I'd already accomplished a minor miracle. The peloton was still lined out and, by rights, I should have seen it for the last time shortly after my crash. The last thing I needed now, as I sat in last position, trying to catch my breath, was crosswinds. But crosswinds was exactly what I was about to get.
The wind started howling at ninety degrees to the road, and, to counteract it, for shelter, riders moved alongside, rather than behind the rider directly in front. The problem with this strategy was that there was only so much room for riders to 'fan' across the road. The unsatisfactory outcome, as always, was that, instead of one long line, the group now disintegrated into several, short diagonal rows or 'echelons'. The other problem with this strategy was that the bloke at the very back – me – found himself riding harder just to stay in touch than the rider leading the remnants of the peloton, several hundred metres down the road.
The fall hadn't just hurt my morale. My body was a smorgasbord of cuts that needed urgent attention from the race doctor. Dropping back to the doctor's car in the midst of crosswind hell would have been akin to suicide, but as soon as the gusts eased, I went back to ask for dressing for a deep cut on my left arm and a painkiller. Usually, with the body under such intense stress, you ask for something to calm your stomach and help absorb the painkiller, but for some reason, now, I forgot. We hadn't yet hit the foot of the Tourmalet yet my legs were already protesting and so, suddenly, was my rear end.
At least today wasn't hot. And at least I had Bernard Eisel. Was I glad to see Bernie. Usually, in stages like this, he'd be 'driving' the 'autobus' or gruppetto, seeing to it that not only he but also all of the stragglers made it to Hautacam inside the time limit. He'd forsaken that duty to wait for me. My rival for the title of worst climber in the Tour, Francesco Chicchi, tagged along. Not content with putting his own race in jeopardy or with pacing me all the way to the summit, Bernie now told me to take a drink then hand him my water bottles. I looked at him, confused. He told me to hand them over. I then registered: he was insisting on carrying my drinks as well as his own just to save me the half-kilo or so in weight which might be the difference between us sneaking inside the time limit and packing our bags that evening.
We asked for a time-check from Allan Peiper in the team car behind. Fifteen minutes. Uh oh. We reckoned that the time limit might be twenty-five minutes, half an hour at a push. That left us ten, or a maximum fifteen minutes to play with. We would be hard pressed not to lose all of that time on the climb to Hautacam and before that, there were 18 kilometres of valley road into a headwind, where we'd be at a huge numerical disadvantage. There was only one way, one place to make the sums add up and that was on the descent off the Tourmalet.
As an amateur I used to like descending. Who wouldn't? There aren't many more satisfying feelings that bombing down what's effectively a giant toboggan run, a mountain vista unravelling in front of you, the wind whistling around your ears, the bike and your body in sync, on the edge of control. But that was then; since turning professional, descending had become my least favourite part of the job and that was because of situations like this. Try taking a car to the top of a climb like the Tourmalet and racing a Tour de France peloton and, by the time you've reached the bottom two or maybe three minutes after the cyclists, you'll have an appreciation for how fast and how fearlessly pro bikers go downhill. Then imagine someone beating the peloton by two or three minutes – and your car by six minutes – not because it's fun, not because they can, but out of bare, brutal necessity. Imagine that and you'll just have imagined exactly what Bernard Eisel, Francesco Chicchi and I had to do that day.
This is what frustrates me about the general perception of sprinters. Some people don't understand – they think sprinters coast through every stage then, on a few, selected, relatively flat days, mosey up to the front of the peloton in the last kilometre and actually have to try for about 200 metres. They don't realise that, on a flat day, climbers and all-rounders can spend the entire time coasting along in the peloton, whereas my stress levels are sky-high for the last 50 kilometres. I'm putting out 1400 watts in the last 300 metres, but I'm doing 700 watts for the last three kilometres, which is akin to riding an individual pursuit on the track, having just done 200 kilometres on the road, with no break. That's a flat day. On a 'medium' or 'rolling' day, there's always a chance that it'll be a bunch sprint, so I'm constantly fighting to stay at the front and make it over the climbs, not only in the last 50 kilometres but throughout the stage. On a mountain day, then, I'm so ill-suited to climbing that I'm struggling to even make and stay in the gruppetto. Most pros in the peloton don't envy sprinters. It's nuts, the pressure we're under. It's nuts ... and I wouldn't swap it for any job in the world.
We screeched into every hairpin, almost literally brushing the mountainside. The kick out of every corner was a bunch sprint – same power output, same heart-rate, just 20 kilometres per hour quicker. We all reached the bottom, exhausted from the effort and the stress, then had to start all over again with what would effectively be an 18-kilometre team time-trial through the valley, into the headwind. Chicchi would sprint on the front for twenty seconds, then it'd be my turn, then, finally, Bernie would hit the front and stay there for two whole minutes, while Chicchi and I gathered our forces for the next desperate thrust.
The gruppetto was now around a minute away. The front group, the real race, was much, much further up the road, but one TV motorbike was still hovering close by to capture what was in danger of becoming the 'other' big story of the day – Cavendish missing the time-cut; any attempt we now made to shelter in the cars would be caught on screen and the message relayed to the commissaires.
