Fun With Alberto

It’s not every day that a bike company makes a bike that is ridden to a Grand Tour victory. And even for those that do, having the winner drop by your office is less common. It was a big day in Morgan Hill for the Specialized staff to have Alberto Contador come by for a tour of the facility. It was an occasion that gave founder Mike Sinyard a chance to address the staff in a way he seemed born to do. In his introductory remarks you could see each of those sides of the man that have made Specialized a revered and feared (detested?) competitor: He was at once a passionate bike enthusiast, a visionary business leader, a staff cheerleader and the strictest of taskmasters.

After Mike and Alberto addressed the staff, Tom Larter and crew gave Alberto and the cadre of pressies a tour of the Specialized HQ. As Alberto was being shown the first Specialized road bike, the Sequoia, Alberto spontaneously began telling the story—in broken English and sound effects—of how he removed the brake cable braze-ons from the top tube of his first road bike with a grinder and then made holes in the top tube for internal cable routing. When he lacked a verb he went with “Vvvvv-vvvv!”

I was struck by how comfortable he was telling stories of his past, that he understood his place as a champion and how those stories of a humble beginning inform a portrait of someone. While he moved with humility, he was the epitome of someone comfortable in his own skin.

Scott Holz is the head of Specialized Bicycle Component University (SBCU) and arguably one of the world’s foremost authorities on fit. His résumé includes stints at places like New York’s Signature Cycles before deciding to teach others how to fit riders. His enthusiasm for the reach Specialized has is infectious.

This is the bike cage that holds the bikes ridden by SBCU students. Each attendee gets to ride both road and mountain bikes.

I don’t even recall what Mike was talking about during this part of the tour, but what I found remarkable was how comfortable the two were with each other. So often I see deferential interplay between athletes and sponsors, sometimes the sponsor bowing to the star athlete, sometimes the athlete genuflecting before the meal ticket.

These are but two of the many show bikes (as in for Interbike) that Robert Egger and his crew have created over the years. These “Go-Go” bikes incorporated a martini mixing station which Larter is showing off, a pannier purse compartment and handlebar-mounted compact make-up case for the go-go girl on the, uh, go.

Within the Morgan Hill facility lies a fully-functional Specialized Concept Store to give the big red “S” a chance to showcase what it believes best practices to be. It’s accurate down to the last detail, even including other brands where Specialized thinks the best fit is. Alberto stopped to check out a photo of him with Sinyard and the Giro trophy following his win earlier that year.

Following the tour we went out for the lunch ride, of which you’ve already seen photos. Afterward we grabbed lunch and then did a final press conference interview before heading for airports. Rather than rehash the entire interview here, I’ve selected some highlights.

 

On the responsibility of team leadership: ”I am the leader of my team. I need to movtivate all my teammates for victory.”

Regarding BMC and its many acquisitions: ”If you’re going to look at the entire season, they might get a lot of great results, with a good program. If you look at the Tour de France, I don’t think all those new riders are going to make a great team.”

On the difficulty of the Giro: “There should be a little more control. This year there was a stage that was 7.5 hours. That day went a bit over. We climbed the Giau and Marmolada; it was just too much. I think with shorter stages the race is more beautiful because the riders are fresher at the finish.

On PR: “I believe it is very important to come here to meet with the sponsor and to interact with the fans. Social networking, like Facebook, is very important.

On Team Sky: “For sure, it is a very strong team and they will have a great roll in the Tour de France. But considering the overall win, there are teams that are better than Sky. BMC, RadioShack, Saxo Bank (laughs).”

On being beatable: “There is nobody in the world who is unbeatable. Everyone prepares for the win, but there are many factors, many variables that a rider can’t control, so no one is unbeatable.”

On his relationship with Specialized: “I definitely feel very lucky to have good companies to support me. For sure I feel that Specialized is the one that is more in touch with me and more follow my demands and inputs.

On Lance: ”With Lance, we both had the same objective. I respect that he was a great champion and that he had this ambition of winning. I would have thought that our relationship would have been closer. I believe that if we were to meet now, our relationship would be very different.”

On Bruyneel: “I perfectly understand it [his relationship with Lance]. Like many people say, Lance and Bruyneel are one person. They made history together. The relationship they had—we couldn’t build up in one year. He was staying more with Lance; even though I understood it, it was difficult at times.

 

 

 

 

Riding With Alberto Contador

I don’t ride with PROs too often. And when I do they are usually of the genus domesticus; they are rarely of the genus vincere. So when I got the invitation from Specialized asking if I wanted to go for a ride with Alberto Contador, the answer was an immediate yes.

I’ve not been Contador’s biggest fan. Truth be told, there have been plenty of occasions where his demeanor in the press has turned me off. But I saw something in this year’s Tour de France that opened my eyes to another side of him, reserves that gave me new respect for the six-time Grand Tour winner. Put plain, I liked that even when he realized he couldn’t win this year’s Tour, he took the race to the others, making himself one of the factors of selection. It was a courageous ride and one that—to me—spoke volumes about self-respect.

Off the bike, Alberto Contador was calm, quiet, polite and patient. Not a rock star. But he wasn’t a withering lily either; he carried himself with low-key confidence. Even though his spoke in low volume, when he spoke he never felt a need to raise his voice to be heard; he trusted others would lean in to hear, and we did.

The first of the three rides I did with him was meant to be a press-only event. The idea was to give Michael Robertson of VeloDramatic a chance to get images of him riding with the likes of Brian Holcomb of Velo, Laura Weislo of Cyclingnews, Jen See of Bicycling, Neil Shirley of Road Bike Action and Dillon Clapp of Road. Et moi, aussi. But because if you tell someone’s fans that a big star will arrive at noon, they will begin arriving at 10:30, when we rolled out, despite a couple of requests from Specialized for folks to stay behind, a dozen or so riders rolled out with us.

