The Climb: The Autobiography

by Chris Froome

As so often happens, the wind determined the tactics. When I started the sprint I could feel that the breeze was coming from the front left. I was the furthest over on the right-hand side of the road against the barrier, and the road also curved round to the right.

  Everything favoured the guy who started the sprint because anybody coming past him had to go the long way round to take the outside lane, thus doing more distance. They would be coming out to the left and into the wind as opposed to just coming round me on the right and getting the slipstream while coming past me.

  I realized as I wound it up that I could win this stage.

  And so it was. Contador made an effort to come round the long way on my left but I had enough in the tank to hold him off.

  Defending the lead with a stage win was a good feeling.

  The last day in Oman was more or less a criterium-type race. Again, Brad surprised me. We got out on to the circuit and it was a gunfight with lots of pushing and shoving, and sprint teams coming to the front. There was a small climb on the circuit and a section where you almost had to jump over the pavement to get on to a roundabout and double back. It was quite a tricky circuit in parts and wide open in other sections, which meant that riders could come round you easily. Brad did some massive pulls on the wide stretches. He’d get on the front and it would almost feel like he was riding a time trial and we were all sitting on his wheel.

  I was impressed and bewildered. It crossed my mind that this incredibly strong ride on the front was part of his own training, rather than rolling up his sleeves and doing a job for either me or the team. I hope I’m not being unfair to him, but I just didn’t know.

  ‘This is Brad,’ I thought. ‘This is just how he is. One day he is fantastic but other days you can’t rely on him. That’s his personality. He was up for it today, but yesterday, it seemed, he wasn’t. I am glad to have him when he is doing a good job. When he is up for it, he can be excellent. When he wants to engage with people, he can be charming.’

  Listen, Brad looks like Paul Weller; I look like Tintin.

  Maybe we’re not created to appear in the same story.

  27

  The old story about burning the boats is a motivational cliché now. Alexander the Great had landed on the shores of Persia where his army was going to be vastly outnumbered. Some of his generals argued that the wisest course was to regroup and to come back another day with more men. One asked, fairly reasonably in the circumstances, about how everybody would get home after work. But Alexander, on hearing this, gave the order for his men to burn the boats. He turned to his soldiers and roared, ‘We go home in Persian ships, or we die.’ In other words, if your commitment is complete, defeat isn’t an option at all.

  In March we went to Italy for the Race of the Two Seas, or the Tirreno–Adriatico. Not a lot sticks in the memory except the mountaintop finish on stage four. I took it ahead of Contador, Nibali and Rodríguez. For me, that win after a 15-kilometre climb up the Prati di Tivo was confirmation that things were still on the right track. I was developing some consistency and the team were working well. On the climb that day my teammates controlled everything and left me to launch off to the summit with a kilometre to go. The stage win put me within 4 seconds of the lead with three stages left.

  I was starting to settle into a leadership role that didn’t come naturally to me. I had never seen myself standing on a beach ordering men to burn their boats. My inclination would be to suggest other travel options or get Michelle to go online and check out the work visa requirements in Persia. The idea of having a train of professional cyclists working for me was odd but we were establishing a pattern. In Italy I had the two Colombians Rigoberto Urán and Sergio Henao with me and they did a huge job on the mountain the day we won. Dario Cataldo did too.

  I felt that following on from Oman we were settling into a method of winning mountaintop finishes. Rigoberto’s story is one about the realities of professional life. The team seemed to realize early on that of the two Colombians we could afford to keep only one long term. It was rumoured they were both going to Quick-Step and rather than lose them both we had to choose the one we thought had the greater potential. Sergio fitted better into the Sky model, although Rigoberto was stronger. Sergio was young and willing to learn; he was the Moneyball choice. Rigoberto was more set in his ways.

  On the climb up Prati di Tivo, Nibali and Contador had been attacking enthusiastically and flying up the road. I found I was preaching calm, a chip off the Kerrison block. ‘No stress, guys. No problems. We’ll carry on riding this high tempo and we’ll get them in a minute. Trust me.’ That was quite something. When we then won the stage it vindicated how we were going about things; I had fresher legs than Contador and Nibali in the last kilometre.

