by Chris Froome
30
Before Robert de Niro and Christopher Walken go to war in The Deer Hunter we see the people they are and the bonds they have. There is a wedding; Walken flirts. There is the scene high in the mountains. De Niro loves to hunt. With the clouds at shoulder height and the guys done teasing each other, they are at one with the world around them. They don’t need words.
I have days like that on my bike. Richie and other friends might be there with me or I might be on my own, high on some summit. I can’t describe the feeling of getting up there under my own steam. Knowing the path that is behind me, feeling the ease in my legs as the mountain plateaus. Getting ready to hurtle down the far side like a carefree boy, the wind in my face.
Cycling is my job but it also feels spiritual and connected and it’s all I ever wanted to do. Somehow – through genetics, through meeting a line of people, starting with Kinjah, who have helped me enormously – I have been given a great gift.
Millions of people end up spending lives as the wrong person in the wrong job with the wrong boss. I know how fortunate I am, how blessed. My heart is in those high mountains.
Sometimes I wonder, why me?
There are two tales of Ventoux. We toasted one last night; this is the other one.
The morning had begun with an early knock on the door. It could only be one thing: the testers were here. Richie and I looked at each other.
‘Well, here we go again, bro.’
We had a long stage ahead of us before climbing Ventoux. It was early and now the testers were here. They were going to take my blood and my urine, which was fine. They were going to take an hour of our sleep too, that’s the price.
From the moment the tester knocks they are obliged to chaperone you. So you go to the door, open it, walk back in and the tester follows so he can stand and watch.
You put on a pair of tracksuit bottoms, throw on a top and you go with them. You don’t shower or wash. You do not pass go. You do not pass water. You go straight to control.
Usually they have set up in a conference room or somewhere like that. They are decent people, doing a hard job that has to be done. There is no point in resenting them. I save that for the heroes who tested positive.
In the mornings they generally want blood. Ironically, in the morning urine is seldom a problem – the testers just aren’t in the market for it.
Once you reach the testing room there is a rule that you have to be seated for ten minutes before you can give a sample. During that time you fill out the forms.
Have you been to altitude recently?
In the last two weeks have you had a blood transfusion?
In the last two weeks have you lost a lot of blood?
Are you on any medications … ?
And so on. Eight or nine questions give you the chance to explain anything that might affect your blood values.
We are young and fit and lean so they find a vein easily.
One person handles the documentation while a second looks after the blood, needles, phials and other such paraphernalia. You seal and number the bottles in front of them, then you sign. Our team doctor Alan Farrell is there from beginning to end.
Some mornings they want the entire team for testing, sometimes just me, sometimes me and Richie. We decide the order of who gets the needle first by means of who is the most awake.
So we get it done, go to breakfast, go back up to our room, have a wash, pack our stuff and get on the bus. It’s just a part of life, part of our routine. We understand why it has to be this way.
So far on this Tour I have been spat at maybe a dozen times and I know there will be more. A guy has squirted something over me. I took it to be beer or urine although I didn’t have it tested.
Some days I don’t get spat at all while other days it happens three or four times. Sometimes out of pure consideration they aim their spit at my jersey though mostly it comes at my face. If I’m lucky my shoulder or my helmet gets it. Most of the time I’m not lucky. I am riding up a mountain a few feet away from spectators who are leaning into my path, when I hear the sound of spit being launched. Even through the general noise I am attuned to that noise. Then I feel a warm, globby clump hit my face. It’s hard to be lucky when they are spitting from two feet away.
It is horrible.
Usually I take my glasses off and wipe them on my jersey, then use the back of my glove like a rag to wipe my face.
You know, I haven’t actually done anything wrong. I am left with no way to prove that except to be the person that I am and to let time and the push of technology prove that I am clean.
This is a sport for people’s pleasure and entertainment. To dope is to abuse that, but to spit in a rider’s face does the same. Don’t talk to me about the lost integrity of our sport and then spit at me.
Picture this: I have a huge wad of spit on my face. Nicolas Roche and Alberto Contador are on my wheel. They have seen the launch and they have seen the landing. Now they can see me defaced with this beery saliva. I am pawing blindly at myself with the back of my glove.
I handle the moment as well as I can, mainly by ignoring it. I might have turned round and sworn at the guy or pegged a bottle at him but that is not my battle on this Tour.
Nicolas comes up and puts his hand on my shoulder. He says, ‘Even Alberto is disgusted at what happened there. That shouldn’t be happening. You don’t deserve it.’
I know Nicolas and I know Contador well enough to appreciate the sincerity of what was conveyed: here was my biggest rival reaching out with a few words. I didn’t understand it though. Nicolas wasn’t targeted. Alberto, with his achievements and his history, wasn’t targeted.
When I crossed the finish line yesterday I know there was booing. I didn’t hear it then – maybe out of excitement, or exhaustion – but I did notice it on the way up Ventoux. There was one moment when I was pulling Quintana along and it started getting really steep towards the top. I wasn’t going very fast and there were people standing almost in the middle of the road, just baying and booing at me. They would stand there right until the last second, daring me to ride straight into them. You never know which one could be the lunatic who doesn’t duck out of the way.