As we pedaled through Sausalito, riders coming over from San Francisco frequently saw us and simply made a U-turn to join the group. I spent some time near the front getting shots of Alberto and then knowing others wanted the chance to say hi, I slid back. Once we began the climb up the Marin Headlands Neil Shirley (an actual PRO until very recently) put in an acceleration that dispatched most of us, including me. Ah, to climb well.

The descent went well; riders stayed single file and picked reasonable lines on our way back down. Good thing; it was ever-so-slightly damp. As we rolled back through Sausalito, I found myself next to Alberto’s brother and agent, Fran. He told me it was his first time visiting California and he was very excited to see San Francisco. All of his favorite movies featured either New York or San Francisco as their setting. I was about to ask if that meant he was a fan of Hitchcock, but we rolled up to Mike’s Bikes just then. Mike’s is a huge Specialized dealer, with nine locations in the Bay Area. They are a first-rate retailer, and I’ve given them some of my business when I’ve been in the area.

 

We pulled up to an enormous throng of people. Estimates from a few people present were that we had 200 to 250 riders. Counting heads isn’t my strong suit, so I don’t have an estimate of my own, but what I can tell you is that I’ve started races with 120 guys, and this group was way larger. Way. Riders filled the parking lot and encircled the entire building. Some were already waiting on the bike path on which we’d roll out.

The bike path was eight or ten feet wide with fine, hard-pack gravel on either side. Almost immediately we had riders sprinting up the gravel and bunny hopping back onto the bike path so they could take photos of Alberto. As we headed into Tiburon, I’d like to say we had a great time with riders rotating through to give everyone a chance to ride alongside one of cycling’s biggest stars.

The reality is that things got sketchy. Riders were taking crazy risks just to get close to Alberto for a picture. I saw riders going into oncoming traffic to move up and more iPhones in hands than you’d see at an Apple store. Compounding the problem was that once close to Alberto, several Spanish-speaking riders simply stayed put. One rider commented to me about the perceived sense of entitlement of the native Spanish speakers. I cared less about that than just keeping everyone upright.

To his credit, Alberto stayed calm and didn’t allow himself to slip out of the front dozen riders. Once we rolled around to Paradise Cove and the road got twisty, several riders put in a huge acceleration to break the group up. Once into Corte Madera we took in the climb up Camino Alto, a tree-shrouded, serpentine climb with some surprisingly steep  ramps. It was only once we were back on the bike path into Sausalito that I had the sense we were truly safe.

The next day Alberto and Fran joined the Specialized lunch ride, which is the fastest group ride I’ve ever encountered other than the old Boulder Bus Stop ride. Before rolling out, Specialized founder Mike Sinyard said with a wink, “Anyone who crashes Alberto is fired.”

This ride was both faster and better behaved than the other rides we did. Out on the rolling country roads west of Morgan Hill there was very little traffic and Alberto took some time to slide back through the group and say hi to people. Shortly before we reached one of the longer hills, Mike told Alberto we were approaching a climb he’d want to be on the front for. Next thing I knew, Sinyard was sprinting up the left side of the pack with a Saxo Bank jersey on his wheel.

I can’t report on what happened at the top nor in the final sprint; my legs were just too tired from the previous efforts going back to last weekend’s gran fondo. After rolling back to the Specialized HQ, we caught showers and lunch before a final interview.

An Interview With Alberto Contador

Specialized brought Alberto Contador to the U.S. for a truly whirlwind tour. We did a ride on Tuesday out of Mike’s Bikes in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco in Marin County. Afterward, we attended a press conference with him. These posts are slightly out of order; I’m doing the interview first because, well, it’s ready and the post on the ride needs more work.

Q: Would you have planned your season any differently had your arbitration been set November all along?

AC: I’m very happy with the results I achieved at the Giro. My intention was to tdo the Giro anyway. I wanted to use it for prep for the Tour. But I realized that the Giro was tough, very tough when I got there. I didn’t expect the Giro to be so hard.

Q: How do you feel about doing the Giro-Tour double in the future?

AC: I believe it’s possible. There are many factors that are very important. The course has to be perfect (for me). Same thing at the Tour. A super-strong team that can help me with the protection I need.

Q: Are you doing anything to beef up the team for next year?

AC: I am speaking daily with Bjarne. He’s working pretty hard to improve the level of the team. It’s clear that Bjarne has the responsibility to sign the riders, but before signing a rider, he talks to me.

Q: Pat McQuaid has said he’d like to move to an independent tribunal. Is that appropriate?

AC: If there is a high level of objectivity that would be really good. It could be faster but there would need to be the control of an external organization.

Q: (to Fran, Contador’s brother) What do you remember of Alberto as a teenager riding bikes?

FC: I remember one day when he was young where we did 60-70km, and Alberto was wearing a lightweight trainer jacket and it filled up with air like the Michelin Man. When we got back the other riders were surprised he was able to stay with us despite his jacket. They realized, ‘Wow, he must really be strong.’

Q: No one beats CAS. Are you confident?

AC: I’m very confident. Because of all the controls, the scientific facts support my case. I’m confident because of all the experts who are supporting my case. I think there will be a favorable resolution.

Q: Does it affect you when you race?

AC: When I race I don’t think about it.

Q: Does the decision by WADA not to impose limits on clenbuterol strike you as fair?

AC: I don’t believe this decision will affect my case. I strongly believe there will be a change in the acceptable level of Clenbuterol in the future. Probably right after my case is resolved.

Q: The way you rode at the Tour, you may have captured the hearts of Americans more?

AC: Even though I live far away from here I have received a lot of support from people here.

Q: Is it possible to win all year with the super teams like Radio Shack, BMC, etc?

