The Climb: The Autobiography

by Chris Froome

  I told any team that came up to us on the climb today not to worry about the descent. We wouldn’t be racing it. ‘Nice and easy, guys,’ I said, ‘nothing crazy.’ I spoke to Valverde and he said, ‘Don’t worry, Chris, we’re not going to be lunatics either.’ I got the feeling that not everyone saw it quite that way but the people I spoke to agreed with me.

  Contador was the worry. Losing the time trial yesterday would have gotten under his skin. I think they had a look at the possibilities because they sent two riders up the road in front of the peloton at one stage. I presumed they were dispatched to be there for Alberto for after he’d made his move. He would attack on the Sarenne, hook up with his teammates and then throw himself down the descent, risking life and limb to get some time back.

  I saw the two of them go and I sent instruction to my guys to close them down. We had to make sure Contador had nobody to get across to.

  He did try on the descent anyway; about a third of the way down he managed to slip through us and rode away. I said clearly to the team that there was no need to stress. If he wanted to take the risk, that was on him. He had about 15 kilometres to go down the hill and through the valley after the descent. Then back up the Alpe.

  If this was his big move of the day he would have to ride that 15 kilometres on his own, taking all that wind. We knew from the radio there was a headwind in the valley. I knew no credible GC rider would do that knowing they had to climb Alpe d’Huez all over again. Even if he committed a hundred per cent and it worked, he wouldn’t take back more than a minute.

  At the same time I knew the race was on. We needed to close this down. As it happened we got down the mountain nice and safe and it wasn’t long before we found Contador off his bike. He’d pulled off the side of the road and was doing a bike change. It seemed a bit pointless to go on the offensive only to then sit up and change his bike.

  I don’t know what the issue was, but we were told soon after that the race had announced they were going to control our bikes at the finish. Rumours went around, of course. Had he switched from a bike that was under the allowed 6.8 kg weight? There was gossip, too, about a special lube that worked wonders by reducing fiction. I’m sure he just had bike problems.

  Movistar started bearing the load. They rode a really good tempo leading up into Alpe d’Huez. Our guys had done a good job pulling back Contador’s two teammates. David López was proving his worth. He had done a really good job ascending l’Alpe d’Huez and taken us over the Col de Sarenne.

  Pete Kennaugh was riding heroically too. At one point about 5 kilometres from the second climb up the Alpe I asked him to go back to the car for gels. All was good but we were empty. Three of us were sitting behind Movistar and Pete peeled out into the wind to go back.

  As he went, I spoke into the radio mouthpiece: ‘Nico, Pete is coming back for the gels – please can we have some pineapple.’

  Pineapple gels don’t contain caffeine. I find the ones that contain caffeine make me feel flustered and generally not very good. All I’m looking for is some readily available sugar, electrolytes and carbohydrates to go straight into the system.

  I didn’t hear anything back. A few minutes later Pete returned and told us the car wasn’t there. That was odd – one of the perks for the team in yellow is that the car gets to ride first in the convoy.

  I got on the radio again.

  ‘Nico, Nico. Can you hear me? We need some gels. Can you come to the front please?’

  Pete was empty. I was empty. Richie had one caffeine gel, which he offered to me. Caffeine? At least it’s got some sugar in it.

  I didn’t want to make a bigger deal of this than it needed to be. The climb was coming up and we had to focus.*

  If I am close to a rider who I am on good terms with, I can ask them for a gel and nine times out of ten that would be fine. But this was a relatively select group of contenders just 5 kilometres off the last climb. I needed to hold my position. It wouldn’t do to look desperate and show weakness. If I asked the wrong person the word would be out: He’s low. Let’s make it hard for him. We had zero options.

  We said farewell to Pete at the bottom of the Alpe. He needed to save his legs for the next day. I sat behind Richie and we let Movistar work; they had the numbers. They took us about 3 or 4 kilometres up. The group was stringing out. I remember turning to Richie and saying, ‘Okay, now.’

  He looked back at me.

  I nodded, as in, ‘Let’s go.’