Cav, just a bit more, a bit more ... but my arm's killing me, and my leg and my stomach ... No ... blank it out ... a few more efforts ... get in the gruppetto then you'll be all right ... gotta survive ... gotta stay positive ... gotta keep pushing ...
The voice in my head was interrupted by Allan Peiper's from the team-car. 'Come on guys, it's touch and go whether we make this time limit ...'
I love Allan, love him to bits, but how was that comment helpful now? 'Allan, fuck off ...' I spat.
As he drove off, I realised that I'd been out of order. I'd apologise later that evening.
We skirted Lourdes, hoping for a miracle, then round the back of the town and on to the climb. The crowds were now three or four deep at the side of the road, a lot in lycra, having ridden here, and a lot in the latter stages of inebriation. Some strange law of geology or road-building dictates that the first kilometre of a climb is often the steepest and Hautacam was no different. The pedals were hardly turning. I realised why: I'd changed my bike after the crash and been given a rear wheel with twenty-three teeth on the biggest sprocket. It should have been twenty-five; the gear was too big, too hard to push. Apparently there were no wheels with a twenty-five-sprocket in the car. Again, like on Stage 8 to Toulouse, I was furious. These were exactly the kind of simple, organisational errors that could cost us races or riders in the Tour de France and which Bob Stapleton wanted eradicated.
A kilometre from the top of the climb, we still didn't know whether we were going to make the time limit. Bernie had led me all the way up the mountain. I couldn't tell you much about the crowds, the weather or the atmosphere that day simply because my head was drooped over the handlebars, my eyes were glued to the asphalt and senses were completely numb. At one point on the climb, riders who had long since crossed the line started passing us in the opposite direction. Their team buses were all waiting in a car park back at the foot of the climb; those guys would be watching replays of Piepoli's big charade on the TVs in their team buses by the time we made it to the summit.
This was turning into the first really bad day of the Tour for the team. Up ahead, Kim had lost the yellow jersey to Cadel Evans. Now we were also in danger of losing two riders. The gruppetto would have meant certain salvation – today's 'laughing group' was sixty strong – and the Tour organisers always bent the r
ules when a group that size was at risk of elimination. But two riders, well, what were two riders? Even if one of them was a double stage winner.
We crept around the final bend, lurched up the final ramp to the finish line, still not knowing. The giant stopwatch above the finish line said that 34 minutes and 55 seconds had passed since Piepoli had crossed the line ... Was it too much? As I collapsed into our soigneur's arms I didn't even have the energy to ask.
The next person I saw was Dave Millar. Suddenly, I remembered the Garmin water-bottle that I'd seen lying close to the spot where I'd fallen a few hours earlier. 'Dave, your team's a fucking bunch of menaces,' I snapped.
That would make it two apologies I'd owe that night – one to Allan Peiper and one to Dave Millar. To Bernie Eisel, quite simply, I'd owe my thanks for keeping me in the Tour de France.
Stage 10: Pau–Hautacam, 156 km
* * *
1. Leonardo Piepoli (Ita) Saunier Duval – Scott 4.19.27 (36.08 km/h)
169. Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia 34.55
General classification
* * *
1. Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence – Lotto 42.29.09
158. Mark Cavendish (GBr) Team Columbia 1.44.41
STAGE 11
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
LANNEMEZAN—FOIX, 167.5 KM
MAYBE I was one very notable exception to the rule, but there can surely be few environments that require a young man to grow up as quickly as the rough-and-tumble world of professional cycling. The travelling, the hierarchies, the responsibilities – as a twenty-one- or twenty-two-year-old rookie, you don't have to visit a velodrome to find yourself on a fast track to maturity.
'Immature' or 'arrogant'? Which of those adjectives have I seen used to describe me more often? I now do my best not to look at Internet forums, but sometimes I can't help myself. Melissa's the same – except, if anything, she gets more upset. A lot of the comments that you could qualify as 'professional criticism' just make me laugh: I call myself 'fat' but that's a tongue-in-cheek way of conveying that I'm not as superhumanly skinny as some of my peers; when armchair fans employ the same term and really mean it, I just think it's risible. The personal stuff is much more offensive. When I hear that I'm a 'jumped-up little shit' it's not the insult that bothers me as much as the fact that its author is basing that assessment on two minutes of edited TV coverage when the microphone's been thrust in my face, seconds after the end of an ordeal like the one that I've just described at Hautacam. Sometimes I watch myself in interviews and I do think that I've come across as a jumped-up little shit ... but that's not me. I just wish that people wouldn't assume that a person's behaviour in the highly unusual circumstances of the end of a stage is a reflection of how they conduct themselves for the other twenty-three hours, fifty-eight minutes of the day.
Returning to the original question, I agree that I am sometimes immature. I would also argue, though, that, between me pulling out of the 2007 Tour after one week and passing the same milestone in the 2008 race, I'd evolved as much as a person as I had as a rider. 'Don't change,' my team manager Bob Stapleton's always telling me, no doubt with half a thought for the marketability of a rare sportsman who speaks his mind. 'You've got nothing to worry about ...' is usually my reply.