AC: I believe it will be difficult, but I also believe it’s possible, because it’s all the same riders winning the other races.

Q: What races haven’t you won that you’d most like to achieve a victory in?

AC: I’d like to win some Classics. Fleche Wallonne or Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The problem is that it’s not the best training program for my larger objectives. I’d like to win Tirreno-Adriatico. There aren’t many others, but the World Championship is one.

Simoni (translator) added, “He wants to win all year. He wanted to win at the Tour of Algarve.”

Q: Do you plan on racing in the U.S?

AC: I would love to race the Tour of California. I feel that cycling is getting bigger and bigger here. Right now the US is getting more and more important in world cycling. The reason I didn’t come here the last two years is because of the new date and the fact it conflicted with the Giro. I believe the Tour of California could change my chances at the Tour de France for the worse. If I come to the Tour of California I’m not coming to ride, I’m coming to win.

Q: And Colorado?

AC: This year was the first year, but in the future I’ll have to look at the dates to see if it conflicts with the Vuelta a Espana. If the Tour of California moves back to February, then I’ll come, for sure.

Q: Will you compete in the Olympics in 2012?

AC: I’m not sure the course is difficult enough. I would like to ride the TT.

Q: About the bikes: Having time on the Tarmac SL4, what’s your feedback?

AC: It’s less harsh than the SL3. So such a change in a bike at the last minute is very difficult to assimilate at the last minute. (Which is why he rode the SL3 at the Tour de France.)

Q: How much input did you have into the new bike?

AC: One of the reasons that I am here is because of the objective Specialized and I have for making things better. Specialized is a brand that is dedicated to making things better. I wanted a certain kind of time trial bike. It’s very difficult to find a company that can give you the right equipment. There are many other brands that have tried to go other ways. No one has ever reached the level of Specialized.

Q: On vacation where would you like to ride?

AC: If it’s a real vacation the bike will stay at home.

Once the interview was over, the subject of the pistolero salute came up. Rather than Simoni translating, Alberto made the effort to respond himself. What he told us (and his accent is thick, so I couldn’t be certain of every word he uttered) is that the salute is meant as an expression to his family, that he carries his family in his heart when he rides, and that the salute isn’t so much about firing a gun. Rather, it is a reminder that he is thinking of his family.

 

(Some) Crashes Are Part of Racing

For reasons unknown, this past Sunday, The New York Times ran a story on crashes in pro racing.  It’s something I’ve been thinking about since this year’s Tour ended. Mostly because the reasons that most proffer don’t really explain what’s going on.

The Times article is here.

The biggest problem of all is that we’re relying on anecdotal evidence, and the Times is no different. The reporter gathered his anecdotes and offered them up. Ten deaths since 1995, though few mentioned because, they apparently aren’t worth mentioning. Thankfully, he does point out that no one is investigating. Seems to me that this is a matter for the UCI and the professional rider’s union (CPA) to investigate, but he doesn’t ask Pat McQuaid, nor CPA chief Gianni Bugno what they’re doing about it.

If racing my bike was my job, I’d want them investigating. At the very least, maybe an investigation of the reported crashes at the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta. The three big stage races. Maybe looking at them can help point to things that might merit further research.

With the Tour, the biggest cycling stage in the world, every team has an incentive to ride aggressively, everyone wants an opportunity to get in front of the camera, everyone wants a dig at a stage win, just about every racer is probably thinking, no matter what their assignment is, if they just do one more thing, they might be able to score yellow, just for a day, and it won’t derail their team leader’s chances at his stated goal. Seems like a recipe for lots of crashes.

Stakes are highest for most riders and teams at the Tour, no doubt. But there are big crashes at the Vuelta and Giro as well, and they often take out a favorite, or two. And every year, there are crashes at the Tour, and crashes at every race. Every year at the Tour, and other big races, favorites are either caught up in the crashes and drop out or are caught behind them and are knocked out of contention before the critical stages or sectors begin. We’re not always paying attention in other races. But somehow, this year seemed different. There were lots of explanations; the most interesting I read was a cleaner peloton is both more evenly matched and more fatigued.

Maybe more evenly-matched causes some problems, but more fatigued I find hard to believe. It strikes me that such a comment assumes that every last cyclist was doping, because otherwise, the clean cyclists would probably have been more fatigued ten or fifteen years ago than they are now. Even if every last cyclist was doping, there is plenty of evidence that there are both high-responders and low-responders to doping products, EPO in particular, and the low-responders would presumable be at a greater disadvantage than they are today, assuming a cleaner peloton.

I think it’s safe to rule out road conditions as being a big problem, as road conditions are generally better today than they were in the past. I also think it’s safe to rule out “road furniture” on the transitions in and out of towns for most crashes. I know the road furniture theory is a popular one, and the awful Craig Lewis-Marco Pinotti crash at this year’s Giro has been attributed to road furniture, but even their crash deserves at least a little questioning. Was there any footage of it? I couldn’t find any. Maybe road furniture is responsible, but maybe it was just what they hit and the cause was something else. Maybe the crash would have been worse had it not been for the road furniture. I have no reason to doubt either person’s sincerity, but unless we have a better idea of what happened it seems premature to assign blame.

To me, another strike against the road furniture theory is that at this year’s crash-ridden Tour, it didn’t seem like any crashes were the result of road furniture; most of the heavily-reported crashes seemed to have happened on straight roads or in the mountains. There’s also evidence that the Tour and other big races work with local governments to remove some traffic circles and speed bumps where they think their removal will improve safety. I noticed what appeared to be traffic circle modifications during the World Championships as well. I think it’s safe to rule out narrow roads, as not only were wider roads once seen as a culprit, but narrow roads were once all the peloton used.

