All aboard the magic bus, part one
What it was like travelling on the road with a pro team at the Critérium du Dauphiné
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In 2011, I spent the Critérium du Dauphiné shadowing Team Sky, travelling with the team, staying in the same hotels, eating with the staff, seeing what it’s like to be on the road at a major stage race. It was Team Sky’s second season in the peloton, after a year which could, at best, be described as a baptism of fire. At worst, their 2010 debut season was a chastening experience for Dave Brailsford, who had become used to being on top of the world with Great Britain at the Olympic Games. This is the first part of the article I wrote for Cycle Sport magazine.
by Lionel Birnie
When you watch ants go about their business, you see them all rushing hither and thither, all part of some bigger plan, all with a specific job to do. A cycling team is a little like a colony of ants - you have to get very close up to see how they work together and who does what in order to appreciate their individual roles. I spent a week with Team Sky at the Critérium du Dauphiné in the French Alps to see the Happy Ants do their thing, while keeping a close eye out for the appearance of any Inner Chimps.
SATURDAY
The Best Western Alexander Fleming in Chambéry is typical of the hotels in which professional cyclists spend their working lives. It is stuck next to a roundabout on an industrial estate near an autoroute junction. There aren’t little cafés or bars buzzing with humanity nearby. Instead there’s a DIY superstore and a dreadful chain restaurant. The hotel is tidy but functional, with furniture and décor chosen by head office and staff on autopilot.
Late afternoon is giving way to early evening. The car park outside has been taken over by the Sky and Ag2r teams, who each have a fleet of vehicles positioned strategically in a land-grab formation. Mechanics are working on time trial bikes for tomorrow’s prologue. The generators hum and the hoses run. If you were a guest at the hotel you might find the presence of two cycling teams dominating the car park and the dining room annoying.
Sky’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get head coach Shane Sutton is reclining in one of the armchairs in reception. He is talking to Juan Antonio Flecha. It is a surprise to see Sutton here. The previous day he’d sent a text saying he would be arriving a few days late after being struck down by a bug at the Bayern Rundfahrt race in Germany. A food poisoning outbreak is dominating the news and the Germans are blaming Spanish salad.
‘I nearly didn’t make it,’ he calls over. ‘I thought it was a dodgy cucumber.’
Sutton is not the type to be laid low for long. He has been with Bradley Wiggins every step of the way this season. He’s a mentor and a minder and at times he must feel like a babysitter too. Last year, as Wiggins wilted under the pressure of leading the multi-million pound team while trying to repeat his fourth place in the 2009 Tour de France, Team Sky battled, and failed, to keep him from derailing.
This year Sutton and Tim Kerrison, the team’s head of performance science, have been assigned to work closely with Wiggins. Sutton takes care of the mind, Kerrison works on the physical conditioning. As Sutton says, Wiggins needs to be loved, bolstered, encouraged and bollocked. The key is understanding which is necessary.
Kerrison has the appearance of a youthful university professor. Neat hair and a serious manner. He is sitting in reception, working on his laptop. To the uninitiated, the screen shows a jumble of charts and numbers but the Training Peaks software plots every effort Wiggins has made on a bicycle this year. ‘We really didn’t have much of a picture of Brad as an athlete,’ he says. ‘The first job was to build up an accurate picture and then tailor his training to the demands of the event.’ Every time Wiggins has ridden his bike this year, whether on the road or the turbo, in a race or training, he has recorded his power output. Kerrison, who previously led the revolution in Australian swimming, has analysed it all and knows to the watt how much work Wiggins has done.
This attention to detail and level of scrutiny might feel suffocating had Wiggins not bought into the idea.
‘The bottom line is, we know what happened last year,’ says Sutton. ‘We’re not going back over it again but we’re not repeating the same mistakes either. We don’t want to focus on the negatives and drag it all up again but basically he didn’t do the work last year. He might say he did, but we know he didn’t. If you print that, I’ll kill you.’ Sutton need not worry. Later in the week, Wiggins will admit as much.
