The Climb: The Autobiography

by Chris Froome

  This was Kinjah though. In essence, he had brought us all here. So I decided to voice my opinion before Kinjah was completely hung out to dry.

  They lined us up, and asked us one by one if there was anything we would like to contribute to the meeting. Too scared to say anything, everyone passed. I was the last one in the line. I didn’t hold back. I said that it was clear what was going on, and that I could see they were trying to use this situation to destroy Kinjah. As soon as I had finished speaking, all of my teammates suddenly lit up like a fireworks display and began arguing passionately.

  Kinjah was being set up. We were here to race. The meeting and the argument was not helping at all.

  The Mountain Bike Race

  The novelty of our new mountain bikes evaporated as soon as we visited the mountain biking circuit at Lysterfield Park, the day before we were due to race. When they had twisted our arms to ride the event we had asked ourselves, how bad could it be? We had grown up riding off-road so surely we could at least get around the course and finish? We could ride off on our bikes afterwards and chalk the day down to experience. But as soon as we saw the circuit, we knew exactly how bad it was. What had we got ourselves into?

  The circuit was tight. We rode around our first practice lap through the dense forest and over worryingly large rocks. Suddenly Kinjah, Kamau and I screeched on our brakes at the top of what looked like an abyss. Surely there was no way we were going to ride off this? We looked at the sides and the barriers but they were all guiding us to the same conclusion: jump off the great rock, at speed. There had to be some kind of mistake.

  We were still all looking around for an alternative route to descend when a group of other riders went steaming past. They flew straight off the edge and over the void. Kinjah and Kemau just stared at me. I stared back.

  This was quite serious now, and the course was only beginning to unfold. After negotiating the jump as carefully as we could, and down several narrow descents, we made our way on to parts of the course that were elevated on planks of wood. These wooden sections were about the width of a garden path, but raised up off the ground above boulders and trees. It scared us out of our wits. If we fell off the planks, we knew the drop was big enough to ensure that we definitely wouldn’t be competing in the road race three days later. We had never raced like this before in our lives.

  It was going to be a three-hour race for us on a 6.4-kilometre circuit from hell. We would cycle around its perimeter eight times, and we knew that it would become scarier each time; the law of averages, as applied to chancers like us, meant that if we didn’t fall off on the previous lap, we had a far greater probability of doing so on the next one.

  We cursed Mr Mwangi for getting us into another fine mess.

  I had heard that Burry Stander, a professional South African mountain biker, was in Melbourne. I knew he could help me in my predicament. Burry would later go on to become World Under-23 Cross-Country champion in 2009, and finish 5th at the London 2012 Olympics.* After a couple of sleepless nights I sought him out. I found Burry and Mannie Heymans, the Namibian mountain bike champion, in the athletes’ village.

  They took me through the course generously, even though we had some language difficulties; I didn’t speak ‘mountain bike’. This was the gist of it:

  ‘Okay. Here’s how you are going to mud-dive the swampy section. Got it? And this is how you are going to get through the rock garden full of death cookies [small rocks] and baby heads [slightly bigger rocks]. And now you have all these tricky bits. The whoop-de-do’s where you can sky. Be careful, no yard sale [a crash landing that leaves a rider and his bike scattered all over the ground]. Land badly and you could potato crisp your wheel [bend it slightly out of shape] or taco it [I could guess]. Here’s what gearing you should use. Dude. No granny gears. This hill is a bit of a roid buffer [so steep going down that your ass would come into contact with your rear wheel]. And be careful in the wooded areas that a branch doesn’t clothesline you.’

  Burry and Mannie were two very kind, open and confident guys. I took that much from them. Most of the rest was lost in translation. I thought to myself, ‘Right, I’m definitely going to give this my best shot. I’m fit. I’ve been training.’ I knew I wasn’t very good technically, but I was confident I could keep up.

  It began badly and got worse.