I’d like to offer up a few alternative explanations to the common cries.

It’s possible that crashes are as common as they’ve always been, but that broken bones are more common today than they used to be, making the crashes more serious and more frequently race-ending. As such, I think one potential culprit is osteopenia. If you haven’t heard of it, consider it osteoporosis lite: bone mineral density is lower than normal. I think it should be considered a factor in all crashes where bone breakage occurs, whether it is in training or racing. Anecdotally, there seem to be more and more stories about guys breaking bones in training crashes the past several years. Even “normal” cyclists can have reduced bone density as a result of all the miles they put in, so a Tour rider, particularly a climber who has meticulously starved himself down to his ideal race weight, probably has thinned his bones beyond what the average mileage-hound has done. I heard physiologist Allen Lim discussing hearing about crashes and thinking that every crash has the potential to break bones during a Grand Tour. When I put it to Dr. Michael Ross, a former team doctor, he unhesitatingly said, “yes.” It also could be a sign of cortico-steroid abuse, something Dr. Ross pointed out, as the result is same. Yes, these guys are racing hard, yes, they’re going fast, yes, they’re hitting the ground hard, but looking at how emaciated riders like Brad Wiggins and Chris Horner are at their Tour weight, I have to imagine their bodies catabolized bone matter to keep going. It strikes me as an evolutionary strategy that certainly helped early humans survive famines, but it also could be how crashes are breaking collarbones, ribs, pelvises, wrists, hips, and so on. For all the discussion about injuries resulting from race crashes, lots of guys seem to be breaking bones training; Dutch rider Robert Gesink had his season ended for him shortly before the World Championships when he fractured his leg while out training.

Some have suggested the culprit could be the machine itself. The bikes don’t seem to be the problem as catastrophic failures from normal riding have largely disappeared, and it’s hard to believe that a bike breaking after hitting the ground is injuring riders. Others point to stiffer wheels and too-light bikes, but I doubt those lines of thinking. I’ve seen little evidence that wheels are vertically stiffer than they used to be, which would be where the problem would lie in straight-line crashes. Tires are just about the same today as they were 25 years ago, and bikes still flex and tire pressure can be adjusted to account for stiffness. Steve Tilford speculated on his blog that some of the sketchy downhill riding was due to racers not training on their race wheels. He may be right. But I think the problem might extend to all racing. Not all carbon-fiber braking surfaces brake equally well. Some are grabby, some pulse, some give the unsettling feeing they’re not slowing down, even in the dry, some work fine in the dry but are questionable in the wet. Most pros can only ride the wheels they sponsors want them to ride, so they could be stuck between taking the risk of crashing or taking the risk of getting dropped more easily. I think many amateur racers would take the same risk, at least in the dry. People might suggest disc brakes, but I even with discs, tire traction, or lack thereof, will be a problem in the wet.

Another potential culprit is the training schedules of racers. At one time, pros probably raced much, much more before showing up to the Tour—the Tour came after both the Vuelta and the Giro and racers typically raced from February into June with smaller training blocs in between. Yes, they might not have been as fast as racers today, their training and nutrition wasn’t as precise, but by racing, they were training themselves to be more skilled in the peloton. And now the peloton is bigger. Riding in a pack takes skill, a skill that is honed by practice, unless there are some Wii games I don’t know about. Some weekend warriors in the US race more than Tour contenders between the start of their season and the Tour. Consider that this year, Chris Horner didn’t race at all between his victory at the Tour of California in May and the start of the Tour. Alberto Contador didn’t race at all between his Giro victory and the Spanish nationals, where he raced the time trial and road race, and then came to the Tour.

Or maybe the converse is true. Cadel Evans barely raced all spring and seemed to be able to race his few races with no crashing issues, though his preference is to race at the front. Maybe the pack as a whole are better bike handlers today and more comfortable riding closer to one another which makes it easier to crash several riders at once when one thing goes wrong.

The biggest issue is probably randomness, volume, and the nature of riding in the peloton. Just take an assembled group of cyclists, 189 riders is 21 teams worth, and have them ride an average of 100 miles a day for three weeks. Even if they were all riding solo, there would be crashes. Knowing how many riders go down in training and how frequently would be interesting to know, and something to compare to all the race crashes.

Some point to the packs being bigger as a culprit in crashes. There could be something to this, though the phenomenon of large fields began in 1986 when 210 riders started. And this time probably is when the super-large fields started occurring at the top races throughout cycling. Previous to this, it seems that races were in the range of 30-50% smaller and largely composed of teams racing in their home country—the Tour with French riders on French teams, the Vuelta with Spanish riders, the Giro with Italian and so on.

For riders, racing is their job and they owe it to themselves to demand research to determine what the real issues and culprits are. At the same time, they probably shouldn’t push for any changes until serious research is done. As a response to the extreme length of the 1987 Tour (22 teams of nine riders apiece riding 25 stages totaling 4231km), there was a movement to standardize the lengths of Grand Tours and shorten stages. This was seen as doing, among other things, reducing the incentive to dope. We know how that worked out.

Race radios are sure to come up as a safety thing. There’s no easy answer with them. Yes, directors can alert their riders to dangers up ahead, but there are downsides to trusting the voice in your ear. What if the director is wrong? What if riders interpret silence to mean everything is safe ahead? When hard helmets were first mandated by the USCF in the 1986, there was an argument that people would take more risks because they knew their head was safe. That never made sense. But I read a story about Erik Zabel’s role for the HTC-Highroad team. Supposedly he’d preview the stage finish and then relay what he saw to the team car, and Ralf Aldag or Brian Holm would then tell the riders. He apparently saw a turn that looked tricky but was convinced the leadout train could take it without braking. Hincapie lead through, didn’t touch his brakes, and Cavendish won the stage. Did this make for safer racing? The first guys made it through and probably so did the entire field. But what if he had been wrong? Is it good for the riders to trust such judgements?