  It was a style that had been developed by Tim for Brad: ride the stage in the manner of a time trial and see what happens. Now I brought to the table an ability to accelerate off a high tempo. This was the most efficient way to win a stage; let other teams waste energy making attacks. But I also had the sense after that mountain that we were being picked apart by other teams as they tried to find ways to beat us. On stage five I took the leader’s jersey and there was some grumbling from Nibali about the style of our riding.

  The penultimate day, stage six, was a very hilly ride around Porto Sant’Elpidio. The weather was miserable and we raced badly, tactically speaking, letting a very big breakaway go early. That put us under pressure to ride hard all day trying to get them back. Thirty riders had gone up the road and we had been slow to respond, debating among ourselves as to whether we were chasing or waiting. Back in the car our directeur sportif, Marcus, didn’t really know what was going on. He asked us to chase and told us not to worry; we were in chaos and it was lousy weather. But by the time we settled on a plan we had to chase pretty hard.

  The stage incorporated Muro di Sant’Elpidio, a short but brutal climb that we had to take three times. I would have said that morning that I had never met a climb I didn’t fancy the look of but the weather here changed my mind.

  I had lots of race food in my pockets, including gels and rice cakes, but the race itself was too full on and I had lost all feeling in my fingers from the cold, which meant that I couldn’t even manage to lift my rain jacket over my pockets to get at the food. With the driving rain and strong crosswinds, there was never a chance to refuel properly. Also, I hadn’t dressed for the weather. I had worn a short-sleeved rain jacket for most of the day and it was only when I was too cold to feel my extremities that I thought to ask for a long-sleeved one.

  On the last ride up the climb Nibali went away with Peter Sagan and all I could do was turn my gears and get up the climb as best I could. It was that sort of day. Over fifty riders quit altogether and a large number, myself included, got their gearing wrong. My cadence dropped to fifty revolutions a minute, which felt like strength work, grinding just one stroke at a time. It was so wet that when you stood up to put pressure on the pedals your back wheel would simply slide as if the bike were on rollers; there was no traction. This meant we had to sit in our saddles, making it even harder. Normally when it gets that steep – up to gradients of twenty-seven per cent – all you want to do is stand up and use your weight on the pedals. It wasn’t to be.

  So I hung with the group I found myself with. I limited the losses but lost the jersey. The worst aspect was the feeling that I had let my teammates down. They had put me in the leader’s jersey. When it came to the crunch in the bad weather they had buried themselves again. After the race I got on the bus cold and shivering and full of apologies: Sorry. I couldn’t follow Nibali. Thanks for all that you did. The response from guy to guy was the same: Don’t worry, bro. That was a day from hell. Now let me jump into the shower.

  The week finished with a time trial in San Benedicto del Tronto. I was 34 seconds behind Nibali as I rolled down the ramp. The course was just 9.2 kilometres and not enough to take that 34 seconds back. End of story.

  It was a disappointing
defeat but it wasn’t a lack of form that had caused the loss. I had been caught off guard and learned a lesson about the cold: overdress don’t underdress. This was not so much a rookie error as an African error. As a team we had learned a bit about controlling the race more efficiently from the start. We would make sure in future that the only breakaways that got away in the morning were the ones that we were prepared to allow to let go.

  Nibali threw a pinch of salt into the wounds with some comments about how we at Team Sky race by numbers and spend our days huddled over our SRM meters trying to work out our next move. Little did he know.

  For a while Michelle had been eyeing up the trophy for winning the race, which was a lovely trident. I think she had a spot picked out for it! Now Nibali had the trident and thought I cared about being called an SRM slave.

  I was enjoying the challenge of leading the team. That day on Prati di Tivo in Italy when we had watched the big guys riding off up the road and had the guts to say, ‘It’s fine, let them go,’ only to reel them in later, gave us the rush you might get from playing high-stakes poker. We had to trust in the strength of our own hand.

