t lost a race that I’d gone for, and that was a nice position to be in. The form guide showed I was on top of everything, so it was just a case of going out and doing exactly what I’d done before. I was relishing it, thinking I might never be the favourite for the Tour again: it is the stuff of dreams. As a result, at times I felt as if I was the one in the middle of all the chaos trying to calm everyone else down. In the pre-race press conference in Liège there were so many people there, and me saying, ‘Just get a grip, it’s only sport.’ There were all these people fighting for that one interview, and I wanted to say, ‘We’ve got three days to go guys, let’s relax; yes, I’m the favourite for the Tour, it’s brilliant, I’m honoured to be here.’ It was madness. And I felt like the sane one in the middle of it.

  I was probably more relaxed than I’ve ever been going into the prologue, which took place over 6.4km in the centre of Liège. I had been so consistent in these shorter time trials in 2012, in spite of not having trained specifically for them. Bizarrely, when I used to train to try and win them, I had been less reliable. The day was all about winning the GC (general classification) race within the prologue. I knew I was the best over the distance out of the guys going for the overall, so it was almost a question of how much time I could take out of the others. I had the fastest time on the board for a while, until Fabian Cancellara came in and did better, but he wasn’t expected to feature over the long-term as he struggles in the mountains. Critically, Cadel ended up ten seconds behind me. The first skirmish was over and I’d gained time on all my main rivals, which set me up for the next few days. That created a little bit of a hierarchy within the peloton straight away, and with the other Sky riders packing well behind me – Eddie 5th, Froomie 11th and Christian 26th: we were well placed in the team standings. That in turn meant our support car would be close to the front of the convoy – in the Tour the order of the cars is decided by the team rankings – guaranteeing us quick service if we had any problems. It’s a small thing, but they all count.

  The madness began on Sunday afternoon as we came down the canalside into Liège towards the finish of the first stage, which was a few kilometres uphill into Seraing. Froomie and I went through the same pothole in the road; he punctured and lost over a minute, but I managed to avoid a flat. I was a little further back than usual when the hammer went down, but Bernie moved me up close to the front, and then I was able to work my way up the outside once we all started going up the hill to the finish. That was quite a good test; I knew I had got myself to the front quite comfortably on the hill when everyone was going flat out for the finish. Looking back, I probably could have gone with Fabian when he, Peter Sagan and Eddie attacked for the stage win, but I played it safe and stayed with Cadel.

  There are various reasons why the first week of the Tour ends up the way it does. First up, there are two hundred bike riders wanting to ride at the front of the peloton. There’s no significant hierarchy in the first week of the Tour, so everyone feels they’ve got a chance to win the stage or get in the break: no one team has control because the overall contenders haven’t emerged. Crashes are the main worry. There are percentages involved; you can place yourself in the bunch, but you can be last or first in line and stay upright; anywhere in between, maybe not. Your Tour could be over in the first week, not necessarily because you fall off and break something: if there’s a crash in front of you and you can’t get past it, you can lose a couple of minutes before you know it.

  The stress is not so much when you’re just riding along; that’s like training, just chatting. The problem is when you’re doing 65km per hour down a hill with hundreds of thousands of people along the roadside, there is nowhere to go and you are in the middle of the peloton. Then it’s hard not to th
ink what will happen if someone goes down. That’s when you start braking and drifting back, that’s when you try to get to the side and move up. It’s horrible. I don’t mind admitting I’m scared at times when the race is like that. When a crash does happen, the first you know about it is when you are on the ground with a broken collarbone or something. It’s not as if you see it coming. You don’t have time to think about it; you react to it when it happens.

  Over the last few years it’s become apparent that the only way to avoid falling or getting held up is to ride on the front; that’s what most teams try to do now. This is where you get the trains going, as a whole team lines out to make the pace with their protected rider or riders at the back of the string, and the peloton sheltering behind. Riding in the trains is hard work on a team. There is a lot of concentration involved and it doesn’t always help: if you start doing it other teams will take it up as well, because everyone starts panicking. Suddenly everyone wants to get to the front, because they sense something may be happening. That’s when the craziness starts. As you get closer to the finish it gets worse and worse, to the point that something has to give and then there’s a crash.

  So all the guys who are going for the overall want to ride at the front of the bunch to keep out of trouble, and all their eight riders are trying to ride there to protect them. You might have five or six GC guys; straight away you’ve got forty or fifty riders in the front. Then you’ve got the sprinters’ teams with their eight riders in there, so that’s another forty guys. That makes nearly a hundred, or half the peloton, wanting to ride at the front. If you imagine walking down Oxford Street the last weekend before Christmas at the height of the shopping period and how close you are to people there – that’s how close we are. We are talking shoulder to shoulder, with no margin for error.