It’s situations like these when I’m glad I’m not a pro bike racer. But it also makes me wonder how safe conditions are for all bike racing.

Image: John Pierce, Photosport International

The Ache

I ache.

I ache for Thomas Voeckler. I ache for Andy Schleck. I ache for the end of the Tour de France.

In a tweet today David Millar wrote that as he rode in his car back to the hotel they approached a rider in Europcar kit; they slowed and Millar turned to lock eyes with a “tired and broken” Voeckler, adding, “Tragic doesn’t come close to describe.”

The cynical among us will gouge Voeckler for hubris, for dreaming the impossible. To do so is to inject cyanide into the very notion of ambition. That he discovered immortality seemingly within his grasp and dared reach for it is to be human. I admire that he maintained humility enough to insist that he would lose the race even as it was obvious he’d mortgage his home for an extra 20 watts.

That he rode the finest time trial of his life today is, perhaps the greatest honor he could bestow on himself and the race; yes, he honored the Tour de France today with his ride. It was his greatest ride because it showed his real character. Unlike so many riders who slink to the back of the field to nurse their destroyed legs once a win slips from grasp, Voeckler did the unthinkable. He continued to ride like a contender, even when it would no longer reward him. How else do you tell the world you’ve come to believe, not just in yourself, but even that you’re a part of what may be a new cycling?

That again. Yes, I do believe that his performance says that the peloton is cleaner. Kolobnev and his new honorific aside—don’t get me started—what I hope, what I’d like to think is that for the riders who may really achieve something noteworthy, maybe they’ve gotten the message that those of us who actually care about the sport want them to do it without the drugs. Voeckler has, for my money, delivered the defining ride of this year’s Tour de France. I’ll always remember 2011 for Cadel Evans’ victory, but I hope that the years don’t fade Voeckler’s ride in yellow for me. For each of us who ever dared dream, his days in yellow and his ride today testify to what we may find within reach.

Next year, he’ll arrive with the bit between his teeth. For that, I can’t wait.

***

If you’d asked me yesterday how I’d feel once Evans accomplished what most of us thought was an essentially foregone conclusion, I’d have told you I’d be happy for him. He rode with confidence and authority. Who knows if the tactical genius that caused him to conserve when possible and burn any time he needed to deliver was his or his director’s. It hardly matters. His yellow jersey is our res ipsa loquitur.

What surprises me is how I view the remarkable reversal of fortune Andy Schleck has suffered. Second. Again. The comparisons to Raymond Poulidor are unavoidable now. Even if he does win someday, his record will be compared to every great rider who failed more than he succeeded. Unless, of course, this is the last of his non-wins for a while.

And while I do think he’s likely to win at some point, I’ll tell you now, unless Contador makes the same mistake again next year (if you can call victory in the Giro a mistake—and I know that’s a real stretch), the Spaniard will arrive at the start with a thirst for blood that even Eric Northman would admire. I don’t plan to bet against him.

I’ve been rough on Contador in the past. Let me say this: His ride will be a more enduring feature of this year’s race than Fränk Schleck’s was. He rode with determination and pride, even after he knew he couldn’t win. He never capitulated, and in that regard, he and Voeckler have something in common.

It’s fair to wonder if Contador will be at next year’s Tour, depending how the CAS proceeding goes. Its postponement has turned his case into a goat parade: something so stupidly slow and pointless that no one can bear to watch. Should the case against him be upheld and a suspension imposed, I say let it stand for time served. Re-writing this year’s Tour de France will be as distasteful as a shot of straight alcohol. Isopropyl, that is.

Whatever he may or may not have done last year was last year, if he doesn’t test positive this year, then let the clean result stand.

Back to Schleck the younger: I think I have some sense of his pain. The buildup to him taking the maillot jaune off Voeckler was so slow and yet seemingly assured as to be steamroller inevitable. To see him stripped of it only 24 hours later was a change in tempo that would rattle any audience. I wonder just how comfortable he allowed himself to get in that jersey. Did he sleep in it last night just so he could have it against his body for as long as possible? We can’t fault him for hoping; Voeckler taught that master class. Still, no one can be surprised by this outcome and there surely is pain in that for Schleck.

***

Tomorrow the Tour de France ends, and that is my biggest ache of all. For me, the end of the Tour is nearly the end of summer itself. Monday has the crushing letdown that December 26 did when I was a child. Perhaps this is what a heroin or coke addict feels when they crash. That first post-Tour ride bears an emptiness in the air. It’s as if summer itself has gone stale. I buck up after a few days, but it’s been this way for me since ’86.

Finally, cycling isn’t really known for tracking its own statistics particularly well. We roll blindly into each new season, often without any clue as to what the past tells us about it. A fair chunk of my work for peloton magazine has looked at the sport’s history and what it tells us about some of our greatest racers and races. While I think numbers can be manipulated for nefarious purposes with greased ease (just consider gasoline), the Tour has something to say about Evans’ looming win. Tomorrow afternoon, the Aussie will become—at age 34—the oldest first-time winner of the Tour de France in the modern age.

What I think this tells us is that as racers have become more disciplined about all aspects of their training, from diet to rest to number of days raced, they are extending their careers. This shouldn’t surprise us; crashes notwithstanding, this is how guys like Jens Voigt and Chris Horner remain useful—scratch that, strong—with their 40th birthday around the corner.

There may be hope for us all.

Vive le Tour.

Image: Chris Wallis, Photosport International

 

Friday Group Ride #76

There’s only one question we can ask on a day like today and it’s the question you’ve been waiting for:

Who will don the yellow jersey in Paris?

