French Renaissance
Page 27
The rain falls outside the window as the Belgian winter warms to its task. Joanne looks puzzled by the memories. ‘At the moment he died, we were in Corsica, on the beach.’ She remembers the plot of land, near Bonifacio, and the dreams for a better life there. ‘Apparently,’ she recalls a story she must have heard a hundred times, ‘we came back home from the beach and the whole village of Pianottoli-Caldarello – and my mum’s parents were there too – the whole village was there and they were all crying.’
I visualise her walking through the lengthening shadows of a hot Corsican evening, clutching her mother’s hand, taking in the pitying stares of the villagers, knowing but not yet understanding that she will never see her father again. It wasn’t until she was a teenager that the anger came, the anger at being kept in the dark and the anger at her father for being ‘so stubborn’.
And then, as a tide of frustration washes over her, Tom is with us, in her kitchen, as she berates her lost father.
‘Why didn’t you stop? You were sick . . . It was 42, 40 degrees up there . . .
‘Still you go on! Why? You had two children at home. Why do you have to push your body so far?’
She pauses.
‘Then, much later, you hear about the money. Everything is about money.
‘The director from Salverani [the team that Simpson planned to ride for in 1968] said, “Your pay will depend on your results in the Tour de France.” So it was all about money.’
The good life that Simpson had planned – the holiday development in Corsica, the new home just outside Ghent – ‘It had a Salverani kitchen,’ Joanne notes – never became a reality. And, as Joanne talks, I feel myself getting drawn back into the mythology of Simpson and the Ventoux; the grainy footage of the tiny figure laid out on the white rocks, the half-remembered anecdotes, the tales and counter-tales that, for better and for worse, have grown taller with the passing of time.
And I think how infinitely heartbreaking it must be for Joanne, sitting before me, mind racing and eyes brimming, to be unable to grasp the reality of who her father was and of what happened to him on that fated 13th day.
‘Do you miss him?’ I ask her again.
She stares at me.
‘How can you miss what you never had?’ she says.
And suddenly, her eyes fill with tears.
VIII
White sky above me, the drum inside my head, pounding.
‘Push me,’ I tell them, even as I know I can’t go on.
‘Push me.’
And then they’re all standing over me as I lay me down on Mont Ventoux, beautiful, bastard, baking Ventoux.
‘Come on, Tom,’ they say. ‘That’s enough now, Tom.’
But I’ve had it anyway. I know that now. I can’t go any further.
This is it for me. This’ll have to do.
Faces hover over me. Harry’s crouched beside me.
Then there’s a Frenchman’s voice too, shouting, all disbelief and rage and desperation.
White sky fading, drum slowing.
Helen.
I can see Helen. She’s on the beach, smiling, sunshine on her shoulders, the children swimming in the sea. They look so happy.
Give yourself a break, Tom, she says. No more pain.
The drum has stopped.
From the Yorkshire Post, 14 July 1967
TOMMY SIMPSON, aged 29, Britain’s former World Professional Road Race Champion, died in hospital at Carpentras, France, last night after being overcome by heat exhaustion in the Tour de France Cycle Race, says a Reuter report from southern France.
Simpson, Britain’s best known racing cyclist, abandoned the Tour on the steep slopes of the 6,000ft Mount Ventoux. He had been in seventh position in the overall placings after 12 stages of the Tour.
Simpson was born in Durham, but lived at Harworth, a mining village, near Doncaster, for most of his life. He went to the Continent in 1959 to seek his fortune as a professional rider, and was possibly at the peak of his racing career.
He was the first Englishman to wear the yellow jersey as overall leader in a Tour de France, and his triumphs in the road racing field have become a legend in British cycling.
Simpson had been going well on the early part of the Ventoux climb, but with less than a mile to go to the summit he slumped over his cycle and fell off.
The British team car went to his aid and Simpson, though obviously in great distress, gasped: ‘Put me back on the bike.’
He was helped back on the machine, but then collapsed again. He had difficulty with his breathing and was given oxygen before being picked up by the helicopter and taken to hospital.