* * *
The room list is stuck on the wall next to the lift. Eight riders are supported by 16 staff. It is apparent that, barring disaster, this group will be the bulk of the Tour de France team. Last year the Tour team prepared in completely different ways and some arrived for the start virtual strangers. Wiggins, Michael Barry and Steve Cummings rode the Giro, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Geraint Thomas did the Dauphiné while Flecha, Simon Gerrans, Thomas Löfkvist and Serge Pauwels rode the Tour of Switzerland.
TEAM SKY RIDERS ROOM LIST
RIDERS
Juan Antonio Flecha & Edvald Boasson Hagen
Simon Gerrans & Christian Knees
Geraint Thomas & Bradley Wiggins
Rigoberto Uran & Xabier Zandio
STAFF
Shane Sutton – Head coach
Sean Yates – Sports director
Nicolas Portal – Sports director
Tim Kerrison – Head of performance science
Richard Freeman – Doctor
Bob Grainger – Physio
Sebastian Paepcke – Therapist
Chris Slark – Bus driver
Rajen Murugayen – Mechanic
Igor Turk – Mechanic
Alan Williams – Mechanic
Mario Pafundi – Carer
Maarten Mimpen – Carer
Klaus Liepold – Carer
Søren Kristiansen – Chef
Oli Cookson – Assistant
The riders sit down for dinner an hour before the staff. Chef Søren has spent the afternoon in the kitchen. No chef’s whites for him, his uniform is black with the Sky logo in large pale blue letters on the front of his apron. The Dane is calm and quietly-spoken, combining the role of chef with that of an attentive maitre d’.
As the riders come down for dinner, their starter is already waiting for them. ‘It’s important there’s something for them to eat immediately,’ he says later. ‘The riders don’t come down at the same time because some might be having their message but when they come down it’s because they’re ready to eat.’
Most of the staff settle for whatever the hotel kitchen is serving up, although some cast envious glances at Søren’s tender-looking steaks and wait until the riders have finished eating before polishing off the left-overs. The hotel’s meat course is a bit of a mystery and, judging by the concerned looks around the table, I’m not the only one wondering what it is. Surely it can’t be chicken? Chicken shouldn’t be served pink.
Nicolas Portal, the team’s French sports director, asks the waitress.
‘Lapin,’ she says. Rabbit.
Portal’s English is still stuttering past the beginner’s stage and his mis-translation has knives and forks clattering onto plates as everyone stops, mid-chew. ‘Chicken,’ he says, before realising his mistake.
Unlike Søren’s food, which has vanished, much of it goes back to the kitchen uneaten. You can see why some teams employ their own chef.
SUNDAY – Prologue, St Jean de Maurienne
It is a couple of minutes past eight in the morning when Team Sky’s bus, truck and camper van head for St Jean de Maurienne. On the way, an aggressive sky cracks and the rain is heavy for a while.
We stop for fuel and Chris Slark, the bus driver everyone calls Slarky, puts in 350 litres of diesel. It costs 504 euros. ‘That’s only just over half way,’ he says in a gentle West Country accent. The tank holds 650 litres and Slark will be buying more fuel in a couple of days. Team Sky has two of these buses, each costing around £750,000 to purchase and customise. They are thirsty beasts and today, when parked up for eight hours with everything running while the riders wait for their start times, it will burn around six litres an hour. ‘Because of the distances involved, it’s difficult to be a green sport,’ says Slarky, who has worked in Formula 1 and has done everything from driving the bus to changing tyres and refuelling in the pit lane.
After pipping the Quick Step bus to a stretch of pavement on one of the little back roads in the town centre, the staff quickly get to work pulling out the awning on the bus, setting up the turbo trainers and fencing off an area for the riders to warm-up in with smart Sky-branded panels.