We didn’t ask before now because we knew that it would take this long for the question to either be worth asking or pointless in asking.

Though three riders (Schlecks 1 & 2 and Cadel Evans) are separated by less time than it takes for the average man to answer the call of nature, it seems fair to call this a two-man race: Andy and Evans. Fränk will have to pedal for all he’s worth as well to try and preserve a second place he’s likely to lose to Evans, but it seems unlikely he’ll overhaul his brother for the win. In fact, the most likely scenario for Fränk to keep his second place is if Andy has a collapse on the road (figurative rather than literal) and Evans leapfrogs the brothers into the lead.

But what do we know? We were wringing our hands at the prospect of Alberto Contador making this race less than exciting. He did precisely the opposite, though for reasons he’s probably not wild about.

Also, do you think Thomas Voeckler has any chance of ascending the podium?

And just to make this interesting, if someone can guess the top three and their final GC time gaps +/- five seconds, you’ll get an RKP cycling cap. Make sure to post your comment before the start of stage 20.

Image: John Pierce, Photosport International

 

 

 

Daring

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt

And we thought we’d seen surprising riding.

To this point in my life, today’s stage 18 is the single most thrilling single stage of what has already been the single most surprising and dramatic Tour de France in memory.

Lest anyone have harbored any doubts that this was the most exciting and unpredictable Tour de France in a generation, today served as the incontrovertible evidence that we haven’t seen a Tour this wide-open since most of the audience started school. To quantify the number of variables still in play that could determine the final podium of the Tour de France hardly seems possible. I’ll put it in perspective this way: Were this a Hollywood script, the Schleck brothers would be condensed into a single character and Basso and Cunego would have been written out of the storyline in the Pyrenees, along with Contador. Voeckler, Evans and just one Schleck is about the maximum that the average Hollywood script doctor will accept. Tinseltown prefers its conflicts binary, just like football.

Those many storylines are what make stage 18 superior to Greg LeMond’s victory in the final time trial of the ’89 Tour de France (or any other stage of that year’s Tour), Floyd Landis’ reversal-of-fortune ride to Morzine, dare I say, even Lance Armstrong’s 2003 win atop Luz Ardiden on a broken bike.

Armstrong went into that stage with only 15 seconds on Jan Ullrich and 18 seconds on Alexandre Vinokourov. However, The Euskaltel duo of Haimar Zubeldia and Iban Mayo were more than four minutes back and guaranteed to lose boatloads of time in the final time trial, so everyone watching knew there were only three guys who could win the Tour.

Going into today’s stage less than four minutes separated the top eight on GC. By this point in the race, we don’t ordinarily have so many riders seemingly in contention.

Here was the GC this morning before the start:

1.	Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar	73:23:49
2.	Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team	@1:18
3.	Fränk Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek	1:22
4.	Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek	2:36
5.	Samuel Sanchez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi	2:59
6.	Alberto Contador (Spa) Saxo Bank Sungard	3:15
7.	Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre – ISD	3:34
8.	Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale	3:49
9.	Tom Danielson (USA) Team Garmin-Cervelo	6:04
10.	Rigoberto Uran (Col) Sky Procycling	7:36

 

Of the top eight, only Cunego and Basso really had ceased to be spoken of with the reverent tones reserved for potential victors. Each of the top six were a storyline unto themselves. Voeckler was defying the odds. Evans was riding like a potential winner. Fränk Schleck was the one of Leopard-Trek’s one-two punch. Brother Andy was the whiny but gifted climber who made the threat of his brother so dangerous. Sammy Sanchez was strong, courageous, unpredictable and … willing to work for Contador. And Contador, though he seemed not to be his usual self, was still too strong to be disregarded.

The younger Schleck’s attack may have worked for one simple reason: Contador didn’t have the legs to respond. Had he been stronger, it seems likely he wouldn’t have allowed last year’s bridesmaid to ride up the road, so strong is the rivalry between the two. Following his terrible descending in the rain on stage 15, Schleck did a fair drop down the Col d’Izoard on his way to catching teammate Maxime Monfort; that alone made his attack redemptive.

For years, the GC race at the Tour has been derided because the players wait for the final climb and then attack with everything they have. At last, with Schleck’s attack, we saw an act of courage, where in his own words he was “all in.” Schleck even admitted that the ride could have gone either way

We’ve entered an era where the afterburner attacks must be used rarely and late in the stage, if at all. The question of what we’re left with as options was answered less by Schleck than the old fox, Francesco Moser, who we are told spent some time with the brothers last night. Though Moser never triumphed at the Tour, he knows a thing or two about wily victories.

Can we give Moser some sort of prize for helping to animate the race? In truth, he did little more than remind the Schlecks of how Grand Tours were won during the age of Merckx. Tonight, all the contenders will go to bed seeing this race with new eyes.

It took guts and determination for Evans to tow the shrinking peloton the way he did. It’s an inglorious path to victory, but he has proven he won’t go surrender to anyone. And for those who wonder why he allowed Andy to ride up the road, when he was clearly such a threat, it was the smartest thing he could do with brother Fränk sitting on his wheel. A counterattack by Fränk could have destroyed Evans’ ambitions, which are only currently wounded.

Both Voeckler and Contador have conceded defeat, the latter just this afternoon, the former every day since he donned the jersey. What’s comical here is how we have every reason to believe Contador and zero reason to believe Voeckler. Never in the Tour de France has a rider spoken more derisively of his chances while riding with such determined ferocity. He’s not giving up and the only thing coming out of his mouth that we can trust is carbon dioxide.