Known abroad by countless thousands of cycling fans as ‘Mr Tom’, he first came to the forefront of top-class racing in 1961 when he won the Belgium Classic, the Tour of Flanders.
From that time on his racing made history all along the line. He won many classic races for the first time by an English rider, and he won the World Professional Road Title in 1965.
At his semi-detached council home in Festival Avenue, Harworth, last night, Tommy’s father, Mr Thomas Simpson, said: ‘This has come as a tremendous shock and my wife is in a state of collapse. We are considering whether or not to travel to France.’
The first news his parents had of the tragedy was when they switched on the television to see if he had improved on his overnight position in the race. Tommy moved to the village with his parents when he was 12 and because his father could not afford to buy him a bicycle of his own Tommy took a job as a butcher’s rounds boy so he could have regular use of a machine.
Married in 1961, Tommy made his home in Ghent, Belgium, and had bought a house in Tickhill ready for his retirement from racing. He has two children, Jane and Joanne.
Brian Robinson, of Mirfield, former professional cyclist and the first Briton ever to win a stage of the Tour, was a close friend of Simpson’s. He said last night: ‘Tommy was in his prime; he was well liked as a man for his character and his ability. I know the place well where Tom died. It is a hill of death.’
The four remaining members of the British team decided last night to continue the Tour. The team manager, Alec Taylor, said: ‘I knew Tommy very well and I am sure that this is what he would have wanted.’
Mr Taylor said Simpson’s widow would leave Corsica, where she and her children had been on holiday, to fly to Marseilles today.
A minute’s silence will be observed in Simpson’s memory before the Tour resumes today.
A post-mortem report said Tommy Simpson had taken amphetamines.
Autumn
I set off for the mountain once more, with half a lifetime spent writing about cycling, for better or worse, behind me. Things are different now, different from the first time, 30 years ago. I have no delusions about how fast I can climb the Giant, no dreams of a quicker time. Now, I just want to ride to the top, to cross the crucible again, to see the view from the summit, one more time.
I park the car just outside Bédoin, change my shoes and put the bike together. Ten minutes later, I begin riding towards the mountain. It’s sunny but it’s cold too, and I didn’t sleep well. Yet today I want to ride as high as I can and then keep riding, all day, until exhaustion envelops me, until it’s all I can do to drive home and slump in front of the fire.
I’ve pulled on a collage of kit, an eclectic mashup of lost and found, treasured and tainted, the bits and pieces of a life working in cycling. I am wearing a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers I found discarded on the seat of a yellow cab in Brooklyn; a Mellow Johnny’s racing cap, bought in Austin; cycling shorts with VCRC, the name of David Millar’s gentlemen’s club, on the thigh; a Cinzano jersey, long zip, that I have grown to love; an old Procycling gilet, and ancient Shimano shoes, as comfortable as old slippers, the Velcro fastening frayed and distressed.
This time I’m riding alone.
I didn’t ever expect that, the alone part. I always thought that that same group, plodding up and over the Ventoux in the July of 1987,
getting prizes under false pretences, would come together again. We’re not, though – not on, or off, the bike. We’ve been caught and then overtaken by time – distanced by kids and commitments, break-ups and bereavements, careers and cancers. I miss them, like I miss my dad, who I never took to the Tour and now wish more than anything that I had.
Dad didn’t like cycling, but he liked mountains. Before the Ventoux, before the Croix de Chaubouret above St Étienne, before the Izoard, Galibier and all the others, came the Sunday morning sorties to the Horseshoe Pass in North Wales. One Sunday, Dad drove behind us all the way, overtaking nervously from time to time, then pulling over, just ahead of us, as we rode out of Llangollen, before getting out and fiddling with his camera.
When we left him for the last time, he’d stood in the doorway of the house, in his gardening trousers, holding a mug of stewed tea, waving goodbye. Not so long after that, my mum was gone too, reduced to a terrified shadow of herself by hateful, hateful Alzheimer’s.
When we finally closed up their house, we found a box of old photos at the bottom of her wardrobe. They were mostly out of focus, or with a finger blurring the edge of the lens. But there were some taken of me, with my blue Chas Roberts bike, beaming at the top of the Horseshoe Pass. And there were others of us all, arm in arm, at the top of the Ventoux.