It’s about an hour before the riders arrive. They get changed and set off to ride the course. It’s still drizzling although the forecast is for it to brighten up later. Because of the changeable weather, Sky have decided to put Geraint Thomas off first, with Boasson Hagen in the middle of the order and Wiggins their last man to tackle the 5.4-kilometre circuit.
The roads are still damp in places when Thomas rides so he has to be cautious through the corners and over the white road markings, which can be perilous when wet. Wiggins gets into the passenger seat alongside Yates. Any clues he can gather now will help him later.
It is not a surprise that Thomas sets the fastest time when he crosses the line. It withstands David Zabriskie’s effort a minute later but later falls to Maarten Tjallingii of Rabobank. Flecha is Sky’s next rider, one of the few to ride with a radio earpiece. The Spaniard pushes down the starting ramp and swings left, then right up the narrow hill. It is a lung-busting climb that will take the fastest riders a minute or so.
Yates follows in the team car. He’s frequently on the radio, offering encouragement and information.
‘That’s it Flecha. That’s good. Come on now.’
‘Careful on this corner, it might still be wet.’
‘Last two kilometres. Push, push, push. It’s nearly over.’
‘Good work, Flecha.’
It is good work. Flecha’s time is a second quicker than Thomas.
Radio Tour, the channel that gives out race information to all the team cars, confirms that Sébastien Hinault has set the fastest time on the hill despite being one of the slowest overall. Hinault rides for the team sponsored by Ag2r, the insurance company, which has its base is in nearby Chambéry. ‘Christ, he gave it everything on the hill to get the king of the mountains jersey and then blew up big time,’ says Yates.
Morning gives way to afternoon and drizzle stands aside for the sunshine. Wiggins completes his warm-up and gets ready to go to the start. ‘Brad hasn’t prepared specifically for the prologue,’ says Sutton. ‘Of course, he wants to be up there but yesterday he did five hours. He’s training for the Tour de France, not for a five k effort.’
Wiggins has the best time when he crosses the line but only for a few minutes. Lars Boom, the Dutch rider with Rabobank, beats it and wins the stage. Then Alexandre Vinokourov nudges Wiggins down to third.
He gets back to the bus, disappears inside for a moment and comes out holding his futuristically silver Bont shoes. He hands them to Raj, the mechanic. ‘Can you check the cleats? The left one isn’t in the right place. And the gears were slipping a bit too.’
The time trial bikes use Shimano’s manual gears, while the road bikes are all equipped with the remarkable electronic system Di2 which has made changing gear like flipping channels on a television set. Switching back to the manual gears and their idiosyncratic ways can prove an issue. ‘With the gears on the TT bikes, you have to push the lever then pull it back ever-so-slightly otherwise they can slip,’ says Alan.
Most of the riders have headed back to the hotel in the team cars after completing the course. Boasson Hagen has waited and plans to ride the 80 kilometres or so with Wiggins, who has gone to dope control.
While we wait, Oli Cookson gets chatting. Apropos of nothing in particular, he says: ‘I just wanted to say I didn’t get this job because of my dad.’ His father is Brian Cookson, president of British Cycling and a board member of Tour Racing Limited, the company that owns Team Sky. ‘In fact, I nearly didn’t get the job because of who my dad is and how it might look.’
It’s a fair point. Last year, UK Sport and British Cycling commissioned the auditor, Deloitte, to examine the relationship between Team Sky and the national federation. Cookson previously worked as a landscape architect and urban designer in Madrid but spent some time on last year’s Tour with Sky. He fitted in well and then worked on the Vuelta a Espana, partly because he is fluent in Spanish.
The team was rocked by the death of Txema Gonzalez, one of the carers, during the race. Gonzalez was taken ill when he contracted a bacterial infection, which worsened and entered the bloodstream causing damage to his internal organs and bringing on septic shock. It was a terrible time. ‘I was one of the only people on the team who could speak English and Spanish,’ he says. ‘I was translating at the hospital and then I was translating between Dave and Txema’s family. It was absolutely terrible. We were all in tears.’