Yesterday was a great day on Ventoux. If you had dreamed my dreams, if you had given the thousands of hours I have given to this sport, you would know that. Nothing could really knock me off that high. I had a stage win and the yellow jersey, and I was leading the race in the best position possible after one of the hardest days possible.
When I went into the rest day press conference this morning the questions about doping came down like balls of spit from the hills. I felt the pressure of having to justify myself, to prove that cycling is clean, to take responsibility for the past and to defend myself for the present and the future.
I’m clean. To be honest, I struggle to see how I could be any cleaner. I want a clean sport, I want us to be open and honest about what has happened in the past and I want the technology that proves I am clean.
I don’t know where we are going with all the spitting and the finger-pointing and the innuendo. Sometimes I’d just like to be able to talk about the race, about spiked efforts, about training my body to conquer its own weaknesses. Ask me. But the doping discussion is circular. You think I’m guilty. Can you prove it? No. I know I’m clean. Can I prove it? No. You heard it all before from Lance Armstrong. Well, I’m not Lance Armstrong. You won’t get fooled again. Not by me you won’t, ever.
All I could tell the press conference in the Park Inn Hotel was that sin isn’t contagious. We have inherited the wreckage of cycling’s past but not the habits of cyclists past.
Lance cheated; I’m not cheating. That should be the end of it, but of course it’s not.
Finally Dave offers to hand over performance data to the World Anti-Doping Agency for an independent – and this is important – expert assessment.
When David Rozman, our soigneur, did me the great honour of naming his son after me, I tol
d him that I hoped it was because of the person I am, not the rider I can be. Here in France, my brothers and old friends are coming together. Mum is on my shoulder. In Nairobi, Kinjah and the boys are gathering in that little shack that once felt like home to me. Michelle is in the crowds.
I owe them all. And I owe my sport. I owe it to them to be the best person I can be. First, second or also-ran doesn’t matter if I can give them that. I owe it to them to be honest to myself and to them and to this dream they helped me achieve.
Spit in my face. Stand in my way. Boo me. Hiss at me. Troll your accusations. You don’t know my blood. You don’t know my heart.
The people who matter to me do and for now that is enough.
Stage Sixteen: Tuesday 16 July, Vaison-la-Romaine to Gap, 168 kilometres
All the action went down on a mountain behind Gap, the Col de Manse. Contador and his teammate Roman Kreuziger tried to scorch the earth for Saxo. As we approached the summit, they went up like fireworks. Richie and I chased and caught them. Kreuziger burst free next. And Contador again. Bang. Bang. Left and right to the jaw each time. They took it in turns to attack us again and again. Richie must have pulled them back five times.
In the last kilometre Richie finally turned to me and said, ‘Okay, I’m done now, you need to follow them yourself.’
Contador noticed that Richie was gone and attacked again. I chased him down.
It wasn’t long until Contador, Kreuziger and I were going down that final descent.
Contador tried to accelerate a couple of times, looking to distance me. They had a plan: Contador in front, then Kreuziger, then me third in the line. As he was going into a corner, Contador accelerated, Kreuziger decelerated and I had to brake. While I was forced to slow, Contador was surging.
I didn’t mind chasing but when you’ve got someone in front of you blocking when you’re trying to go round the corners it can be difficult. It seemed like very negative racing tactics to me.
And this was the famous descent where Joseba Beloki had his crash in 2003 and where his career ended. Lance Armstrong did a bit of off-road riding here and came back on to the hairpin. Beloki’s career ended there.
It was a place of nerves and we were jumpy, and Contador and Kreuziger chose this downhill to play their games. I wasn’t impressed.
Richie rejoined us, tagging on the back. Rui Costa arrived with him.
In the circumstances it was probably not clever of me to react to every Contador acceleration but I couldn’t allow him to gain from this bullshit. I could have just given him 30 seconds and taken no chances but I didn’t want to encourage this behaviour.
They wanted to know if I had the balls. Good for them.
They wanted to know what I would do for the yellow jersey. I’d show them.
Finally I made a decision. It was game up. Kreuziger, I’m not letting you sit on Contador any more. I’m going to do that instead. I drove into a gap past Kreuziger and got on to Contador’s wheel.
He knew now he was going to be followed down every inch of road. If he was to gain anything he was going to have to take bigger risks.
He went through one corner extremely quickly and I let him get a little distance on me. I didn’t want to be on top of him if he came off. Now it was me asking him if he had the rocks. Sure enough, at the next corner he overcooked it and ended up on the road.
The couple of bike lengths I’d been giving him into the corners saved me. There he was now in my line but to avoid him I had go to the left and a little off-road. Luckily there was no drop or ditch so I was fine.
I wasn’t hurt but I had to unclip the pedals and lift the bike back on to the road. By the time I had recovered, the chasing group of six or seven had gone past. Richie eased off the back to help me yet again.
Contador caught up with me by the next corner.
His hand was hurt and his knee was bleeding; his tail was between his legs. He went past me and said he was sorry, what had happened back there was his fault. As a gesture he moved forward to help get us back to the front of the race.