  After Tirreno, the two-day Critérium International had additional importance as it took place in Corsica where the Tour itself would be starting and staying for three stages. We went over early so that we could do a recce of the Tour stages before the start of the Critérium. I remember noting that the third stage was going to be quite tough. Winding and undulating, a crosswind could blow the field apart that early.

  The Critérium itself started with a short 89-kilometre stage on Saturday morning where practically the entire field came home in a bunch sprint. The real racing commenced after lunch with a short time trial where Richie took the jersey a couple of seconds ahead of me. Richie was the leader overnight, continuing the amazing form he had shown in winning Paris–Nice a couple of weeks before.

  The third and last stage took place on Sunday with a mountaintop finish on Col de l’Ospedale. Richie had the jersey so our plans changed. We had worked out our tactics before the race began. If I had a lead after the time trial Richie would attack towards the end of the next day’s stage. If our rivals couldn’t bring him back then he would win the stage and most likely the race. If they got up to him, that would set it up for me to counter-attack them in the last kilometre.

  With Richie beating me in the time trial, the roles switched. Now I would attack 2 kilometres out and Richie would counter if they hauled me back. It worked pretty much perfectly.

  Kosta and Josh Edmondson rode well to control the race for us, but with more than 30 kilometres left to go, Richie and I were left with only Kiryienka. Kiri took the challenge head-on. He sat on the floor for the next 20 kilometres, reeling back attacks and keeping the pace high a good way up to the climb. It was impressive to say the least. It was then my turn to pull and I pulled hard. Richie thought this was the point to let me go on.

  I had gone on the front to pull but Richie sat off the wheel and let the gap open. He turned to the other riders and looked for a reaction. He got on to Tejay van Garderen’s wheel as Tejay started chasing me.

  It wasn’t long before I got across to a few others who had broken away earlier. I could see straight off that they would be of no help so I attacked them and rode on my own to the finish.

  Back down the road Richie saw that Tejay was labouring as the climb went on, so Richie attacked him. We ended up coming in 1st and 2nd.

  I took the jersey off Richie. I felt a little apprehensive; it didn’t give me any pleasure to take the jersey off my friend and teammate. But, typical of the man, there wasn’t an ounce of resentment in his face.

  ‘Hey’ he said, ‘we smashed them! They didn’t know what to do!’

  It was this moment, I think, which truly cemented our friendship. For the two of us it had been a day in the saddle when we didn’t need words. I just looked round at him once that little gap had formed and he had sat off my wheel. He was in the leader’s jersey but he was saying, ‘Go, and keep going.’ I also know I would have done the same for him. In a heartbeat.

  I remember the two of us coming back home after that, knowing we were both on a really good path. We just needed to keep that competition between us in training and that bond between us in races.

  In Tenerife I had amused myself by getting a small wearable action camera with special bike mounts. You can stick it on the front of the bike, or on the back; anywhere, really. I spent my time thinking of cool ways of filming the training we were doing. I hoped to put something together at the end of it to show people what we do, including all the exercises, the team time trials and the days where we go right to our limits, pushing ourselves even harder than in a race.

  I particularly enjoyed the team time trials up the mountain, so I put the camera behind my saddle so that the lens was looking back at the guy behind me. I was able to film his facial expressions over a half-hour climb that got faster and faster as we approached the end of our team effort.

  We would break the squad down into two or three teams and have a full-speed race trying to catch each other. On this particular day I was in a team with Pete Kennaugh, David López, Dario Cataldo and a couple of others. Pete was having it tough; he was behind me and not really ready for his close-up.

  We premiered the video afterwards – you might call it a tragi-comedy. It was hilarious to see Pete’s face as he tried to get back on the wheel at the end of his turn: wincing with pain trying to hang in there. We watched him get to the last kilometre and eventually just blow up. It was funny because we all knew the pain. Pete’s face was all of our faces.