The moon waxes and wanes, the summers get more fleeting. We get older and wiser. We learn that our days in the sun, empowered, brilliant days, high on a mountainside, the world at our feet, are finite.
What was it they have all said of this mountain? What was that talk of exorcism, redemption and catharsis? I try to remember as I get nearer to the forest.
The gradient bites and my speed dips.
I wish they were all here still, rather than taken away, out of time, long before I was ready. My parents, those absent friends, even Tommy in that stupid bowler hat, glint in his eye, having a laugh, putting on a brave face on that baking morning in Marseille. I wish he was here still, just so that he could wipe Joanne’s eyes and hold her hand again.
I climb steadily, in low gear and with heavy heart, past the cherry orchards and the vineyards, on towards St Estève, turning into that familiar bend and its familiar pain.
I stand on the pedals and climb upwards one more time, on towards the steepest slopes of the Giant.
List of Illustrations
1. Waiting for the peloton, high on Ventoux, July 1987.
2. Dawn on Ventoux, huddled under blankets.
3. Running on empty on the final bend.
4. Hugo Koblet, the original pédaleur de charme, was as well known for his grooming routine as for his success on his bike. (Offside)
5. Louison Bobet battles it out with Ferdi Kübler on the lower slopes of Ventoux in 1955 on the way to his third successive yellow jersey. (Offside)
6. Pierre Dumas fighting to resuscitate Jean Malléjac after the Frenchman’s collapse in the forested section of Ventoux’s south side. (Offside)
7. The charismatic Raphael Géminiani is greeted by adoring fans in Monaco during that 1955 Tour. (Getty Images)
8. 13 July 1967: one final laugh in Marseille’s sweltering Vieux Port for Tom Simpson and Barry Hoban before they set off for the Ventoux. (Getty Images)
9. Simpson on the climb up Ventoux. With the financial pressures mounting, he knew he had to put in a good performance, despite the extreme heat and an upset stomach. (PA)
10. A young Eddy Merckx takes a breather on the beach at the 1967 Giro d’Italia. (Offside)
11. Nicole Cooke’s lone attack on Ventoux’s north side went almost unnoticed in the British press, but sealed victory as she became the first Briton to win the Tour de France. (Getty Images)
12. Tyler Hamilton, photographed after the publication of his book The Secret Race, remembers he had ‘the best legs I ever had’ on Ventoux in 2000. (Offside)
13. Marco Pantani edges clear of Lance Armstrong at the summit of Ventoux during the 2000 Tour de France. (Getty Images)
14. Not so mellow: Armstrong during his conciliatory meeting with former French professional Christophe Bassons in December 2013. (Offside)
15. The climb through the forest from St Estève to Chalet Reynard can be oppressive and claustrophobic in the heat. (PA)
16. Chalet Reynard, a key landmark on the southern ascent at 1,426m, with almost 500m of climbing still ahead. (PA)
17. While the summer can bring extreme heat during the Tour, the 2016 Paris-Nice race came past Chalet Reynard with snow on the ground. (Getty Images)
18. Ventoux becomes a desolate, cold place – especially when the Mistral blows. (PA)
19. Chris Froome reinforces his dominance of the 2013 Tour de France as he closes on stage victory at the summit of Ventoux. (Getty Images)
20. Froome’s desperate sprint up Ventoux towards the finish line after crashing in 2016 has already become legendary. (PA)
21. Dave Brailsford about to challenge the race jury after Froome’s crash in July 2016. After all his successes with British Cycling and Team Sky, Brailsford found himself under intense scrutiny as the year ended. (PA)