  Standing on the start line worrying meant that I didn’t get into a very good position. I was surrounded by hard-core mountain bikers, who were all pressed up against me. When the gun went off I was still trying to get my foot into my pedal. The riders bunched up just after the first corner and I wound up quite far back. I thought to myself, ‘Okay, just work your way through the field,’ but it didn’t work – the other riders soon vanished into the distance and I was left chasing in a cloud of dust.

  At this point, when it was already too late, I remembered Burry and Mannie’s advice: it would be vital to push really hard in the first kilometre, almost at full sprint, before the race got to the single-track section. If I was stuck behind somebody when I reached there, I had no chance of getting past.

  I pushed myself to the limit for the first two laps, chasing as hard as possible to hunt down the main pack. But I pushed too far and crashed badly. I had let my growing confidence get the better of me on the big drop-off, and ended up sprawled face first in the dirt. I picked myself up and gave myself a talking-to.

  ‘Chris, this is the Commonwealth Games. It’s a joke that you’re even competing in this race at this level. Not only are you not going to do well today, but you have a road race in three days. Accept that you are not a mountain biker; get through this. You’ve got yourself a mountain bike so just ride around. Gently.’

  I had a brief but exciting tussle with the gold and silver medallists, Liam Killeen and Oli Beckingsale, two English guys. There was about an hour of racing left and I was surprised to find that anybody was still behind me. When I realized who they were – and that they were lapping me – I was a bit disappointed, but I moved off the track politely to let them past. A couple of other riders crashed out or stopped, so I ended up making up a few late positions, finishing 24th out of twenty-six finishers (three retired).

  Kamau and I were listed as OVL (overlapped) in the final standings. So was Kinjah, but he had to be different. He had hustled himself into a good position at the start of the race and had ridden well for four laps where he stayed in the top ten or fifteen places. However, when he reached a point where he knew he couldn’t maintain the same level, he jumped off the circuit. They put OVL after his name but his thinking was that he was a DNF (did not finish). No one passed him, so no one beat him. He loved analysing things differently to the rest of the world, so he was very proud and happy after the race, telling everybody that he was in the top ten or fifteen riders* and that no one had overtaken him. He could have been a contender.

  The Road Race

  The road race took place on the 166-kilometre course around the botanical gardens in Melbourne. It was a long, lively race ridden in still, searing heat and it started very quickly. The course was twisty and the favourites were anxious to burn off the novices to ensure there would be no pile-ups at the corners. Kinjah went in an early breakaway and stayed at the front of the race.

  Tensions lingered from the time-trial meeting and again Mr Mwangi and his sidekicks chose to pull another vanishing act. We had come round to the feed zone and they were nowhere to be seen. Early in the race a Scot named Duncan Urquhart had made a break. Kinjah was still in a group of four who had caught him and the group had stayed out ahead of the field for over an hour. This was a more than reasonable achievement for Kinjah, given the week he had undergone. What people watching on television wouldn’t have noticed, however, was that every time he came to the feed zone he was attempting to recruit spectators to fill his bottles and to pass the team our food.

  He had to slow down in the zone and point to where our officials had left our bottles and food before they had answered the call o
f tourism. He would point and shout with Doppler effect as he passed: ‘Those are our bottles! Can somebody fill them? Please! And feed us!’

  Eventually he managed to enlist a number of volunteers to look after us. They were some of the other Kenyan athletes who had already participated in their events who had come out to watch us race. To make matters worse, while he was still riding strongly Kinjah had dropped the first feed bag that he had been given and had lost his rhythm. He made his way back into the group of five, but the incident and the two hours of stress, recruitment and drought had extracted a toll.

  Meanwhile, being in the front group of five and looking so distinctive meant that Kinjah had received a large amount of face time in the television coverage. In a bar or a cafe somewhere our brave officials must have spotted him and sensed that they were in danger of missing some reflected glory.