Cookson’s role on the team is broad. He helps lug the riders’ mattresses from hotel to hotel.
‘People joke about it, but having a good night’s sleep is one of the most important parts of recovery,’ he says. ‘It also helps minimise the risk of allergies.’
Cyclists’ lungs are put under stress every day and can be susceptible to irritation. Breathing in dust from a hotel mattress every night can exacerbate any breathing problems. ‘Some hotels are fine but you go into others and you wouldn’t want to sleep there. During the Giro, the carpet was so dusty I could write the word ‘Sky’ on the floor with my finger. We seal up our mattresses and transport them with us for big races.’
Cookson also helps plan logistics and he translates for Zandio and Uran, who joined from Caisse d’Epargne during the winter and are picking up English slowly. Portal also speaks Spanish having ridden with Caisse d’Epargne, so between them they can get the message across.
* * *
It is a quarter to six by the time Wiggins and Boasson Hagen arrive back at the hotel. Their ride, partly done behind a team car driven by Sutton, has taken a couple of hours or so. Wiggins hands his SRM computer to Kerrison to download the data for analysis. Kerrison likes what he sees. ‘Brad recorded his peak power for the season during the prologue,’ he says.
‘Here, listen to this,’ Sutton says. ‘Did you hear what happened in Luxembourg? The guys were showering in a railway station after the last stage – don’t ask me why they were showering in a railway station. Anyway, [Ian] Stannard comes out of the shower and his suitcase is gone. No sign of it. The other guys go out of the railway station and they find a policeman and tell him what’s happened. A hundred metres down the street they see this guy, he’s a local nutcase. He’s got the suitcase and he’s wearing a Sky jersey and shorts over his clothes and he’s got a pair of Oakleys on. He was wearing Stannard’s stuff!’
* * *
MONDAY – Stage one, Albertvile–St Pierre de Chartreuse
Sean Yates is sitting in one of the Jaguar team cars, engine idling, clock ticking. It’s 5.27am. Cookson arrives, puts his bike on the roof and gets in. They wait another three minutes. The clock hits 5.30 just as the car park’s automatic gates open to let in a delivery truck. Yates sees his chance and drives through. Three minutes later, he gets a text. It’s Portal. ‘Where are you?’
Yates and Cookson drive south. They park up and ride the last 40 kilometres of the day’s stage. They want to see the final climb, a second-category hill that rises to the Alpine village that nestles between the twin peaks of the Col du Cucheron and Col du Coq.
‘Hey, where were you?’ Portal asks Yates when they get back. ‘I came down at 5.33 and no one was here?’
‘We said we’d roll at 5.30, not 5.33,’ says Yates with a smile.
‘Oh well, I got another couple of hours’ sleep.’
* * *
The breakfast table is groaning with cereals and sauces, pots and jars. Søren sits waiting. When a rider arrives, he heads to the kitchen and returns with a large bowl of porridge, little pieces of chopped fruit stirred in to add an interesting flavour and texture.
He makes batches of his own juice every day. Fruit in the morning, vegetable in the evening. He places a jug on the riders’ table and then brings over a smaller beaker to the staff table, placing it down with a conspiratorial flourish, as if to say: ‘You shouldn’t be getting this, but…’
Søren used to work for the Danish embassy in London and he’s worked in ‘proper’ restaurants too but for the past seven years he’s catered to the specific requirements of professional cyclists, first for CSC, now with Sky.
He calls each hotel a few weeks in advance, lets them know he’s coming, places an order for ingredients. The menus are actually drawn up by the team’s nutritionist, Nigel Mitchell but, as Søren says: ‘It’s a compromise. Nigel knows that writing the menu in Manchester is fine when but you get to the race you might have to drive 300 kilometres to the next hotel, which might be in the country, 30 kilometres from the nearest supermarket.’
Søren’s priority is to check the quality of the produce provided by the hotel. ‘If something doesn’t have a date on it, I don’t use it. You can tell if the meat is good quality. If not, I buy my own.’