1. Waiting for the peloton, high on Ventoux, July 1987.
2. Dawn on Ventoux, huddled under blankets.
3. Running on empty on the final bend.
4. Hugo Koblet, the original pédaleur de charme, was as well known for his grooming routine as for his success on his bike. (Offside)
5. Louison Bobet battles it out with Ferdi Kübler on the lower slopes of Ventoux in 1955 on the way to his third successive yellow jersey. (Offside)
6. Pierre Dumas fighting to resuscitate Jean Malléjac after the Frenchman’s collapse in the forested section of Ventoux’s south side. (Offside)
7. The charismatic Raphael Géminiani is greeted by adoring fans in Monaco during that 1955 Tour. (Getty Images)
8. 13 July 1967: one final laugh in Marseille’s sweltering Vieux Port for Tom Simpson and Barry Hoban before they set off for the Ventoux. (Getty Images)
9. Simpson on the climb up Ventoux. With the financial pressures mounting, he knew he had to put in a good performance, despite the extreme heat and an upset stomach. (PA)
10. A young Eddy Merckx takes a breather on the beach at the 1967 Giro d’Italia. (Offside)
11. Nicole Cooke’s lone attack on Ventoux’s north side went almost unnoticed in the British press, but sealed victory as she became the first Briton to win the Tour de France. (Getty Images)
12. Tyler Hamilton, photographed after the publication of his book The Secret Race, remembers he had ‘the best legs I ever had’ on Ventoux in 2000. (Offside)
13. Marco Pantani edges clear of Lance Armstrong at the summit of Ventoux during the 2000 Tour de France. (Getty Images)
14. Not so mellow: Armstrong during his conciliatory meeting with former French professional Christophe Bassons in December 2013. (Offside)
15. The climb through the forest from St Estève to Chalet Reynard can be oppressive and claustrophobic in the heat. (PA)
16. Chalet Reynard, a key landmark on the southern ascent at 1,426m, with almost 500m of climbing still ahead. (PA)
17. While the summer can bring extreme heat during the Tour, the 2016 Paris-Nice race came past Chalet Reynard with snow on the ground. (Getty Images)
18. Ventoux becomes a desolate, cold place – especially when the Mistral blows. (PA)
19. Chris Froome reinforces his dominance of the 2013 Tour de France as he closes on stage victory at the summit of Ventoux. (Getty Images)
20. Froome’s desperate sprint up Ventoux towards the finish line after crashing in 2016 has already become legendary. (PA)
21. Dave Brailsford about to challenge the race jury after Froome’s crash in July 2016. After all his successes with British Cycling and Team Sky, Brailsford found himself under intense scrutiny as the year ended. (PA)
Acknowledgements
Thanks most of all to my family for their unflagging support during the writing of this book.
&nbs
p; Sincere thanks to my agent, David Luxton, who has been a calm and supportive influence. Thanks to all at Simon & Schuster and particularly my editor Ian Marshall, who has been both supportive and patient. He’s needed to be.
Thanks also to many interviewees, friends, facilitators, foes and informants, but particularly Peter Cossins, Pete Goding, OJ Borg, Owen Slot, Joanne Simpson, Francois Thomazeau, Tyler Hamilton, Nicole Cooke, Jonathan Vaughters, Dave Brailsford, Eros Poli, Pier Bergonzi, Éric Caritoux, Rod Ellingworth, Betty Kals, Christophe Bassons, Charly Wegelius, Christian Prudhomme, Julien Pretot, Lance Armstrong, Freya North, Bonnie Ford, Alastair Campbell, Matt Dickinson, Matt Lawton, Matt McGeehan, Tom Cary, Paul Kimmage, Jean-Louis Pages, Simon Clancy, Tim Moore, Kenny Pryde, Stephen Farrand, Ed Pickering, Gilles Le Roc’h, Daniel Benson, David Millar, Simon Mottram, Rupert Guinness, Daniel Friebe and Andrew Hood, plus the very many others from all those press rooms in all those towns.
I’ve had numerous riding, wining and dining partners over, around, and in the shadow of the Ventoux. Andrew Hodge was first and foremost, with Peter Waxman, Martin Sagar, Mark Hindley and Stuart Gillespie in our slipstream. Then came others, including James Poole, David Luxton, Ian Banbery, Paul Godfrey, Sarah Banbery, David Poole, Sarah Wharton, Steven Hunter, Cara Wilson, Duncan McPhee, Rachel Roberts, Ellis Bacon, Lionel Birnie, Deirdre Rooney, Bryn Lennon . . .