  People were on their limits. I didn’t feel great myself. Richie picked up the pace and we dropped a number of riders and then I rode over the top of him and kept on pushing for a minute or so.

  It was not a huge attack but it was an early attack. There were 10 kilometres of mountain stacked above us but with people on their limits it was time to push on. No free rides.

  Myself, Rodríguez and Quintana were now out in front. I was not prepared to pull all the way up, so we shared the workload but not wholeheartedly. No one really wanted to commit to it. With so far still to go, I could understand that.

  I calculated it would take the best part of 30 minutes to do this last 10 kilometres. Richie had dropped back, fallen in with Contador and the others, seen they were wasted and ridden away from them. He rejoined us and it was pretty impressive to see him again. This gave me a tremendous boost.

  Not long after, I said to him, ‘You know I’m not good, I’m fairly spent.’

  The four of us rode on for another 2 or 3 kilometres. I couldn’t contribute at all to the work at this stage, I felt hollowed out. I asked Richie to pull just enough to keep me in the group.

  I was worried about a big loss. Thankfully, Contador was struggling, and Quintana and Rodríguez, who stood to gain most from my weakness, were around 7 minutes down on GC.

  With about 4 kilometres to go, I heard Nico back on the radio.

  ‘Okay, I’m back at the front now with you again, guys.’

  I shot my hand up to say I needed something from the car. Richie asked me what I wanted. The man was unbelievable.

  ‘Gels, please, I need sugar.’

  He said, ‘Okay, you stay here, I’ll go back for them.’

  It didn’t even occur to me that there was a rule against feeding in the last 5 kilometres of a stage. Nico was there, so surely there was no reason why I couldn’t get a gel?

  But I’d given the game away.

  When I put my hand up to signal I needed something from the car, Quintana looked around and recognized that I needed help. A few moments later he accelerated off the front.

  I thought to myself, ‘Chris, you know what he’s just done. This goes into the memory bank.’ For all Quintana knew, I had a flat tyre. Anyway, for now he was gone.

  That attack was not something I was going to forget. Two days ago Contador and I had got into trouble on the descent and Quintana had been the one to push on. There was a pattern here and I was going to have to keep an eye on it. It could be inexperience or naivety, but I would keep it in mind all the same.

  Richie came back with the gels and I took two immediately. Rodríguez had latched on to Quintana, so they were 50 metres up the road now. Richie just settled into work in front of me. He was going well.

  There were times when I had to call to him to say I was losing contact. It was horrible, not having the energy. I had a damp blanket of weakness over me and the higher we went the heavier it got.

  Whoa. Focus. My head was all over the place. There was less and less power in my legs, just jelly. I had nothing. It was quite humbling to have my friend’s back wheel as my only goal. Richie was doing the job. I just really needed to concentrate on that now. I had no idea how many guys were in front of us at this point. I assumed Rodríguez and Quintana had caught the earlier breakaway by now and were fighting for the stage win. (As it turned out they hadn’t. Christophe Riblon of France was away and would stay away.)

  As we approached the finish Richie pulled aside to let me go over first. I demurred. That wouldn’t be r
ight. He deserved to go before me and take a place on that stage. As he pulled off I pushed him to make sure he stayed in front.

  He turned and thanked me!

  I didn’t have the energy to explain that all the debt and gratitude were mine.

  We were blessed. I finished a bad day by increasing my lead on Contador who had a worse day.

  I had mixed emotions at the finish. This was the one day I had worried about having a blow-up in the mountains. Now it had happened but I’d come out of it okay. I’d settle for that.

  Nico was apologetic about the car. A cool box had leaked and destroyed the electronics. The car had shut down. I knew the feeling. Stuff happened.

  Nico started talking technicalities. He was expecting that I would get a time penalty for taking the gels on board in the last 5 kilometres. There was a brief discussion about legalities.

  But it seemed like bad karma and sharp practice when I got to think about it. We shouldn’t appeal. I’d had a bad day and I’d survived in front. I would take the 20-second penalty.

  If the worst days were only this bad, we could handle them.

