The Climb: The Autobiography

by Chris Froome

  My body and my brain skipped all formalities. The last kick I was capable of delivered no questions and expected no answers. I don’t know where it came from but I ripped through the slender gap dizzy with adrenaline and aggression.

  This wasn’t the Vuelta any more. It wasn’t the contract or the General Classifications either. It wasn’t about the team and it definitely wasn’t about the prize money. It was just about two boys on a sunlit mountain saying, ‘See that summit, I’ll race you to it.’ It was ‘I win you lose’ racing. It was a high that nothing else can give you. Nothing.

  There was no gap. And then, a second later, there was a gap. I was standing on the pedals ripping in as he tried to close his mistake. Too late, my friend. I was through. Our handlebars brushed together ever so slightly, and so fast that there was almost a crackle of electricity as I passed.

  The line was 10 metres away and I was still out of my saddle. Cobo’s head dropped. His shirt was wide open. Seconds later my arms were out. I was over the line.

  I hadn’t won the Vuelta, but I had won a stage in a Grand Tour – my first win as a professional. Everything would be all right from now on but that didn’t matter to me then. I had just been in the greatest mountaintop finish I am ever likely to experience. Just to have been part of it – blow by blow – had been to know the best of our beautiful sport. I had won and he had won.

  A few yards away Cobo bent his head over his handlebars as he stopped. People around him held him up but his head wouldn’t be lifted. I, meanwhile, sat with my back against a barrier – dirt on my face, water in my hand. People were leaning down to me. We had turned each other inside out, Cobo and me, pushing each other to the limits and then pushing some more. Right now we were two voids on the top of a mountain.

  This was special. People will tell me it was the single most exciting mountain race they had seen in years – belittled only by the reality that Cobo and I were not lead actors in the movie that was pro cycling.

  I will tell grandchildren about this day sometime. Many times.

  Still sitting by the barrier, the voices around me said I had won the stage by 1 second. Taking into account my time bonus, and Cobo’s bonus, he was now 13 seconds ahead on GC.

  This tough, squat mountain was topped by a huge camera obscurely placed in a tall white tower. An image was made with the light that was taken in through the lenses at the top of the tower. In a large circular room down below they projected the images on to the walls to make a 360-degree panorama picture of the world outside: mountains, plains, sea, everything.

  It was beautiful, but it was an image on a wall. Just an image. Down below, Cobo and I were spent. We were two scraped-out shells sucking at air and water. We were unable to stand without agony.

  We were real.

  It ended there really. The stage after Peña Cabarga had mountains but a finish on the plains, although Cobo still eyed me all day. The next day was a sprint stage into Bilbao. I had stayed right at the front looking for any gaps to open up in the final kilometre of the sprint. I had taken a few risks to be further forward than the normal GC rider, mixing it with sprinters where I shouldn’t have been. But Cobo was just as eager. He followed me around the peloton so that everywhere I went, he would go too. If I moved, he would be on my wheel. He wouldn’t even let my teammates stay on my wheel. It was very strange having a second shadow.

  He was odd. I tried to have a few words with him, as I thought we were tied together in some way after what we had been through. He had no interest in speaking, but he continued to fascinate me. He never wore glasses when he rode and never even wore gloves – he seemed a little set in his ways. Most of all, I knew he was nervous about me during those last few days. Whenever I pulled off to stop for a wee, he would do the same.

  There were no obvious places to take back the 13 seconds, but I thought of the intermediate sprints as Cobo’s lead was built on those bonuses. I would have no guilt about winning the Vuelta with bonuses of my own.

  We set the whole team up like a train coming up to the sprints, but every time we did, Cobo was also there, magnetically drawn to my wheel. I tried on the flat but the team went too hard and too early when we were leading out and we fluffed it up. Did I mention that I’m not a sprinter?