One thing that hasn't altered in my two and a half years as a professional cyclist is that, as far as I'm concerned, there's a certain kind of 'PR' that could easily stand for 'Pointless Rubbish'. Professional cycling's business model relies on quantity and quality of publicity to give one or more corporate sponsors brand visibility in return for the budget with which the team manager pays his overheads and wage bill. One way to guarantee a sponsor this visibility is by winning races; spouting platitudes to the media may be another ... but it's not in my repertoire. I made a promise to myself when I turned pro that I'd carry on wearing my heart on my sleeve and that's exactly what I intend to do.
The question is, can you be tactful and direct, diplomatic and honest? Over a period of twelve months since that 2007 Tour, I was beginning to learn that not only was this possible, it might also be in my interests. I was now one of the team's undisputed leaders, and, as such, needed my teammates' full commitment. There's an old saying that it's better to be respected than liked, but I've never seen why the two should be mutually exclusive; in fact, I'd discovered, it was when affection and respect were blended together that they formed the most potent mix. The Kiwi rider Greg Henderson reaffirmed this to me during the Tour of Qatar at the start of the 2009 season. 'The reason people will give everything for you, Cav, is that you don't go round with your nose in the air,' he said.
You may argue that, on the evidence of the past few chapters, there's no one less qualified than me to talk about the importance of diplomacy, but the truth is that even I now appreciate how vital it can be to cultivate goodwill in cycling. To read accounts of the Tour in the 1960s, '70s and even as recently as the '80s, you'd be forgiven for mistaking the professional peloton for a mobile mafia with wheels greased by cold-blooded 'bosses' and their bad- tempered cronies. The peloton may not have had a 'padrino' or a godfather but it always had a 'patron' or a 'boss'. The French five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault was probably the most famous 'patron' of any age; the implication was that whatever Hinault or any other 'patron' said, usually went, and if it didn't, there'd be hell to pay.
It may be different now, but more than in any other sport, a cyclist's ability to play politics can determine the outcome of his career. In football, it's hard to imagine a scenario where it pays to be friends with the opposition; by the same token, history is littered with examples of players who have traipsed from club to club, falling out with managers and teammates at each one, yet still enjoyed a prosperous career. In cycling this simply can't happen: burn bridges with your teammates and you can forget about winning races, which in turn means you can forget about scoring a lucrative move to another team, and, possibly, forget about your pro career altogether. Burn enough bridges with other members of the peloton and, in place of your race number, you may as well stick a target to your back.
My difficulty with all of this is that politics requires pragmatism, not emotion. Sometimes, and especially when my legs and head are still throbbing with adrenalin during or immediately after races, my emotion is a wild animal running amok. But I'm lucky that, the more I race and the more the other riders get to know me, the more people realise this. The other British riders in the peloton, for instance, just roll their eyes; they know what I'm like. That's not to say that there's no genuine sentiment underlying what I say in the spur of the moment, it's just that, between 2007 and 2008 I'd slowly come to appreciate the value of a mysterious quality called 'tact'.
Occasionally, when I look back at interviews I've done or things I've said, I'm nothing short of horrified. That's the case when I think back to one of the first races after the 2007 Tour – the Tour of Britain. On the first day, I'd won a 2.5 km prologue time-trial around Crystal Palace in south London to take the yellow jersey, then defended it with another win the following day in the next stage, this time in Southampton. Just to bear out what I said about the other British riders knowing that, with me, it's all about taking the rough with the smooth, having been expertly set up by my T-Mobile teammate, Roger Hammond, I'd come across the line whooping 'I love you, Roger' at the top of my voice.
The next stage, heading into Exmoor and finishing in Taunton, was to be decisive in the battle for overall victory in Glasgow four days later. With a course as hilly as the one that week, I was never likely to be a factor in that battle, but I still set about defending my yellow jersey by sending my teammates to control the race in the first half of the stage – which is what they did until a small climb signalled the start of hostilities. As I rapidly lost contact, I couldn't help noticing how many riders from small, semi-professional British teams were disappearing up the road along with my chances.
I finished that stage in thirty-fourth place, just over ten minutes behind
the leaders, tired and frustrated. On my way back to my T-Mobile team bus, I rode past the car belonging to the Great Britain national team and spotted the familiar face of John Herety – one of the coaches who had interviewed me for a place at the Academy in late 2003. I also recognised a journalist from a British cycling magazine sitting next to John in the passenger seat. This ought to have been my cue to save whatever I was going to say for later that evening and the team hotel; instead I thoughtlessly mouthed off about how 'the British riders have no respect for the yellow jersey ...'
I can't stress this enough: looking back, I'm horrified. I can't imagine what I was thinking. Maybe that my team had been setting the pace on the front all day and that, to show their appreciation, everyone else in the race should have respectfully clapped us in to the finish; or that, as the new darling of British Cycling, I should be allowed to coast all the way to Glasgow in the yellow jersey, applauded and adored by a doting public. Whatever I was thinking, it was immature garbage which completely ignored the fact that cycle racing may be political and it may be tactical, but the clue was still in the name – it was cycle racing.
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