The Climb: The Autobiography

by Chris Froome

  With 1 kilometre to go, Rodríguez eased the pace up on the front; the race for the stage had started. We looked at each other. I really didn’t have anything left in the tank but I thought there might be a chance if I attacked. These two were so busy marking each other there was a chance I might slip through and ride away.

  I made a very sluggish attack: I got out of my seat and the bike lurched forward slightly, but it wasn’t long until Quintana had gone straight past me. Oh well.

  Towards the final 20 kilometres or so I got on the radio to everyone in the team. Movistar had been working hard and our responsibilities once again had fortunately been taken over by another team. This was a bit of a relief but I said to the guys, ‘We have 20 kilometres to go. We are going to finish this off properly. When we start dragging up towards the last climb we’re going to put everyone on the front and let’s ride as hard as we can into the bottom of the climb.’

  In my eyes this was partially a safety measure, for the team to go as hard as they could in one long line. But it was also for ourselves; we needed to do it.

  Closer and closer we got to the finish. I told the guys to get ready for it. ‘We’re going to move to the front in 1 kilometre – start lining up now. The finish line is just at the bottom of this climb and then we’re done pulling in this Tour.’

  They did a fantastic job. All of them. They lined out the race and made it extremely hard for everyone else building up into the climb.

  A great way to knock off duty.

  There was a story I was thinking of. Around ten years earlier I had gone down to a place called Howick in South Africa, which is where Nelson Mandela was arrested before he was tried.

  All week I’d gone out training on my own, putting the big miles down.

  There aren’t many roads to choose from around Howick – it has a strange geography – so I had been riding a circuit which was about 200 kilometres long. It was one big loop of tarmac road around the whole area.

  This day I had got through 150 kilometres of my loop. I was coming into the last hour or so, and was on the home run, when I hit a long, straight piece of road where I could see for a long way ahead of me and behind me. Up the road there was a group of young guys walking in my direction. They were around my own age, and there were six or seven of them on the left-hand side of the road.

  As far as the eye could see there was just them and there was just me. As I got closer they fanned out and made a straight line across the road; a human barrier. I knew I was in trouble.

  I was still 200 metres away and there wasn’t a car in sight. We were in the middle of nowhere, just a crop farm on the right side of the road. I did the calculation: ‘Okay, they’ll take the bike. And I have a phone. They’ll take that too, along with my glasses.’ I had nothing else but they were certainly going to mug me.

  I slowed down for a second, thinking through my options, although I think I already knew which one I was going to take. I could have rung for help. I could have gone backwards and ridden the whole loop I had just done, but there were no shortcuts linking one side of the route to the other – just farmland and a lake in the centre. It would take another five hours to get home.

  I could have ridden for a distance back down the road and hung around there, come back in an hour and hope they would be gone. But this was Africa. People walk for ever.

  My other option was to go forward.

  I got my head low. I flicked down a couple of gears and I got out of the saddle. I started sprinting hard. My hands were gripping the dropped handlebars for dear life. Hard. Harder.

  I picked out the two guys in the centre of the road. I aimed at the small gap between them. I got to within 10 metres and I roared like a beast.

  ‘Aaaaarrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhh!’

  They did the calculations now. They would have to stop me with their bodies; I clearly wasn’t going to slow down myself. On either side of them the guys on the flanks saw what was happening and started to close in. They were too late. In the last couple of metres I aimed myself at one of the two guys. Then, just at the final second, and just before impact, I went to his side. He flinched enough to open the gap a little more.

  I made it straight through them. As I went past I felt their hands on me briefly but they came off just as quickly as they made contact. They had needed to get a hold of my handlebars, and although the guys coming in from the side had tried clawing at the bike, I had the momentum.

  I stopped pedalling when I was a couple of hundred metres up the road. Coasting, I could feel the adrenaline racing through me. My heart was pumping in my throat and my stomach felt like I was just falling through space. I looked back at them and they looked at me. It was over. They weren’t going to catch me.

  I remember that day because in terms of common sense, in terms of the way the world runs, I had taken the least sensible course of action. However, I knew somehow even before I started thinking of my options that this was the option I would take.

  Sometimes you have to live that way. Forget common sense, grab the handlebars, dip the head, push the legs and ride hard for the gap.

  Tomorrow I would win the Tour de France. Most people, I hoped, would have enjoyed the race and not wondered how I had got to be there at all. The people who knew me would know that I had received a lot of help along the way and that I would always love those who were there for me. And they would also know that quiet grain of madness that runs through me. Some people who have never known me may tell each other that I cheated. Some of them may tell their readers the same.

  I think back to that day in Howick. I know I am here today because I have that madness in me. I could have been the quiet guy who told you at the office party that he liked cycling on the weekends. I could have ridden the big loop of life doing the safe thing.

  But I gave up everything, put my head down and rode hard for the gap. Tomorrow, credit me for that, at least.