  Later in the stage we were to go over a climb and on the plateau at the top there was to be another sprint. As we went along a lake shore on the approach, the team said to me over the radio, ‘Look out, Chris, the sprint intermediate is coming up soon.’ I caught a glimpse as we went round the corner. The road went round the lake but 300 or 400 metres ahead I saw a banner. I thought that it was a sneaky place to put an intermediate sprint, just as we turned and lost sight of the banner again. But I also thought, ‘Wow, maybe I can catch Cobo off guard.’ We went round a couple of corners and, yes, I was right, I had glimpsed the banner a moment ago.

  Right. This was my chance. He was unaware and not expecting me to dash off. I went as hard as I could. Even if he was coming after me, he wouldn’t get me for these 10 seconds. I went through the banner, and although he came after me pretty quickly, I managed to get through first. I sat up with a huge grin.

  But there was no excitement from the radio. No, ‘Go on, Froomey, this is it.’ There was nothing.

  Gotcha! Cobo shook his head. No! No! No!

  He pointed ahead. There was another banner. What? The radio crackled.

  ‘Froomey? You know that was a banner saying “Intermediate Sprint 1 kilometre ahead”?’

  The final day would be a criterium in Madrid and nothing would change there. So I gave it one last go on the day before. The team took over the pacemaking to try to make it hard in the climbs and we ended up with Brad and I having changed roles. He was going to do for me what I had been doing for him.

  On the bus in the pre-race meeting I had said to the guys that the only card we had left was to make the stage as hard as possible for everyone and to hope that Cobo had a bad day. If that happened, I would attack in the last kilometre or two of the climb.

  Thomas did a great job that day, a really big pull that exploded the peloton quite a bit. He handed over to Brad but it felt like Brad didn’t continue that hard pace. It was more like Brad was trying to survive and get over the line in the group, instead of trying to fragment it even more. I tried to encourage him along, saying, ‘Great, great, let’s go.’ But I didn’t feel I could ask him to empty himself, even though we needed to make this harder.

  I wanted him to bury himself, to die for me. But he was more conservative. I think he wanted to preserve his podium finish; he wasn’t going to surrender that now. Maybe he thought it was all hopeless.

  About a kilometre and a half from the top I went past Brad. I would try to do Peña Cabarga again: sprint and see if I could lose Cobo. But he was straight on to me. I went up with about a kilometre to go, dipped down for a few hundred metres, then down, around and back up again on a fast, sweeping right-hand bend. I was pedalling so quickly on the downhill, trying to keep the pressure on, that I almost didn’t make it round the corner. I just managed to angle my bike to stay on course, pedalling at the same time to keep the pace up and to make it difficult to follow. I think he struggled following that – I was taking risks to squeeze on, to create a gap.

  I eked out a small gap but riders who had attacked earlier in the day were now on the road in front of me. The crowds were going mad and had almost formed a barrier. I was coming really fast up a climb, when a French rider from Team AG2R and the fans blocked the road in front of me. I didn’t really brake but I slowed down and had to force my way round them, half pushing the crowd and half pushing the rider to let me squeeze through and get past. That allowed Cobo to get back to me.

  I carried on pushing all the way up but Cobo was comfortable. It was just the two of us over the top. We had started the descent when I spoke on the radio: ‘I’ve gone as hard as I can but I haven’t got anywhere. He’s on my wheel. No point driving it down the other side.’

  Stalem
ate. Over.

  Cobo’s Vuelta. Myself and Brad, 2nd and 3rd.

  Still, the future was so bright I needed my Oakley shades.

  20

  One day I was a character actor getting bit parts; three weeks later I was getting my choice of the scripts. Well, almost.

  First they wouldn’t take my calls; now they were calling to ask what they could do for me – anything, just say, anything. Well, almost.

  Life changed after the 2011 Vuelta a España. With the soft click of a switch my big future was ahead of me again and not behind me. I could have been a contender and then I was a contender.

  Second place in a Grand Tour brings a cloudburst of UCI World Tour points and in my case a major re-evaluation. The performance was worth even more because inside the sport the result wasn’t deemed suspicious. Credibility is currency in modern cycling. Despite all the toxic currents flowing through social media, the managers of rival teams believe Sky are clean. Riders and staff talk to rival teams and soon enough the information filters through. When I rode well in the Vuelta, I became someone they wanted. Just like that.

