Higher Calling
Page 26
Its story is much less well known. The inscription on it reads: ‘En mémoire du Gaulois P. Kraemer décédé an Ventoux le 2.4.1983. L’Union des Audax Français’. (‘In memory of the Gaul, P. Kraemer, who died on Ventoux 2.4.1983.’) The Gaul Pierre Kraemer takes us away from the pros and into the amateur ranks again, and I know it’s late in the day, but I wanted to introduce him here because his life and death tell a different story to Tom Simpson’s – both about Ventoux and about cycling itself.
Pierre Kraemer was not a famous man, but he was a celebrated and much-loved member of the French Audax Union, the brotherhood of amateur long-distance cyclists who participate in, among other events, the historic 1,200-kilometre Paris–Brest–Paris ‘brevet’ ride. Pierre had completed the PBP multiple times, as well as many of the other classic long-distance brevets, some of them over distances of more than a thousand kilometres. They are undertaken not for glory but for camaraderie and the love of cycling, and this seems to have summed Pierre up. He was known for his generosity to less-experienced riders, his cheerfulness and his work as a ride captain – organising groups and making sure everyone was on the right road at Audax events. There’s a photo of him as an older man floating around on the web. He is still blond, and it’s easy to see from his Asterix-like handlebar moustache why he is nicknamed ‘the Gaul’. Compact and stocky, he is wearing a blue short-sleeved jersey. In his oily hand he holds a glass litre bottle of milk, half drunk, which he rests on his leather saddle. Another rider, mostly out of shot, has his arm round him. It is sunny and Pierre is smiling.
At the age of 56 – not all that long after that photo, perhaps – Kraemer was told he had an incurable cancer. In April 1983 he decided to climb Ventoux one last time. And there, near the top, where the road ran into a snowdrift, he got off his bike, sat down and let the cold take him away. They found him later, buried under a metre of snow. Or that, from the tributes I found to him on the internet, from Audax friends who clearly knew him well, was what I thought happened. I wrote a small article telling the story and paying respect, I thought, to an extraordinary but little-known cyclist who deserved remembering. And that was that. Six months later, I was contacted out of the blue by a member of his family. That’s a lovely piece you wrote, ran the email, but were you a friend? The family knew nothing of his cancer …
I was horrified. The last thing I had wanted to do was spread misinformation through the echo chamber of the internet. However, there were enough tributes to Pierre that I had assumed it was both common knowledge and true. We corresponded, I showed his niece what I had found, and we talked about taking the article down. She said that the family had never understood why Pierre had climbed Ventoux that Easter, because he had been warned about the bad weather. They had believed his death had been a tragic misadventure.
She filled me in with scraps and details of his life. How Pierre was a one-off and a non-conformist, a man who would think nothing of answering his front door in a Paris suburb – and then cooking and eating a meal – only wearing pants. The model of him riding his bicycle made for him out of sugar by the local pâtisserie owner. His Tour de France Randonneur, a solo, self-supported trip of 4,800 kilometres and 23 days, and she sent me the account he wrote of this odyssey around France, in which he described sleeping out at night under the stars in the mountains as much because he enjoyed it as because it meant not wasting hours finding a hotel or queuing at the breakfast buffet in the morning. She also told me that Pierre was the kind of man who might have hidden an illness from his family. ‘He had the death he would have wanted,’ she said.
Pierre loved the mountains. Over a lifetime of riding a bike up and down and around and around his country, he knew them well, and had a special feeling for them. Ventoux above all. I wanted to include his story here – both the stories, actually, and I present them equally – because it spoke to me, deeply and in a way that I could not pin down, about what mountains can represent to cyclists. It also seemed important to me to record that the memorial exists, literally side by side up there on Ventoux, with another intense and profound, and yet darker, tale of man’s encounter with mountain. I had thought that there was a kind of duality in Simpson’s and Kraemer’s stories, and that Pierre as a figure was a counterpoint to Tom. Kraemer, with his two stories, complicates that somewhat, but I don’t think it makes it any less true. The top of Ventoux can be a miserable and desolate place. The final footage of Tom Simpson’s last ride shows a man being propelled jaggedly into a desperate, lonely oblivion. Whereas Pierre’s stories speak of a love. A harsh and inhuman love, as hot as the sun on the white rocks and as cold as the snow and the wind. Dangerous and capricious, but a love, nevertheless.
After the Bonette Giro stage had finished and the race had passed, I found myself sitting in the gîte, alone in the calm. I should have been going back down to Nice, but after the ride up and down and the iPad finale I was a puddle on the floor. I was exhausted and I didn’t make it off the mountain that night, so I took single occupancy of the 16-person dormitory and awoke in the sunshine on the empty mountain.