  By the time we had reached the latter part of the race the rest of us had settled into a rhythm and were set into a routine of receiving our bottles from our newly recruited support crew. However, when we came round to the feed zone for the next lap we saw that our officials had finally arrived and were putting on a wonderful show for the cameras of tending to us conspicuously. Kinjah saw red. He grabbed bottles from other riders and tables and threw them at the Kenyan officials, screaming abuse at them. The crowd loved the ‘Punch and Judy’ show which erupted every time Kinjah came back round.

  The casualty rate was high that day. Not only among the Kenyan officials. Two of the many non-finishers, partly due to the insufferable heat, included the English riders Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas. I would come to know those names well in the years afterwards.

  As the drama settled and the peloton went about its business, swallowing stragglers like a python digesting its prey, Kinjah and I were still performing well in the race. The rest of our teammates had dropped away; Kamau was the last of them to leave our Kenyan group.

  I sat back in the peloton waiting, feeling reasonably comfortable, waiting for the final break in the race. I watched Mark Cavendish making his break for glory on behalf of the Isle of Man, but he was hauled in quickly. I waited and waited and finally I had a moment that was the highlight of my Commonwealth Games. It was nearing the end of the race, on the penultimate lap, and we had reached the hardest part of the course where there were climbs. Kinjah was now out of contention and I was the last Kenyan left with any hope in his pocket.

  The peloton suddenly slowed up; it was the lull before the proverbial storm. We were on the flat but were fast approaching two tough climbs towards the end of the circuit. I thought, ‘Well, I’m close to my limit here, and I think I’m going to get dropped, so I’m going to put in one last big effort. Why not?’

  It worked extremely well. When the peloton slowed on the flat I burst ahead, hoping that I could stay out in front before the real contenders began driving hard, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to follow them.

  Here was another of these crazy Kenyans in their makeshift jerseys. Another lunatic from the unknown. They let me go. I got quite a decent gap before the climbs, I’d say I stretched it out to maybe 30 seconds.

  The Aussies had been cycling tactically all day, and hung back to see if anybody else thought I might be a threat. It was Ryan Cox from the South African team, however, who really lit things up at that point. He broke away and came across to me. It was just the two of us up front. I sat on his wheel. The commentators ratcheted up the tension: ‘Wow, here’s one of the favourites, Ryan Cox, with a Kenyan, it looks like, but we’ve never seen him before.’ I spent a bit of time in the breakaway with Ryan, until the peloton closed our show down. They came after us quickly, or rather, they came after Ryan; I just happened to be in the vicinity. I got passed on the final climbs as the Australians closed the race off. Matt Hayman won gold and Allan Davis got bronze. David George of South Africa squeezed into the silver medal spot.

  I finished 25th, 5 minutes 15 seconds off the winner’s time. Kinjah finished well that day, all things considered, placing 27th, at 10 minutes 32 seconds off the leader’s result. He got cheered all the way home as word spread of the smiling, dreadlocked Kenyan who had raced half the day without even bread or water and took time to recruit feeders and bottle-fillers for himself and his teammates.

  Kinjah gave a post-race interview, mowing down the Kenyan officials. We did the best race we could but again the Kenyan Cycling Federation had let us down. They weren’t there to feed us.

  The interview came over the PA system. I spotted an angry Mr Mwangi looking frantically around to see where Kinjah’s voice was coming from. Kinjah and I grabbed our bikes and we made a swift exit to the athletes’ village.

  In the pits afterwards, the English guy with a Scouse accent, Doug Dailey, came by to say hello. He gave me his email address and I gave him mine. He said to keep in touch.

  9

  2006 Act III: World Championships in Salzburg

  Full disclosure. While we were in Cairo for the Tour of Egypt, Mr Mwangi pulled me aside and asked for a favour. He needed me to help him on his computer to take care of some business, and had asked me to log in to the Kenyan Cycling Federation email, providing me with the username and password.