  Of course, people had been expecting that I might wilt in the final week of the race but I actually got stronger. Suddenly there was a ‘Wanted’ poster with my name on it.

  In terms of salary, I knew I’d jump a few levels, which was good news for me; but when wages increase, negotiations take longer. Re-signing for Sky was not straightforward.

  After we crossed the finish line on Madrid’s Plaza de Cibeles on the final day there were interviews and then the podium. I don’t know how this happened but when Cobo, Brad and I got on the podium, I was on the wrong step. I finished 2nd but ended up on the lowest step.

  It was my first time on a podium in a Grand Tour, and my first time finishing ahead of Brad in such a big race, but on the podium I was still below him. ‘Well done, Chris,’ I said to myself. I’m not sure if it was Brad or me who messed it up but right there and then I thought, ‘This is not a photo I will be keeping.’

  Before the Vuelta I would have settled for any extension of my existing contract but as the race progressed and I stayed in contention, my value was going up. Dave Brailsford still wanted the Vuelta to play out before talking turkey. Or talking to the turkey. I doubt that Dave expected me to hold it together for the three weeks. Wait for Froomey to have his bad day, then re-sign him for less. Maybe I would have done the same in his position. Business is business.

  But the bad day never came, and when we got to the poker game I had some pretty good cards in my hands.

  A few days before the race reached Madrid, Dave brought up the subject. ‘Now that it’s basically over, Froomey, we’ll be giving Alex a formal offer.’ That weekend the team offered us a deal.

  There was a fanfare of trumpets. Uplifting choral music. Hallelujah!

  But Alex was not impressed. He impressed upon me that I wasn’t to be impressed either.

  ‘Chris, this is not an option. This is well below your value. From the UCI World Tour points you’ve now got, you are worth considerably more.’

  It was as if hemp had become suddenly fashionable; as if cycling-obsessed bald guys were what women suddenly wanted. There had been some tectonic shift in the market.

  Team Saxo boss, Bjarne Riis, had been at the Vuelta and messaged me after he got my number from Alex: ‘Chris, I would really like to make you an offer. You would be a great rider with our team.’ He suggested a meeting in Madrid the night the race ended.

  Noz had been at the Vuelta and we met most mornings. Normally the team got to the start of a race a good hour before start time. There was then a meeting on the bus and after that the riders changed and went to sign on. To make time for Noz I changed into my race kit as we drove from the hotel so that when the meeting ended, I was off to see him. I got him a pass for the corporate village and inevitably we would find some covered spot there for a chat.

  Towards the end of the race, Noz and I talked more and more about my future. What should I do? Which teams had been in touch with Alex? How much was being offered? Was I prepared to leave Sky? What team was right for me?

  Unless I was genuinely prepared to leave Sky, my bargaining position was seriously weakened. Sky were gambling on me not being prepared to do that.

  One morning Riis saw us as we were heading to the village. He stopped us, and said again how impressed he’d been with how I was riding. At that point I was Sky’s leader in the race.

  He then had a sly stab at Brad, hinting that he’d been slowing me down.

  ‘You enjoying the freedom now?’

  He also mentioned how impressed Alberto Contador, Saxo’s leader, had been with my performance.

  That last Sunday evening, Dave and most of the Sky riders and staff left Madrid. Keen to spend a couple of days in a great city with Noz, I stayed on. We hooked up with the Sky guys who were still in the hotel and we all had a great dinner together at a restaurant specializing in serving massive steaks.

  The Movistar team were dining in the same restaurant that night. At one point during the evening their boss, Eusebio Unzué, came to our table, offered his congratulations and discreetly said that he would be speaking with Alex about the future.

  All this was good – more suitors equalled more options. Although I wanted to stay with Sky (they had guessed my preference correctly), they had to deliver on two points: I wanted a salary that reflected my value and I wanted the opportunity to ride for the yellow jersey in the following year’s Tour de France.

  There would be no more bit parts.