  WINNER: NAIRO QUINTANA

  OVERALL GC 1: CHRIS FROOME

  2: NAIRO QUINTANA +5 MIN 03 SEC

  Stage Twenty-one: Sunday 21 July, Versailles to Paris Champs-Élysées, 133.5 kilometres

  Last night the mechanics were still working on the bikes when we all went outside to join them and Dave B. served them the champagne.

  It was a good touch, and really nice to be able to have a glass with everyone, just to say, ‘We made it, guys.’ The mechanics were still working as they did every night but we all knew Paris would just be a procession.

  There was a small element I couldn’t quite get my head around.

  Hold off the champagne, Chris. At heart you are still Crash Froome. You might have got to this point but you haven’t won the Tour yet. The cobbles on the Champs-Élysées are made for you to take a tumble on. It’s very easy to have a mechanical there and the race doesn’t exactly wait for you. All those traffic islands and photographers asking you to stop for photos coming into Paris with your arm around this person or that person? It’s made for you to screw up. You’ll run into someone holding a flag pointing you where to go, or the flower bed from Romandie will pop up on a road somewhere! They have old men on the streets of Paris, you know.

  As an added bonus it was also the first time in Tour de France history that there would be a night-time finish on the Champs-Élysées.

  I wasn’t completely at ease that evening.

  That morning at the hotel, before we flew up to Paris for the start in Versailles, Jeremy had come through to say congratulations. We had about twenty minutes together before the buses were to leave so we sat and talked.

  There was a bit of a crowd forming outside in the hotel lobby, made up of people who wanted photos and autographs. For a bit of fun, and because everyone had seen me walk down from my room in my team tracksuit, cap and glasses, we decided to dress Jeremy up in my clothes and let him walk to the bus.

  It was hilarious. He went out there and made a few scribbles on a few pieces of paper and people went along with it. I stood by, taking photos of him signi
ng ‘my’ autographs.

  Then he felt so guilty he had to come back in. Little kids were happily gazing up at him, tugging his sleeve to have a photo taken with him. We both felt guilty now, so we went back out there and brought each of them back in, where I give them all a proper autograph and picture.

  Still, we had a few photos taken for posterity of me wearing Jeremy’s clothes and Jeremy wearing my tracksuit. Afterwards, I thought more about how Jeremy and I are quite similar in some ways but there was one question that stuck to me, even on the day I was winning the Tour de France. Jeremy is seven years older than me. Was I really ageing that fast?

  At the start of the stage, just after we left the Palace of Versailles, Joaquim ‘Purito’ Rodríguez pulled out some Cuban cigars as we were riding. He handed one to Quintana, one to myself and one to Peter Sagan – the winners of the Polka Dot (King of the Mountains), White (Best Young Rider), Yellow (GC) and Green (Points Leader) jerseys respectively. We didn’t light them or anything but he just wanted a few photos of us with them.

  Meanwhile, I was wearing some new yellow shoes that SIDI had provided for me for the final stage. They hadn’t been worn in and they pinched a little. There was always something!

  Before the race began – it was a late start – there had been a lot of waiting around because the organizers wanted us to arrive in the evening, when the sun had gone down. In the afternoon I sat on the bus, thinking about what I was going to say on the podium that evening. It was quite daunting thinking that somebody was going to hand me a microphone without asking any questions. They were just going to let me speak.

  I decided I would begin my short speech in French, knowing the majority of the people on the sides of the streets would be French. I wanted to thank everyone who had supported the race, and I remember asking Nico along the way if what I hoped to say sounded right.

  He said it was fine.

  ‘I’m sure the people will be very happy that you’re at least making an effort to say something in French. Quit worrying!’

  I took his advice.

  It is always a big deal who the first rider is on to the Champs-Élysées to begin the final circuits and I wanted that to be Richie because he had been there for me in the race when I most needed him. As we approached the famous Parisian avenue, I rode alongside Richie and said, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ I went to the front with him glued to my wheel.

  As we swung out of Place de la Concorde, I looked at Richie. ‘Now you go.’ He led us on to the Champs-Élysées. It was perfect and I could feel myself welling up; I felt so pleased for the whole team. I pointed out the planes trailing the French Tricolour over the Arc de Triomphe to Richie, holding back the tears. It really was a strong moment. We’d put so much into the last three weeks and this was finally it. Every guy had delivered some moments of heroism. This was the end, and seeing it nearly broke me.

  Cycling around the Place Charles de Gaulle, I tried to soak up the carnival atmosphere as British flags mingled with French, Spanish and Colombian colours. But the finishing circuit was by no means easy. The section of the Champs-Élysées from the finish line to the Arc de Triomphe was on a gradual, painful incline, and each lap got quicker as the lead-out trains for the sprinters jostled for position. A brave breakaway attempt led by David Millar and Juan Antonio Flecha was up to 35 seconds ahead at one point, but they were eventually reeled in.

  Kittel beat Cav in the final sprint. A few moments later, comfortably in the bunch as twilight replaced the golden sunset, all seven of us in Sky pulled alongside each other and linked arms. Together we crossed the line. We had done it.