  Later on I went for a massage with David Rozman. Richie was still there being worked on when I got down so I used the 5 or 10 minutes to myself to make a few phone calls and put out a tweet.

  Most of the time a daily plan goes up to say that dinner is at 8.00. Sometimes I only get on the massage table at 7.15 and I know Rozman will take an hour and a half to take the mountains out of my muscles.

  He starts on the back, which not many soigneurs do. His thinking is that once the back is released then we can work on the legs and it makes a more logical progression. If you have a tight back it limits your legs. After that he starts on the back of my legs, getting into my hamstrings and glutes.

  What I like about his massage is that he hasn’t got a by-the-numbers system of three rubs here and three rubs there, now press here, now press there. Rozman can feel for himself where something is tighter than it should be. He knows the spots where I have trouble with different muscle groups and he takes longer on those points, stretching them, coaxing them to relax.

  Some days I am exhausted and we don’t say much at all. A muttered greeting might be all we manage. Other days we talk about life, the universe, everything: time away, his family, his wife, Manja, and small child, Kris.

  I remember when he told me what he had named his son, my surprise almost spoiled the moment. ‘No way! C’mon, really, what is his name? You wouldn’t call him Chris. Seriously, what’s his name?’

  ‘No, no, Chris. After you. But with a K. Not with a Ch because in Slovenia we don’t use Ch.’

  Whatever that meant to Rozman I believe he’ll never know what that meant to me. I remember the feeling that this guy from Slovenia, whose path had intersected with my path coming from Kenya, this guy believed in me. He had connected with me as a person, not as a bike rider. It was a lovely thing to do and I was moved and humbled. I still am. I just hope he didn’t get into trouble for bringing home his work like that.

  On brutal days, like the one on Alpe d’Huez, we don’t speak much. But Rozman always gives me a very clear view of things.

  I lay on the table and said, ‘I can’t believe this has happened today. And … I’m not sure about tomorrow.’

  Rozman just said, ‘It’s simple. It’s a bicycle race. It goes uphill, so you pedal uphill. Why think so much? Just go.’

  And that stays in my mind when I am racing. Just go. What would Rozman do? Wait till 2 kilometres from the top, the hardest point. And just go, Chris! Just go!

  Simple.

  He stopped me running through all five hundred different scenarios that I had thought of for the next day. I switched off. His final formulation was straightforward.

  ‘You are strong enough to win this on your own, but you aren’t on your own, so it will be fine, Chris.’

  31

  Stage Nineteen: Friday 19 July, Bourg-d’Oisans to Le Grand-Bornand, 204.5 kilometres

  A big sprawl of a day: over 200 kilometres in length with a large amount of climbing. The stage didn’t finish on top of a mountain but on a descent, so at least it shouldn’t be the same GC battle as yesterday was with Alpe d’Huez. Still, it had the Col du Glandon and the Col de la Madeleine. We couldn’t be sure.

  We rode out preparing ourselves for the worst. Helpfully, the Glandon and Madeleine came early in the stage and everybody who was left from the team (minus Eddie and Kiri now) all pushed over as a unit.

  The team rode so well. As G and Yogi were pulling up the climbs I was thinking, ‘One of them has a fractured pelvis and the other weighs over 80 kilos.’

  Throughout the tour we had talked about these final three big days as being decisive. Today, before the race began, I had even wondered if we would have the manpower to ride at the front for such a huge stage.

  Pete, for instance, was really tired by now; he was the youngest on the team. So I was so relieved when we got over these two big climbs and we still had everyone with us.

  Then Saxo came to the front and almost relieved us of our duties.

  I couldn’t work that out. I asked Nico on the radio what was going on. Had they decided to work with us to control the race? He figured out that they were riding for the team competition. This was an unexpected bonus for us.

  As we approached the last climb the weather turned for the worse: very heavy rain and a thunderstorm. López was still with me, along with Richie.

  I said to López at this point that Saxo were controlling things now and he didn’t need to ride up here at a ridiculous pace. He was doing good work at this stage but he could afford to save his legs.