Usually, a mountain the day after a race is a strange place. All the animation and life – all Michele Acquarone’s parties with the tifosi – have gone, and there is a peculiar hiatus while the natural tranquillity re-establishes itself. But there hadn’t been much of a party here for the Giro. No crowds. It had all happened on the road, and that had not disappointed. The mountains had given us everything. On the penultimate climb of the penultimate day of the Giro the battle had been lost and won. There had been the final fight for the King of the Mountains jersey. The breakaway for the stage composed of first-class climbers, and then the multiple attacks that whittled them down to just a handful vying for the stage. Astana and Movistar, meanwhile, playing tactically perfect games in the GC battle. The down-and-out champion who rose again to claim his crown. Nibali’s joy, Italy’s joy. Kruijswijk’s suffering and the slow-motion heartbreak for Chaves who, at his absolute limit, had to watch as centimetre by centimetre Nibali pulled away and won the race. Astana had waited and waited to attack, it had come right down to the wire. We may not live in those gilded days of Vietto and Bahamontes and Coppi and their like, but here had been derring-do and endeavour and panache, and an indication that there may yet be new myths to be made. That the mountains will keep on giving.
And then there had been my own personal race – by which I mean Joe’s. For me, there had been a sense of inevitability to some of what had happened. Not that I’d been presumptuous enough to think anybody could be a dead cert for a podium, or even a good showing, on a stage of the Giro. But everything had been leading to this, the stars had been aligning, it was going to be a culmination. Everything I had seen and I had found out in that past year, everything he had shown in the race to that point demonstrated the preparation, the focus, the plan and the ability to execute it. And then almost – but not quite – making the world conform to your will. And it would be unfair to burden anyone with comparisons to legendary performances by cycling greats, but something that Giro, that day, had changed for Joe. Soon, he might be calling the shots on these highest mountains; soon, on this showing, he might be the marked one, the one people would follow.
But what was it that happened in that maelstrom on the mountain that we TV spectators did not see?
‘It wasn’t particularly civilised in the break,’ Joe tells me on Skype, a month or two later. He was luxuriating in a bit of off-season time at home in the US. I was still in France. ‘Nieve was up ahead and Atapuma was attacking on Bonette, which seemed a little bit, I don’t know, stupid. It was pretty windy and there was so far to go, I didn’t understand the point of it, but nobody really wanted to let him completely ride off. I don’t know why we couldn’t have ridden in a civilised fashion, because ultimately it was going to come down to the final climb. We had quite a bit of leash and even if we were messing around, it was quite obvious we weren’t going to get taken back unless we were really crawling.’
‘Visconti started riding a stiff tempo and I was on his wheel, we rode pretty hard for about five minutes. It was pretty steep, and I was thinking, this climb gets easier as we get to the top, so to me it makes sense to make a selection here where it’s steep. When it gets flatter it can turn into a tactical thing and guys start jumping around. If you think you’re the strongest just go when it’s hard and don’t look back.
‘So I went pretty early and for a while I was alone,’ Joe continues. ‘Atapuma started coming across and eventually he made it, but the problem was I couldn’t get him to pull. I was trying to tell him, “You and I are the strongest here, if we work together we’re not going to come back, and the worst-case scenario is you’ll be second. But you might win! But if we don’t work together and we mess around then we have to deal with six guys … and it turns into a bit more of a lottery.”
‘I couldn’t get him to pull and he was just sitting on, and I didn’t just want to pull him into the headwind. Looking at it retrospectively, and a couple of people said this to me, if you think you’re the strongest there – and it looked like you were – you should just keep riding and eventually he’ll probably get dropped.
‘Ultimately, if I could do it again I would have done it differently. Taaramäe came back, and because he was dropped early on, you think, oh well, he’s not that strong, we don’t have to worry about him in this instant. Then Atapuma and I were so focused on each other Taaramäe chipped off the front. There was a moment’s hesitation, and that was the gap. He had a little gap and went over the top, we continued to jump around behind and that was it.’
When Visconti did make good on his promise and dropped back to help Valverde it left Joe safely in third position: ‘I remember coming down the Italian side of Lombarde, and maybe this sounds weird, but I was actually just taking it all in. This was the last few kilometres of my first Giro, this is one of my favourite roads, I think it’s one of the most beautiful roads I’ve ever ridden. My parents are at a kilometre to go, I’m a few kilometres away from them. I know I’m not going to win the stage but I’m also not going to get caught. I’m third, it’s going to be what it’s going to be. I’m going to enjoy this. Have fun on this descent then smash it up the last little climb to the finish.’
In a post-race interview Joe described losing the stage as ‘heartbreaking’, and as we talk he expands on that immediate feeling: ‘Man, I honestly felt like I was the strongest guy, and it seems like on a stage like that, if you’re the strongest, to not win is a real loss. You ask yourself, what did I do to lose the stage? It was really weird, I remember my head was spinning.’
It was one of a number of close calls with glory in that Giro, he says, but I put it to him that a podium at the Giro, even a third place, has proved something. It shows he’s shifted gears. ‘I think so,’ he replies, ‘And to be honest, looking at that specifically, at my Giro as a whole and even the season as a whole, I look at it positively because with any season there’s always ups and downs. There’s ups and downs within a race, there’s ups and downs in a stage, even in one climb!