He has ten boxes of his own equipment and ingredients and he notices if this puts noses out of joint with the hotel’s chef. ‘I have to ignore it. Some hotels are great but others are like “What, is our food not good enough for your precious riders?” It’s not that the food isn’t good, it’s that we want to know what’s in it. The salt, the fat, the ingredients. I’ve seen every type of hotel and I’m the only member of the team who gets to see behind the scenes. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t seen but I don’t say anything. I am a guest in their kitchen.’
Every evening meal comprises meat and fish, pasta or rice. ‘You have to make the food look good because people eat with their eyes first. In a Grand Tour, after three weeks of wet pasta, the riders almost feel dead inside, so a bit of colour makes a big difference. Usually I use chicken or turkey because it is low in fat but steak puts a smile on everyone’s face.’
Last night’s dinner was chicken in a curry sauce that tasted so good it’s impossible to believe there was no cream or butter in it. ‘Just water, spices and a little milk,’ he says.
* * *
Team Sky’s bus ensures the riders travel to the race in first-class comfort. There are nine seats for the riders and they take up the front half of the vehicle, with the back reserved for a little office-style compartment. The seats are wide and comfortable and they recline. Each rider has storage space for their laptop and a satellite dish on the roof means they can all watch their own Sky channel. No arguing over what to watch in here.
There are about 45 minutes to go until the start. The riders are in various states of readiness. Christian Knees is in his shorts but has not yet put his jersey on. The colourful tattoo of a naked woman that dominates the upper part of his right arm is particularly striking.
The big screen at the front of the bus slides down and Yates begins to give his team talk. Portal scrolls through the visual presentation put together by Cookson, a mix of maps and profile diagrams from the organisers and photos from Google Earth and Streetview. Having ridden the climb this morning, Yates is able to give the riders more information than the photographs can provide. He explains that the final few hundred metres to the line kick up unexpectedly. ‘Edvald can be there at the finish. Rigo, Xabi, keep it together on the last climb. Brad, don’t feel you have to go with anything, just pay attention and if the gaps open close them gradually, don’t get sucked into going after everything.’
Cookson has superimposed Sky logos on the pictures. ‘Have they painted Sky on the roads already?’ asks one of the riders.
‘No, I think that might have washed off now,’ deadpans Yates.
* * *
Sutton stands a little way from the bus, so his cigaratte smoke does not blow near the riders. ‘It’s about the riders taking ownership now,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this is your Tour team right here. Well, most of it. There’s one or two we want to take a look at but basically this is the group we want to work together.
‘One guy who really impressed me at Bayern is Christian Knees. I’d not seen him much before. He’s strong, he’s run 20th in the Tour before, and he’s big. He’s one of the few guys who can shelter Brad in the wind. Brad’s 6ft 3 and although he can get low, you want someone who can protect him on those windy stages.’
* * *
The stage has finished. Jurgen Van den Broeck of Belgium has won, Boasson Hagen was sixth and returns to the bus wearing the white jersey. Wiggins got tailed off slightly on the run-in and lost a handful of seconds to Cadel Evans and Vinokourov. As soon as he gets back to the bus, he puts on a long-sleeved jersey and rides his bike on the turbo trainer for quarter of an hour.
‘It’s something we’re trying out,’ explains Kerrison. ‘When you think about it, you warm down after a prologue time trial that might be a six-minute effort or after a short track race. You’ve just ridden four hours, with an intensive burst at the finish. You’ve maybe ridden hard for half an hour, with accelerations and then you just come to a halt and get on the bus. It doesn’t make sense.’
TUESDAY – Stage 2, Voiron-Lyon
The rain is heavy in Voiron. We shelter in the team cars and watch as the riders make their way to the start line before edging out behind them. We’re barely out of the neutralised zone before a gendarme pulls alongside Yates and gestures to put his seat belt on.