He caught me in a rare moment of anger. My feathers were ruffled. If I had ridden over him I could have broken a collarbone or worse.
‘No. You are not leading us any further down this hill, you’re staying on my wheel now. Otherwise we’ll crash again.’
He had pushed it too far. Richie pulled us both back to the rest of them.
Rui Costa stole the stage by 42 seconds for Movistar.
WINNER: RUI COSTA
OVERALL GC 1: CHRIS FROOME
2: BAUKE MOLLEMA +4 MIN 14 SEC
Stage Seventeen: Wednesday 17 July, Embrun to Chorges, 32 kilometres
Sometimes it’s not where you’re at, it’s where you’re going.
Today was a time trial that started on top of a mountain, took us down the mountain and then up the mountain next door, along a plateau and down the next descent. I was drooling.
There was a lot of discussion about what bike to use. My time-trial bike? Or my road bike for the mountains? And which wheels would go with what bike? Every rider had a different opinion. I had a plan: use both bikes.
For the climb I needed the lightest bike possible with the lightest wheels known to mankind. Aerodynamics don’t count for anything when you’re slogging uphill at 15 kilometres an hour. I also knew that the first descent was pretty technical in terms of twists and turns. To me it made sense to use the road bike until I got to the flat plateau and then switch to the time-trial bike and go all out across the plateau, down the second descent and across 3 flat kilometres to the line.
It would either work or I would look like a fool.
We’ve never done a bike change in a time trial before. We did a dummy run with Nico in the car and we practised it again this morning. The plan was that I would give a hand signal near the top of the final climb and indicate 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to tell the car that I was ready. The car would come along beside me and I would leap high into the air and land on the time-trial bike, which was being steered along the road from within the car. Crash Froome is dead. Say hello to Evel Knievel Froome.
No, actually, I would lean my bike at the front of the car while Gary Blem got the time-trial bike off the roof. While I was clipping my feet into the time-trial bike, Gary would give me the biggest push he could give a friend and off I would go.
It made sense to me. The last bit of road was so fast that being in that aerodynamic position would help me gain a lot of time. After this stage we would hit three hard days in the Alps and I figured I needed to go into the red – to hurt myself but do no damage. There were bigger sufferings ahead.
Coming into the final time check, having done the bike switch, I was 10 seconds down on Contador. Doh. I wasn’t sure I could take that back.
It wasn’t too efficient to change bikes under pressure but I reckoned it was more efficient than having a bad body position on the road bike down the hill and across the flat. If you are out of the saddle and pushing on a road bike, your upper body is stealing seconds from your legs. On the time-trial bike the handlebars are set in an aggressive, more aerodynamic position, low down. Contador had opted to ride his road bike for the whole trial.
The gamble paid off. I won by 9 seconds. Now I was four and a half minutes ahead going into the Alps.
I still couldn’t feel that I had the race in my grasp though. One bad day during the next three and I could lose all that time on a single climb. So, yes, it might be fair to say that the race is now mine to lose. It’s just something I didn’t want to say.
WINNER: CHRIS FROOME
OVERALL GC 1: CHRIS FROOME
2: ALBERTO CONTADOR +4 MIN 34 SEC
Stage Eighteen, Thursday 18 July, Gap to Alpe d’Huez 172.5 kilometres
In the evenings I shower before I go down to get a massage. There is just enough time to get clean.
The shower measures the toil of the day. I turn the shower on, grab the shampoo and shower gel and, if it has been a brutal day, I just sit down. I s
it with my knees pulled up to my chin, the posture of the small boy in the front row of a class photo back in primary school.
That’s when I know it has been a really tough day – I can’t stand up for an extra five minutes on my legs. I sit down so I can wash myself without feeling like I am about to topple over.
This evening I sat for a long time with the water just powering down on me. I sat there and thought, postponing the effort of standing up again.
I get those days in training sometimes as well. Today, this was how my legs told me this was hard, maybe too hard.
Today we rode up Alpe d’Huez twice. If you grew up in France or Italy or Belgium, some place that wasn’t Nairobi, twice up the Alpe is a lot of snow-capped myth. I just looked on it as two category-one mountains in the final 50 kilometres of a stage. Two 45-minute climbs at the end of a long day.
After climbing Alpe d’Huez once we would be about 122 kilometres through the stage. Things would get a bit flatter, then we’d dip down and then start a gentle climb up the Col de Sarenne. Over 13 kilometres the road rises about 954 metres. Then there is a sharper hill to the summit, 3 kilometres long, before a hair-raising descent.
Then we are facing up Alpe d’Huez again.
If I was looking to challenge someone for GC this would be where I would launch the ambush. You’ve got that whole 3 kilometres to the top of the Sarenne to get a gap and then a dangerous descent. It’s as steep as an elevator shaft, with a bad surface and no guard rails. Tony Martin in particular has been very critical of the state of the descent. One misjudgement and you could be falling down the side of the mountain.
There had even been some talk of abandoning the second ascent of Alpe d’Huez in order to eliminate the descent from the Sarenne. But the Tour has a public, especially the public served by television, and a brutal descent can sometimes be great television. So it was decided that unless the weather got really bad, the dangerous descent stayed.