  At the line I had four schoolfriends from South Africa who had flown over especially: Matt Beckett, Simon Gaganakis, who was part of the St John’s cycling club, Ricky Reynolds, also from St John’s, and Anthony Holdcroft, or Anto as we called him, who I used to sit beside in maths, memorizing the sayings written on our classroom walls, instead of listening to our teacher.

  Anto chose the moment to make a complete monkey of himself, live on television. He had given an interview to Orla Chennaoui from Sky Sports, who had asked them to introduce themselves and recall a few memories of times spent with me. Anto immediately went into a recital of the old saying we had learned off the wall: ‘He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him. He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child, teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows is asleep, wake him. He who knows and knows that he knows is wise, follow him.’*

  Well, he attempted it, but made a mess of it after about ten seconds and then heard a voice saying, ‘We’ll need to cut this!’

  Poor man. But we were all in tears at the line. It was so special to have them there.

  I was standing on the podium. The Arc de Triomphe was illuminated behind me in glowing yellow with the historic numbers ‘100’ projected majestically on to its surface. In between its arches the giant Tricolore blew lightly in the wind.

  On the podium I wanted to talk about Mum, to express my sadness that she couldn’t be with us. I knew she would have been so happy to see me standing there.

  ‘It’s a great shame she never got to come see the Tour, but I’m sure she’d be extremely proud if she were here tonight. Without her encouragement to follow my dreams, I’d probably be at home watching this event on TV.’

  I dedicated my victory to her.

  The next thing was to thank everyone. There were so many people who had helped me along the way and so many people who had given me chances. The list went on and on, from Kinjah to Team Sky. I couldn’t stand there and rattle off a phone directory of names. And what if I left somebody out? So I just summed it up by saying a massive thanks to everyone who had helped me along the road from Karen to Paris.

  ‘I would like to thank my teammates who buried themselves day-in, day-out, to keep this yellow jersey on my shoulders and the Team Sky management for believing in me and building this team around me. Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to teach me over the years. Finally, I’d like to thank my close friends and family for being there for me every step of the way …’

  One thing I expressed – though maybe not enough – was my feeling for the team.

  Michelle, of course, deserved special mention. A year ago when I came 2nd she was back at the team bus, not allowed to come close to the podium. She had given up her job and life, and dedicated herself to helping me achieve my goals and dreams. She had supported me, protected me and defended me as only she could and I wanted to thank her. When I saw her run on to the Champs-Élysées, straight after I crossed the line, it was a moment that I will never forget; we had both given so much to get to this point.

  I wanted to finish with a reference to the past and to the future. This was the one-hundredth staging of the Tour de France. It was the first staging after the final act of the dark Lance Armstrong era. It was a surreal moment, standing there in the spotlights, surrounded by close to complete darkness, the Arc de Triomphe lit up behind me.

  ‘This is a beautiful country and it hosts the biggest annual sporting event on the planet. To win the 100th edition is an honour … this is one yellow jersey that will stand the test of time.’

  Those twelve final words meant the most. After one hundred races, the Tour starts anew. We begin making fresh history. No footnotes. No asterisks. Days that will stand the test of time.

  Asante sana.

  WINNER: MARCEL KITTEL

  FINAL GC 1: CHRIS FROOME

  2: NAIRO QUINTA na +4 min 20 sec

  Illustrations

  Kenya, where it all began. [Photo credit: Michelle Cound]

  The Safari Simbaz – back with David Kinjah’s team in the tin hut where I learned to ride as a boy. [Photo credit: Michelle Cound]

  Mum never tired of teaching me about the bush and the animals that lived there. She told me about the different sounds and all of the different trees.

  Boy racer − on my bike on holiday in La Péniche, France.

 
The Masai Mara became a favourite place of mine.

  My grandfather taught my brothers and me to fish and hunt.

  Without Mum’s encouragement to follow my dreams, I would probably have never got to the Tour de France.

  First take – the race where I met David Kinjah, aged thirteen.

  David Kinjah and I having lunch together during one of our epic training rides.

  The Black Lion: my first cycling mentor, David Kinjah.

  Nobody I knew even had one pet python. I had two: Rocky and Shandy.

  Having a laugh with my mates in Africa.

  Matt Beckett, a lifetime friend.

  Hippie – when I had hair.

  With my brothers Jeremy and Jono, our ayah, Anna, and her daughter Grace.

  Me with game rangers at the Masai Mara nature reserve, 2004.

  Riding as an under-23 for the Hi-Q Supercycling Academy, based in Johannesburg.

  2006 was a year in three acts. Above, Act I: the Tour of Egypt. With our trollies and bikes held proudly in front of us, Kinjah and I gathered with the Simbaz at Cairo airport, along with our manager, Julius Mwangi (second from right), as the seven-man cycling team of Kenya.

  Act II: the Commonwealth Games, Melbourne. Me racing for Kenya in the mountain bike competition, which we had never planned to ride. It began badly and got worse.