With Wiggins lying fourth overall, we’re fourth in the convoy, close enough to see the back of the bunch. As they climb the hillside, we see that three riders have got a little gap. Jurgen Van de Walle, of Omega Pharma, Tjallingi of Rabobank and Brice Feillu of Leopard are in for a long and ultimately fruitless afternoon.
‘I can’t work out why they’re bothering,’ says Yates. ‘Okay, Feillu’s riding for a Tour place but Omega and Rabo have won stages already.’ A text message arrives. Gossip from David Millar’s book launch in London the previous evening. I read it out. ‘Cavendish is joining Sky, according to the grapevine.’ Silence. Then Yates says: ‘That’s the gossip is it?’ I turn to look at him. He looks straight ahead. The effort not to give anything away is perhaps showing.
We’re not in for a riveting day. The break is established early, the gap goes out to a few minutes and the bunch settles in for a wet trudge towards Lyon. Talk turns to how the role of the directeur sportif has changed. We talk of Cyrille Guimard, who on hot days would drive the team car barefooted wearing only a tiny pair of shorts. ‘When I was racing for Peugeot in the Midi Libre, Jean-Pierre Danguillaume, who was one of the directors, stopped the car, took a bike off the roof and rode up into the bunch to talk to one of his riders,’ says Yates. He laughs. ‘The commissaire was going mad. They don’t like that kind of thing.’
Fifty kilometres pass. The sandwiches (ham, cheese and cornichons) have been eaten. Yates gets on the radio to Portal, who is driving the second team car, which is perhaps a kilometre behind him in the convoy. ‘Nico…’
‘Yes.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘All in my car are sleeping. The doc is sleeping.’
We hear the doc, Richard Freeman. ‘Just resting my eyes.’
Knees and Gerrans drop back for fresh rain jackets and bottles.
And then we come over the brow of the hill. Yates sees the brake lights too late. The road is slippery. He stamps on the brakes. The wheels fight desperately to grip but it’s inevitable. We hit the Omega Pharma car.
‘Shit,’ he says. ‘No crashes in 12 years, then two in a month. I ran up the back of someone in the Giro.’
Marc Sergeant and his colleague get out of the Omega Pharma car. ‘Are you alright,’ asks Yates. Sergeant inspects the bumper theatrically then wags his finger playfully, before holding his neck in mock agony.
Maybe a minute goes by. The radio sparks into life.
‘Sean?’ It’s Nico.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you have a little push? News travels very fast.’
Over the next hour, a couple of other team cars pass. Lorenzo Lapage of Astana passes and peers at Yates then shakes his head. The pair worked together at Discovery Channel. ‘I’ll get a reputation,’ says Yates before pointing out the man in the back seat, one of Astana’s soigneurs.
‘That guy used to box for the Soviet navy. Imagine how hard he must’ve been.’
* * *
Just like the car crash when a momentary lapse of concentration caused an incident, so the least eventful days can suddenly turn on their head.
There are just 22 kilometres to go when we pass through the village of Chavaille. A couple of Quick Step riders are on the floor and Yates picks his way past them and threads the Jaguar through the narrow, winding roads. The television on the dashboard has kept cutting out but we see Sky’s riders driving the pace. ‘Are we on the front?’ asks Yates. Soon we realise that the bunch has split and that a group has got away. Vinokourov is in it, Sky are chasing.
Yates wants to get up to the group containing the Sky riders but we’re stuck behind the third group. The road narrows and then there’s a central reservation. We pass Boasson Hagen, who hit a pothole on a fast descent, puncturing his front tyre and shattering his rear wheel. Uran gave him his front wheel but the Norwegian had to wait for the neutral service bike to replace the rear. Yates passes him, there’s no way back now.
Wiggins is on the front now doing a big turn before settling in behind his team-mates who close the gap. At the finish, Wiggins is alert and racing. There’s a split. By the time the next group has crossed the line, Wiggins has gained six seconds on Evans. A small advantage but an encouraging sign to Sutton. ‘He’s taking responsibility. You see that gap, it was hardly anything but the time isn’t taken between the back of one group and the front of the next. So a small gap on the road can me five, six, 10 seconds gained or lost.’