  I thought it was odd that he had given me this information; he knew that I was a good friend of Kinjah’s. Regardless of the peculiarity, I sat there and typed out the few emails he wanted done. They were administrative tasks to be sent to various people, and there was nothing of any significance. Mr Mwangi wasn’t too confident of his written English, so I assumed he had found a good use for his spare mzungu. I made a mental note of the login details.

  After Egypt and after Melbourne I had an idea.

  I had already begun sending out my CV to cycling teams in Europe. A two-pager that I had typed up, which included all of my results from everywhere I had been racing in Africa, together with a few photos pasted on the side. I thought it looked great. In the back of my mind I was aware that European cycling teams were really only interested in seeing CVs which provided evidence of having raced in Europe. A few people got back to me and asked that very question. ‘Have you done any races in Europe, sonny?’

  I thought that if I did the Under-23 World Championships in September, in the city of Salzburg, which was definitely in Europe, it might be a giant step towards becoming a professional. Things were bad between the Kenyan Federation and the Safari Simbaz. Asking the Federation to enter me into the race and fund me to get there would be a waste of time. They knew I was on Kinjah’s side.

  So I sat down and logged on to the Federation email address. Posing as Julius Mwangi, I wrote a short letter to the UCI, informing them that I would like to enter Christopher Froome, one of my country’s most promising Under-23 riders, into the World Championships at that grade in the autumn. Thank you.*

  It is September and I am in Salzburg.

  The entire Kenyan cycling team and officials. C’est moi.

  I have a suitcase and two bikes in bike bags. I am like some weird refugee. I am an optimist though. I’m hoping there will be a courtesy car. I look for a sign welcoming me. The sign will be held by a driver, who will ask me if I had a nice trip and wonder where I would like him to drive me. He will insist on lifting my bikes on to the roof rack by himself.

  There is no courtesy car. I am unattached.

  There is a bed and breakfast. I booked it myself online. It is the cheapest bed and breakfast in Salzburg. Possibly because it is 7 kilometres outside of Salzburg.

  It turns out that two bus rides will still leave me a kilometre away from my lodgings. I walk the last kilometre with my two bikes and suitcase, shuffling along. The perfect midpoint to an epic day which began yesterday with a (very) long-haul flight and stopovers.

  That evening I made my way to the team managers’ meeting. I had assembled my time-trial bike and commandeered a map. A storm introduced itself to the day. I tried to memorize the map before the rain took care of it but after a couple of minutes I couldn’t even hold the ma
p any more, let alone read it. It crumbled in the torrential rain and with a gust of wind it was gone. I was left with a wafer of paper between each thumb and index finger.

  I found my way to the city using signposts but inevitably I got lost in the city centre. On the map, as far as I could remember, it all looked very simple. Now, there were so many roads with names that sounded vaguely familiar. I was lost.

  I asked some slightly scared strangers about the venue for the meeting. It was to be held in a creaky old auditorium or a hall or a town centre or something – did this ring any bells? After asking what must have amounted to a good sampling of the citizenry, I was eventually pointed in the right direction. When I arrived at the location, I found the signs for the meeting, took a deep breath and walked into the auditorium. I had entered through the wrong door. I was not at the back as I had hoped to be. I had walked in at the front. A drowned rat. With his bike outside.

  Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked up in horror. Then down at the rainwater that had fallen from my kit and was collecting in a tiny puddle around my cycling shoes.

  The man who was making his presentation stopped the whole show and looked at me, aghast.

  ‘This is a managers’ meeting, only for the managers, not the riders. I am sorry.’

  ‘I’m here for the managers’ meeting, yes.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I am a manager.’

  He gave me a shrug, as if to say, ‘I’ve seen everything now,’ and asked me to sit down. The meeting was already half over. I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t hear anything about the support vehicles. I was still expecting somebody to at least produce a box full of keys and to start to call out names: ‘South Africa, Kenya, Lesotho … Please take your car keys.’