Perhaps the most mysterious ride of the day was delivered by Voeckler’s teammate, Pierre Rolland. As the one teammate left in the lead group on the Galibier, he would have been an obvious choice to help Evans with pace making. Based on his one trip to the front, it seemed that he didn’t have the horsepower to help much, but I suspect there was an additional force at work. Should an additional attack have come (that one didn’t says a lot about how infernal Evans’ pace was), Rolland was there to help pace Voeckler back to the leaders. He was the proverbial ace up the sleeve, as proven by the fact that he finished sixth on the stage.

Only 1:12 separates four riders with a classic Alpine stage to go. Unfortunately for Thomas Voeckler, even if he doesn’t lose a second to either Schleck on l’Alpe d’Huez, he is likely to lose at least a minute to Andy in the time trial. Last year Voeckler—with no pride or classification on the line—gave up almost three minutes to Schleck in the final, 52km, ITT. Even if he rides out of his skin on this 41km test, preserving his lead seems unlikely.

That’s a shame. A spot on the podium is an inadequate reward for Voeckler’s revelatory ride, his tenacity, his poker, his leap of faith in himself.

But the real man of the day is Andy Schleck, who presented himself to us today as a man of real courage, a man of daring. Of course, Schleck’s daring is minor when compared to what Contador attempted. If Alberto-freakin’-Contador can’t pull off the Giro-Tour double at the age of 28, with six consecutive Grand Tour wins under his belt, then I say we are unlikely to see it accomplished again. Armstrong knew not to attempt such a sweep. Will this chasten Contador from trying again? And what does this spell for his relationship with Riis?

With three days to go, only one thing seems certain: Whoever stands atop the podium in Paris will have earned our respect on their way to a deserved win.

Image: John Pierce, Photosport International

 

 

 

The Unexpected

If you’d asked me before the Tour started to list ten things that might happen during this year’s race, I don’t think the list would have included Alberto Contador losing time on multiple stages. I wouldn’t have suggested Andy Schleck would pull up timid on a rainy Alpine descent and brake his way out of contention. And I certainly wouldn’t have listed an assertive ride by a yellow-jersey-wearing Thomas Voeckler as perhaps the best single piece of evidence that the peloton is cleaner than it once was. God knows I wouldn’t have envisioned Thor Hushovd winning two mountain stages.

Nope, I wouldn’t have considered any of those as even remotely possible. But every one has come to pass.

With his ride in stage 16 Contador has proven that to count him out is to define foolhardy. I’m doubtful of his chances to win, but one can afford to be nonchalant in his presence the way one can be nonchalant around a cobra. Even if he can manage 15 or 20 seconds on all his rivals over the three remaining mountain stages and the time trial, that won’t be enough to boost him onto the podium.

One wonders whose ambition it was to even dream Contador could sweep all three Grand Tours this year. Was it Contador himself or was it Bjarne Riis? And if it was Riis, what will the repercussions be should Pistolero not pull a rabbit out of his hat before Paris? If Contador can’t pull off this victory, the age of the Giro-Tour double will truly have passed.

With the piece of descending we saw Schleck exhibit on the drop into Gap, the timidity that resulted in him losing 1:09 to Cadel Evans and 1:06 to Contador probably dashed his hopes to win this Tour. Frankly, his riding was so un-PRO that he doesn’t deserve the podium.

Darwin wrote that the story of the world was one of adaptation, descent with modification. Faced with obsolescence at the legs of Mark Cavendish, Hushovd has reinvented himself more thoroughly than any rider since Laurent Jalabert’s phoenix act in the 1990s. I consider him one of the three smartest riders in the race. He is the embodiment of the adage, “le tete et le jambs.”

As to Voeckler, he was already on what is arguably the best season he has ever enjoyed even before arriving at the Tour. So we must grant that he’s a better rider than he was in 2004, the first time he took the yellow jersey at the Tour. That said, in the era of Armstrong et al, sheer combativeness and tenacity weren’t enough to hold on to yellow. To suggest that will alone is enough is to believe that you really can stop a bullet by putting your finger in the barrel of a gun.

French cycling has been very nearly the laughingstock of the peloton since the Festina Affair. I’ve wondered if French athletes didn’t take some lesson from the incident to heart. Following the confessions that came as a result of the Festina Affair only six French athletes have tested positive (many countries have had two dozen or more), and the only one of them who was a notable GC rider was Pascal Hervé (yes, he of the Festina Affair), and that was in 2001.

I’ve often thought the fact that there has been only one prominent French GC rider (Christophe Moreau) in the last 10 years and the fact that French cycling has been curiously devoid of doping scandals weren’t just coincidences. I see it as cause and effect.

There’s an arc to this story. French riders were late to the EPO wagon; the Netherlands and Italy led the way, but they caught up, and in a big way, which is why Richard Virenque was one of the most feared climbers in the peloton during that time. And then we get Willy Voet’s ill-fated border crossing and Virenque’s teary confession in front of a judge.

To me, that past, those details and now Voeckler’s performance en jaune are of a piece. If you’re at your limit because the peloton rides at two speeds, then there’s no way for you to respond to an acceleration by a certified contender like Ivan Basso. That is, not unless everyone’s on the same program.

This is guesswork on my part; educated, but still guesswork. Still, it leads me to say that I find it easier to believe that Basso and Contador are clean than Voeckler is dirty. If we can have guilt by association, then maybe we can have innocence by association, too.

After all the scandals, the mudslinging, the unsubstantiated accusations and crazy revelations, the best possible thing that could happen for cycling right now is for Thomas Voeckler to arrive in Paris, clad in yellow. I’m not willing to put five bucks on that happening just yet, but it’s an outcome I’d cheer for, just the way I cheered in 1999.

Image, John Pierce, Photosport International

 

The Throne

On this, the Sunday of the Tour, I’ve been taking stock of the race up until now. The short answer is that this is one of my favorite editions of the Tour in years, probably since the 1990s. I like the Tour best when the race seems wide open, when the obvious drama of the event is how its outcome can’t be guessed by either experts or its newest followers.