* * *
Dinner is nearly done. It’s 10.30 but some staff still haven’t appeared for their meal. ‘Where are the carers?’ asks Sutton. ‘Where’s Klaus?’ Klaus is still at the massage table, working on Geraint Thomas.
After the finish, the riders’ recovery drinks were not ready and waiting in their seats on the bus as they should have been. A small but vital detail had been overlooked.
Sutton gathers the staff around him. ‘Listen guys, we’re a team, but Klaus is still up there working. Today we had a problem with the recovery drinks. They have to be there for the riders. I don’t care who was supposed to do it but work it out between you, okay? Take responsibility. If you’ve finished your work don’t just fold your arms, see if there’s something else you can do. If you see a bloke who’s struggling and you’re all done, ask him if you can help. The riders are really pulling together and I want to see everyone do the same. Don’t let your mate fail.’
* * *
A little later, Sutton and Kerrison are talking about the Tour team, how it should be selected and when it should be announced.
‘What are we going to do?’ asks Sutton. ‘Ring every rider that’s not in it first so their feelings aren’t hurt? We’re picking a team to do a job. You tell the guys who are in it first. If you don’t get a call, you’re not in it, surely?’
Kerrison doesn’t quite agree with Sutton’s old school approach. ‘The riders we’re not selecting are still part of the organisation.’
‘I’m surprised Simon hasn’t asked yet,’ says Sutton. ‘He usually wants to know what’s going on.’
* * *
WEDNESDAY – Stage 3, Grenoble time trial
It’s raining again, so Flecha is the only rider who opts to ride round the time trial course in the morning. He heads out with Sutton. The others take a trip round in the cars.
This course will be used again at the end of the Tour de France. It’s 42.5 kilometres and it climbs almost from the start. The profile provided by ASO makes the first hill look easier than the second but, in fact, everyone agrees it’s the other way round.
Out on the course, HTC’s Tony Martin is paying particular attention to the flat section at Saint-Martin-d’Uriage and the technical, cobbled left-hand turn. I watch him ride that stretch a couple of times.
Later, I take a taxi to the start. ‘I’ll jump in with you,’ says Sutton. On the way, we discuss Wiggins’s chances. ‘It’s a good course for Brad. It isn’t really technical.’ I mention Martin’s detailed reconnaissance. ‘He’s here for the stage, isn’t he? He lost a load of time the other day so he’ll go all out to win today. We’re not worried about the stage. I think Brad will be top three but we’re here for GC. The whole goal is to do as well as we can on GC. Brad knows that. But this time trial in the Tour will be very important. Brad could take minutes from some of the climbers. If he’s 12th he could move up to ninth. If he’s ninth he could move up to sixth.’
Talk turns to the continual evolution of Team Sky. ‘We need more guts in the team, you know? Guys like Mat Hayman have got guts. The team will look a lot different next year. We need more climbers and we’ll have a couple.’
Who are they?
‘One guy you’ll never guess. He’s not even a pro yet.’
Is he Colombian?
‘How d’you know that?’
There aren’t many places you can find untapped, unsigned talent, and there have been rumours since the spring that Sergio Henao, who won the Vuelta a Colombia last year, has agreed to join Sky after Uran vouched for him.
* * *
The clock over the finishing line counts down. Wiggins is not going to beat Tony Martin’s time. At the second checkpoint, before the long descent and run-in to Grenoble, Wiggins was level on time with the German. But then it began to rain and he conceded 11 seconds.
He thumps the gear levers on his tri-bars in frustration. He may not have won the stage, but Wiggins has taken the yellow jersey.
There’s no sign of either of the carers, Maarten or Mario. Has there been another oversight? The UCI’s chaperone is here to escort Wiggins to the dope control but Wiggins is irritated to be without a helper.
‘Where’s my soigneur?’ he asks.