  After leaving the restaurant, Noz and I went back to the hotel. It had been a good evening but we were ready to turn in. The taxi ride took half an hour and we’d only just got back when Bjarne Riis sent a text. He was at a nightclub close to the restaurant where we’d just eaten and he wanted me to come and join him. I was curious, and so was Noz, so we jumped into another taxi and gave the driver the name of the nightclub.

  Now, I am not a nightclub kind of guy. Noz is probably a few hundred years’ worth of evolution away from being a nightclub kind of guy. He and I were riding in a taxi to a Madrid nightclub to meet a man who was once known within the peloton as Mr Sixty Per Cent due to an alleged hematocrit level enhanced by taking EPO. He confessed later to using EPO, recounting the scene in his hotel room when the Festina police raids were going on: ‘I didn’t have a choice. My vials of doping products had to disappear quickly. In just a few minutes I gathered all my doses of EPO and threw them down the toilet.’

  The club was underground, which might not have been a bad place to meet a man with Bjarne’s shady past. There were flashing lights everywhere and loud music thumping away steadily; it was hardly the perfect venue to conduct contract negotiations and Noz and I felt anything but at home.

  To catch what Bjarne was saying, I had to stand really close to him while poor Noz didn’t know what to do with himself. I felt foolish. Surely if Bjarne was really interested he would have come to us? But there we were, the business equivalent of love in an alleyway.

  He used his lead rider, Contador, as the love arrow in the charm offensive.

  ‘Alberto would love to have you on the team. If you came to us you could be Alberto’s last man in the mountains for the Tour de France. Then you can choose the Giro or the Vuelta for yourself.’

  He believed that this was what I wished to hear but he didn’t really have any idea what I wanted. I was thinking, ‘Hang on, Bjarne, it’s the Tour I really want to go for.’ He wasn’t offering me what I wanted but he presumed I’d want to be in his team.

  ‘Chris, this is how it will work when you join.’

  One of the reasons I was keen to speak with other teams was that Team Sky had been delaying for so long over the contract that it would be a good thing if they got a bit nervous about my leaving. Another big reason for considering alternatives was my fear that if I stayed I would always be Brad’s lieutenant. This was one of the things Bjarne didn’t get; that penny never dropped
. Why would I leave Sky because of the Brad situation to go and ride for Contador in the Tour? Bjarne didn’t ask these questions and couldn’t get his head close to the idea that I didn’t want to be anyone’s lieutenant in the Tour de France.

  But then again, we were having this discussion in a nightclub.

  With the length of the stages, the climbs, the heat and the longer time trials, the Tour is the race that plays to my strengths. I didn’t want a future that involved sacrificing my chance to help someone else win. There are enough teams out there with so few riders who can realistically compete for the Tour de France podium that I shouldn’t be held back. Bjarne Riis and I were not singing from the same hymn sheet.

  And I wasn’t as in love with his team as he imagined I would be. He didn’t mention Contador’s positive test for clenbuterol at the previous year’s Tour de France and for sure this wasn’t the place to have the discussion. But it was on my mind, as was Bjarne’s own reputation and the fact of that admission he had made about his own use of EPO.

  As he was selling the team to me, I was looking around at where we were, and who I was with. I was thinking that to join him would be going a little to the dark side.

  Very early in the conversation I should have just said, ‘Thank you, Bjarne, I will consider it.’ But that isn’t me.

  A few weeks later I would have dinner with Richie Porte in Monaco. We had gotten to know each other as he was coming to the end of his time with Bjarne’s team and was about to join Sky. Based on his experience, Richie advised me against going to Saxo. He felt he’d been completely over-raced and that, as a young rider, he hadn’t been that well looked after. He also felt the team was built around Contador and the few Spanish guys he surrounded himself with. This all seemed to confirm my misgivings. Still, I knew that plenty of other teams were keen to talk to me.

  Noz and I met up with Giuseppe Martinelli, boss of the Astana team, the night after the Vuelta. Alex had warned me he was coming with a proper offer and that I should at least sit down and speak with him. Astana’s headquarters are in Nice, close to where I am based in Monaco, so that was a plus. Alex thought Astana might work for me as, with Alexandre Vinokourov on the way out, they were looking for a new leader.