To be sure, I think the eventual winner will have the last name of either Evans or Schleck, but that’s three possible outcomes and a bad day by any of them could open the door to Basso, Contador or—gasp—Sanchez or even—double gasp—Voeckler! Jens Voigt observed that Voeckler is riding on credit; few would argue that he hasn’t already overdrawn his account. But while we’ve been waiting for him to fold as any interloper is supposed to do according to the race’s script, he has shown more than mere tenacity. His surges to bring back the likes of Basso and Schleck seemed to irritate Schleck the younger, judging from his elbow waves.

What I saw in Voeckler was a man who will not go quietly, won’t concede that he’s a pretender to the throne. I can’t recall seeing a rider more out of his element ride with greater courage than when Voeckler launched that massive acceleration to go after Basso.

What has surprised me is how many journalists, bloggers and friends have complained of uninteresting and negative racing. Perhaps I was watching a different race. What I saw on stage 14 looked like the sixth round of a ten-round title fight. Each of those attacks would have crumpled mortal riders. Watching for who might attack next and when the attack did come watching for who was slow to respond kept me leaning into the TV and breathless.

We have four mountain stages left. The first two end with descents (yay, I like descents), while the final two end atop hors categorie climbs. Tomorrow’s stage into Gap is one where a breakaway with no-name riders might, finally, work. We’re bound to see some fireworks on the climb to Sestrieres, but it’s unlikely to result in any significant shakeup to the GC. Would could be interesting, though, is the steep descent off of the Cote de Pramartino with less than a half kilometer of flat to the finish. I wouldn’t be surprised if Voeckler punched it on the descent.

Some race fans won’t like it, but the big moves that decide the race will happen on the Galibier on their way to Serre Chevalier. The riders can’t afford to wait for l’Alpe d’Huez to try to blow the race apart. The Col Agnel is, based on my experience, steep enough that many domestiques will be rendered useless long before the race reaches the foot of the Col d’Izoard.

A word on stage 19: It’s as classic a mountain stage as can be devised. Begin the day with a downhill warmup to the foot of the Col du Telegraphe. After 12km of climbing, give them a brief (4km) descent to recover before throwing them at one of the most feared climbs in cycling, the 18km up to the Col du Galibier. Don’t expect a break including any favorites to go there, though. The descent from the top of the Galibier to the foot of l’Alpe d’Huez is nearly 50km and except for the upper portion of the Galibier, it’s not a technical descent; a group can haul ass (that’s a technical term) for le Bourg d’Oisans.

We can forgive the riders if they seem a bit conservative, even tentative. While the stage 14 attacks can’t be called timid, the responses in most cases were an only-as-much-as-necessary effort to keep the opposition in check. With the race this tight, one wrong move could dock you six spots on GC.

Image: John Pierce, Photosport International

The Thrill of the Race

Today was an example of precisely why the Tour de France is the greatest annual sporting event on the planet. We had a real bike race. While we couldn’t seem to have a day go without at least one significant crash (Andreas Klöden), the real thrust of the day was the racing not some tangential drama.

The biggest surprise of the day was being reminded that this was Samuel Sanchez’ first Tour stage win. He’s a rider of such colossal talent that a Tour stage missing from his palmares felt a bit like an oversight. Yet his ride was hardly the best of the day.

I’ve secretly had my money on Frank Schleck for this year’s race. I think he has the maturity his brother lacks and this year his form seems at least equal to his brothers, maybe even better. To watch him ride up the road and see the weak response reminded me of the sort of glee I feel when the bad guy gets killed in a horror movie, not that I think Cadel Evans or any of the other GC favorites are bad guys, mind you.

Which naturally brings me to Alberto Contador. It is my sincere hope that his performance today wasn’t hampered by his knee. I respect that a rider beaten is a rider beaten, but my personal belief is that whoever wins the Tour—should it turn out not to be him—deserves to know he beat him straight up.

I’ve suspected that Ivan Basso’s near-anonymous performance up until now was the result of him saving himself. Today’s late-race surge supports that. Seeing him work with Evans to try to pull back time on Schleck with Contador struggling to maintain contact and Schleck the younger dutifully playing the scavenger and just sitting on Contador’s wheel was, pardon me, a thrilling bit of racing.

Nearly as great a surprise as today’s win being Sanchez’ first Tour stage was how little time Thomas Voeckler gave up to Schleck and Evans. It was a stunning piece of racing and gave rise to my favorite performance of the day:

Pierre Rolland.

Long after every other team’s last domestique had Roman Candled their legs earlier on the mountain, Rolland not only stuck by his charge, but helped pace him back into the lead group following accelerations that were more than Voeckler could handle. It doesn’t hurt, either, that his service was such that the casual viewer of the Tour wouldn’t appreciate the work he put in, the difficulty of the task he accomplished. The finish line hug between the two was one of those private moments between teammates, not meant for our eyes, even if it did happen on the world stage.

As for the mighty RadioShack, they have two riders in the top 20 on GC. It’s not the sort of performance anyone expected from Johan Bruyneel’s team and probably not the sort of performance that would cause RadioShack to renew their contract at the end of this year.

And what would a day at the Tour without a little more love for Johnny Hoogerland? That he took off on the unknown Horquette d’Ancizan (a climb whose difficulty I can attest to) and attempted to build a gap to gain more points in the king of the mountains competition was the best. I don’t mind that he lost the jersey today; that was inevitable. However, I am bummed he didn’t manage to pick up a single point. I’d have loved the statement that would have made. His attempt was more than enough, though.

When Monty Python and the Holy Grail is finally re-made, Hoogerland will play the knight who says, “It’s only a flesh wound.”

Image: John Pierce, Photosport International

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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