  When we come home from Tenerife, and from the daily inflictions of Tim’s imagination, we are generally all a kilo or two lighter and generating more power.

  After Tenerife, time was shortening and the dates in the calendar were crowding together. The Tour de Romandie was at the end of April. Then back to Tenerife and then on to the Critérium du Dauphiné.

  Romandie is a race which throws up a worthwhile story. We needed the story to have a happy and meaningful ending this time because we had just done Liège–Bastogne–Liège, complete with all the usual luck that I enjoy in that part of the world. I punctured early and was on the back foot all day. Sergio was our other leader in the race but he didn’t have a good day either. In terms of La Doyenne, my coming home in 36th place was actually a personal triumph.

  In Romandie there was a predominantly uphill prologue which I won, with Andrew Talansky, another young American on the scene, coming in 2nd. I kept the lead till the end of the race but, more importantly, we all rode well: no dramas, no crises.

  The penultimate stage of the five days was a sentimental journey around some of the roads and slopes where I had trained when I went to the UCI school in Aigle as a naive young kid out of Africa. I had to remind myself that this was now; all that stuff was a long, long time ago.

  I wrapped the race up on that fourth stage. The weather was so bad that the final ascent up the snow-capped Col de la Croix had to be abandoned in favour of something more rider-friendly. I had learned to cope with bad weather while the conditions had broken the peloton into pieces. The team rode heroically. Towards the end of the last climb the attacks came right, left and centre. You couldn’t begin to cover every one of them; the only option was to counter.

  Myself and Simon Špilak of Katusha ended up away from the field. When we crossed the line at Les Diablerets he had the stage and I had sown the guts of a minute into my GC rivals. The final day was a time trial. Job done.

  We had worked hard for the week in Romandie, grinding out the result. Once I got back home my mind dawdled over the possibilities for the Tour.

  The cast was shaping up. Pete Kennaugh, the star of the time-trial snuff movie, had looked a few kilos lighter the previous week; he is a guy who can keep his hands by his sides when the bread arrives. At Romandie he auditioned strongly for a role on the Tour. Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard had been in my mind from the
beginning of the season because of their tactical ability, as well as their riding; they are very good with positioning. If they’ve got the legs, you find them in the right place at the right time.

  David López had been solid. Edvald Boasson Hagen was certain to be in the team, a good all-rounder who had been one of the strong men in the previous year’s Tour. Kosta? It was too early to say as he was coming back gingerly from a broken leg and he had to ride the Giro; it would be a tall ask.

  Ditto with Christian Knees; he was going to the Giro with Brad. Pulling that off and then riding the Tour would have been hard. In terms of the big guys, it was between Christian and Stannard. I had ridden more with Ian, and Christian was doing the Giro. I like a guy who understands crosswinds; a guy who has the physical arrogance to muscle his way into a place near the front and who then fights for it no matter what. Ian, I thought, was that guy. I thought Kiryienka would make it too although he had already had a long and tough season.

  Brad going for the Giro meant diluting the team’s strength and both of us would pay a price for this. He would have the Colombians pulling for him in the mountains but I would have Richie at my side in the Tour.

  There was speculation that Brad was going to do the Giro and then the Tour. I wasn’t sure. He could be the man to take us into the last climb and maybe halfway up it because he does have a big, big engine. He would also be a major asset for the team time trial. But, before that, we had to be sure that he and I could work together.

  It was a recovery day. I had been out earlier on an easy ride after Romandie and was now back at my apartment going through emails when I started getting all kinds of alerts coming through on my email. Then text messages on my phone.

  Uh oh. Something was happening in the world. People were asking what the story was with Brad. What’s going on with Brad? Have you seen this?

  Brad had done a press conference. The gist of his message was that he was thinking now about trying to do the double. If the Giro went well, then why not the Tour? He said he would come in as a joint leader, and after the first week we would see who was in the better position. As defending champion, many probably thought that what he said was reasonable.