  On that final climb, going up in the storm, I knew there would be attacks towards the top from Contador and Quintana and possibly Rodríguez. They would figure that it would be quicker to take the descent on their own and steal a few seconds. So I followed those attacks when they came and I was conscious that Contador was likely to take crazy risks in the wet. He started the descent very fast but it wasn’t long before the rest of us had pushed on and kept him to roughly within 20 metres.

  He saw that we weren’t going to surrender and then he turned to us and gave us a look that said, ‘I’m not going to keep pushing you on the wet corners. I’ll back off.’

  So no drama, really. In the end, Movistar’s Rui Costa won the stage. All the GC riders rolled across the line 9 minutes later. Everything stayed the same.

  I got on the massage table and Rozman said to me: ‘Well, how are you? How was your day?’

  Most days I would say, ‘Fine, how was your day?’ but today I felt different.

  ‘Rozman, I’m actually feeling quite tired.’

  I expected him to say, ‘Okay, my friend, just relax. I’ll go a bit easy here.’

  Instead, he just buckled over and started laughing at me heartily. I looked at him with a question mark instead of a face. What?

  He turned to me.

  ‘You’re amazing, you know that? You don’t need to say anything else. Just shut up now. For the past eighteen days I asked how are you and every day you’ve said, “I’m good, how about you?” Well, it’s about time you’re tired. I’m glad to hear that you finally admit you’re tired. I am a hundred per cent sure that each one of your rivals has been saying they are tired every evening for the last two weeks. So to hear you saying you’re tired now? Well, lucky you! You’ve got nothing to complain about. Just relax and enjoy.’

  I got it. I genuinely did feel the fatigue after the stage today. The Tour is tough and it takes its toll every day being in yellow. I just needed to get to the end now.

  Tomorrow would hopefully be a short gift of a stage. In my mind it was just a 3-hour ride. I almost didn’t need to pack any rice cakes into my pockets because it was so short. I would just bring along some gels. They are normally just a finishing product that I use closer towards the end of a stage, but tomorrow’s race was only 125 kilometres. I would start eating at 50 kilometres so that
would leave me with 75 remaining kilometres, which I could pretty much do on the gels alone. It was quite a nice feeling not to have another 200-kilometre stage. What was happening to me? Was I becoming obsessed with food and rest?

  WINNER: RUI COSTA

  OVERALL GC 1: CHRIS FROOME

  2: ALBERTO CONTADOR +5 MIN 11 SEC

  Stage Twenty: Saturday 20 July, Annecy to Annecy-Semnoz, 125 kilometres

  A short, hard day.

  No puncture and no crash, but it was a day to survive. I felt I couldn’t relax until it was over.

  Once we had got on to the final climb I half admitted to myself that at this point it was going to be very difficult for me to lose the Tour.

  Rodríguez and Quintana were among the first to attack on the early slopes and I had let them go; I knew that this was now the race for the podium. I looked back at Contador to see what his response was. He just looked down at the ground as if to say, ‘I don’t have anything today, I can’t go after them. It’s beyond me.’

  At that point I felt well enough to make up my own mind: I was going after them myself. I released a lot of tension out of that acceleration and then I was off to the front. I hoped that this wouldn’t be the end for me.

  I did get a little carried away and went straight past Quintana and Rodríguez. I thought, ‘Right, I’m going to keep going!’

  After a minute or two it began to hurt. My energy levels dropped and the pedals got heavier. Quintana and Rodríguez came back and latched on to my wheel.

  I made the attack after about 3 or 4 kilometres of the 10-kilometre final climb. After that, Rodríguez did the lion’s share of the pulling. He asked me to come through and help him and I did once or twice but I could feel I was only slowing him down. I also thought to myself, ‘I have the yellow jersey. What am I doing? I don’t need to be pulling.’ I started to feel rough at that moment but I wanted to try to stay on the back of those two guys. It was one of the hardest climbs I had experienced in the Tour, in the sense that I wasn’t feeling great. I really regretted that cocky acceleration.