‘I didn’t end up getting my stage win, but since I changed teams it’s been a steady build. Last year at the Vuelta the plan was to get through it and get the experience of doing a three-week race. There were times I was kind of there in the Vuelta, but I remember in the [Giro in the] Dolomites, I think it was the first time I could consistently follow the best six, seven, eight guys. It seemed like on the mountain stages I was always the last guy there who wasn’t on GC.’ He continues: ‘It was the first time I was like, wow, I’m there. You sort of see over three weeks where you are in the pecking order. It’s easy to overlook that [looking in from the outside] because a lot of times that never shows up in the results, but when you’re in the race you see where you fall more, and I think I’d made a lot of progress. Looking at last year, I could never really be up there, and this year I was there consistently. So if you build on that, maybe next year you target a top 10.’
Calm and thoughtful, as he’s always been in our chats. And he is on an upwards trajectory, which seems fitting.
There’s only one place this book can end, and that’s on top of the Bonette, and so here I am at its foot. Writing this book has meant, as books do, a lot of stillness and a lot of time in the library. Plenty of time in the mountains, yes, but hiking and driving and writing and comparatively little riding, and I have lost much of my fitness, that feeling of grace riding uphill you only get when you have ridden hard and lots and beyond what is reasonable for a long time. But I have explored further and dug deeper and seen more, and that feels good.
Besides, there is still time for one final climb this year. At the Pont Haut the ‘Col Closed’ sign is up, but the barrier is not lowered and there is light enough to make it to the top. I ride up away from the grids and the lines of the civilised world and up into the glorious empty spaces and freedom above. The road is covered with fallen leaves and spiky chestnut shells, as if it has been abandoned much longer than a few days, and rounding a corner I surprise a chamois standing in my path. Up past the waterfall and towards Le Pra, where a 4 × 4 containing two park rangers drives past me, but does not question my right to ride up. Each pedal stroke higher is liberating. A little fragment of being, breathed in and lived to the full, at my own speed. The larch forests are on fire with colour. At Bousiéyas I break into the unblinking sun, a crystalline light so piercing I wonder if it is actually this and not the wind that is chilling me to the bone. Work harder and a quickening of the senses, the exertion connecting me to the world below and the sky above.
At the Camp des Fourches, where the road narrows to the old soldiers’ path, there is metal creaking in the wind somewhere around the roofless huts, and I greet the bunkers peering down on me like old friends. I wonder if the physio from the village below has made his final ascent and if this year he has beaten his rival. Higher, higher and there are stones on the road now, and winter is creeping over. Where just eight weeks ago sheep were grazing in the cirque under the peak, the ground is now covered with hoar frost that will not move for six months. The Cime will be unpassable now until May, when Aurelien and the rest of the team will come back. Up into the barren lunar heights and a final hard push. Peace within effort, freedom within restrictions. Chasing the shouting wind, soaring into the void, a small moment of forgetting, of holding hands with the infinite. Then a little zigzag between the icy tracks to make it to the col. If only to prove that, in this world where you’re always being told not to do things – that getting there is not possible, normal people take the train or drive in a car, don’t do that it’s dangerous – you are still a force, a self-determined being in the world. This is my place, all this grandeur and splendour, it is mine. Silence.
It will only take one flake of snow, a single one upon billions, to tip the balance and for this world to be shut off for another year. The moon will rise and sink, and there will be a downpouring of immense whiteness through the dark between the cathedral spires of the peaks, swallowing up trees, snapping branches, confounding rocks, and every single thing will become one. Night will succeed winter night, the shining blanket below reflecting the moon above. The marmots come out to play. Wolves pass, ibex stand above where the road once was. The stars and planets rotate slowly through the sky. The wind blows and blows and another blizzard brings soft oblivion, mute destruction, an avalanche and a rockfall. Nobody will think of this, as they ride their bikes through the fields, on the lanes, on their turbo trainers in their garages down below. But as the mornings and evenings draw further apart, something again will stir in the mind, a memory or a dream, or a memory of a dream of riding near these peaks. The thaw will begin and spread upwar
ds. Renewal, regrowth and reopening, and another season will begin and the cyclists will come.
But all that is in the future. Time now for the descent.
GLOSSARY
À bloc: Full gas.
Autobus: The French-language term for the group of slower riders, mainly sprinters and domestiques, who band together in the mountains to make sure that nobody misses the time cut. In Italian, grupetto.
Cuite: French term for bonking, cracking, hitting the wall. Literally ‘cooked’.
Directeur sportif: The sporting director, who makes a team’s strategic and tactical decisions, and looks after its performance. Can encompass anything from a manager and mastermind combined in one man to simply the guy who’s in charge in the team car on the road that day.
Domestique: A supporting rider, working in the service of one of his teammates. In Italian, gregano.
En danseuse: Standing on the pedals. Literally, shorthand for something, like in a dancer’s position.
Faire le métier: An expression that denotes learning the trade of a professional bike rider. The rituals and etiquette of riding in the peloton; the lifestyle and practices of someone committed to that path. Back when being initiated into doping was part of one’s passage into professional life, it had sinister overtones.
Gregario: See domestique.
Grupetto: See autobus.
Maglia rosa: Italian for the pink jersey worn by the leader of the Giro d’Italia.
Maillot jaune: French for the yellow jersey of the Tour de France leader. Most histories say it was first awarded in 1919 and that Eugène Christophe was the first to wear yellow.