I ring Sutton. ‘There’s no carer here for Brad.’
‘He said he was coming back to the bus, no matter what.’
Back at the bus, the chaperone has caught up with Wiggins and takes him, together with the doc, to give a sample.
‘He’s just had a go at me in there,’ Sutton tells Yates. ‘He said “Where were my time gaps to Tony Martin?” and I said “You can cut that bullshit for a start.” We told him he was level at the last time check, what more does he want? There weren’t any more time checks to give him.
‘He got to the time check level with Martin and then he gets to the finish and he’s frustrated he hasn’t won the stage, which is understandable, but this wasn’t about the stage win. It was raining on the descent and the most important thing was that we took no risks.
‘On the descent, he made this gesture to us with his hand. I thought he was saying he had a flat tyre but what he meant was “Talk to me.” He wanted to know the time to Martin but we didn’t have any more time checks.’
As for the absence of a carer at the finish line. ‘He said he didn’t want one. Then he wonders why there isn’t one.’
‘There’s never a dull moment with Brad,’ says Yates. ‘You’re either laughing your head off or tearing your hair out. Or both at the same time.’
Sky’s bus is the last one in this back street. Most of the spectators who had waited for Wiggins have given up. It’s well past 6pm.
Wiggins arrives, the yellow jersey on his back, a Crédit Lyonnais lion under his arm. ‘Payback for Albi,’ he says, a reference to the 2007 Tour when Wiggins finished fifth in the time trial won by Vinokourov just a few days before the Astana rider tested positive for a banned blood transfusion.
* * *
The atmosphere at dinner is bright and light. There are smiles and laughter at the riders’ table.
After he’s finished eating, Flecha sees an opportunity to wind up Slarky. Time trials pose a logistical challenge and it isn’t possible for every rider to be followed by Yates or Portal. So Slarky drove a team car behind the Spaniard. With his experience changing Formula One car tyres, Flecha would be in good hands.
‘Hey, Slarky, you know I got a fine today? One hundred Swiss Francs.’
It transpires that midway through the ride, Slark pulled level with Flecha and offered him a bottle, which is strictly prohibited in time trial stages.
‘Yeah, the commissaire was going to penalise me two minutes as well.’
Slarky’s face drops until he realises he’s having his leg pulled by Flecha, who seems to be in permanent possession of a smile.
Alan Williams, one of the mechanics, says there was a near-miss with Knees too. ‘Bob [the physio] was waiting to jump into a neutral service car with a pair of wheels for Christian but ASO said there wasn’t one free,’ he says. ‘So I grabbed the wheels and gave them to the guys at Movistar, who were going out behind Christian. If he punctured, he’d only have to wait a minute to get a wheel. Yeah, it’s a lost minute but it’s a lot better than DNF-ing.’
* * *
UPDATE: One anecdote that didn’t make the magazine feature was that on the morning of the Grenoble time trial, I borrowed a Team Sky bike to ride the course. One of the mechanics gave me Chris Froome’s spare bike on the basis it was roughly the same size. I rode out and after a few kilometres realised the saddle was too high and it was starting to cause a sore knee. It was raining quite heavily. I stopped in a bus shelter and fumbled about for my multi-tool to adjust the saddle height.
As I tightened it up, my wet hand slipped on the wet tool and the end result was that I managed to round off the Allen key bolt. I rode the rest of the course worrying that the seat post would slip and collapse under me, and then worrying what the mechanics would say when I gave the bike back.
In the end, I decided to confess to Shane Sutton. He deadpanned: ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like Chris is going to need it any time soon,’ he joked.
At the time, Froome was struggling to find his feet in his second year at Team Sky. Of course, later that summer he finished second in the Vuelta a España (retrospectively upgraded to first when Juan Jose Cobo was stripped of the title for doping).
Tomorrow: Part two of this feature, covering the rest of the 2011 Dauphiné.
I thoroughly enjoyed this Lionel, what an opportunity at the time amazing how things have moved on since !