Magic Spanner

by Carlton Kirby

  There was even a wine tasting where – and this is where some press guys lost it – you were expected to pay! If you want to wind up a group of journalists, just make them pay for everything. Apparently their pumped-up, over-muscular, eat-only-with-aged-liver-or-well-hung-game plonk was too valuable to be given graciously and freely to those supposed to comment on it. Remarkable.

  Then, when we were broadcasting the stage and at a crucial part of the race, the cameras cut away and dwelled on, for some time, a helicopter shot of a vast and notable Barolo wine estate. To me, this whiffed of a prior arrangement, airtime considered a fair swap by the TV direction crew in return for some of the local produce. There were big close-up shots of the winemaker’s signs, giving it global publicity and free advertising. My comment on air was, ‘I guarantee you that someone’s going to be sending a transit van round to be filled up with wine from that estate because there’s no reason whatsoever for it to be on your screens while so much is happening in the race.’ I got my arse kicked all round the TV compound for that comment – I suspect because it was true.

  A quick note to my friends in Barolo: technology has caught up with you guys. There are obviously many, many wine shops over in the UK. On average, Barolo can be found 40 per cent cheaper in the United Kingdom. I could go to Majestic Wine round the corner from my home and get exactly the same bottle for significantly less without having to lug it around Italy for a few weeks.

  So there you have another 20 minutes killed or crafted – depending on your opinion of what I do. You could call it filler. I call it fun! OK, grumpy fun, with a score settled.

  But, other than engaging in knocking down institutions and pillars of the hierarchy, I always find that a bit of idle chat about Sean Kelly’s dinner choices the night before or what drinks sent me and Dan Lloyd under the table make for a good bit of banter.

  Then there’s so much news from the teams that you pick up when you’re on site – you find out a lot. There’s no excuse for not being entertaining when not much is going on. That’s part of the job. If it sounds easy, then you’re doing it well.

  I often compare commentary to that nightmare where you’re walking around town with no clothes on. On occasion, you find yourself completely exposed and your job is to find a hiding place, bury the issue and keep the show on the road. We’re like that old adage about a swan: all serene on the surface but going like the clappers underneath the surface. When I started my career in the BBC regions and then TV-am, I was told by both institutions that I was far too relaxed and laconic. That is indeed how I come across to some folk. I think it’s a kind of self-preservation mechanism for when things start to get a bit hairy. Some animals pretend to be dead when they’re in danger. I just chill out and crack a joke. I may appear to be cool and calm on the outside but I’m probably desperately tense and juggling for my life on the inside.

  ‘Kenny de ketele is at a simmer at the moment but he’s ready to boil over.’

  13

  Feed Station

  The physical demands for a rider on a Grand Tour are enormous. In fact, it’s estimated that a rider will burn more than 6,000 calories a day, meaning that they are constantly trying to refuel their bodies with enough nutrition to make a very long journey over challenging terrain possible. Sure, the riders set off in the morning with gels in their pockets and full water bottles in the cages. And although these are replaced regularly, with the help of the poor sod who has been chosen to go back to the car for bottles, this is not enough to keep everyone going. So it is that race organisers are duty-bound to build a Feed Station into the riders’ day. This zone is a challenging place. Every rider must first find his ‘swanny’, or soigneur, the team member whose role is to locate themselves evenly along the road while plaintively calling out squad names into the wind. This is no easy task: they have to hold quite a considerable weight high enough in the air to allow the rider to grab the long-handled goody bag safely.

  This whole delivery business is fraught with danger. As the swannies’ arms, along with their smiles, begin to tire, the bag drops from its early enthusiastic height to what can be a challenging altitude for the rapidly approaching rider. If the top of the sack handles drop from being held proud in the air to around the chest height of the holder, there will be trouble.

  Grabbing a knapsack too high up the long handles causes ‘bag swing’. This is a problem. The ideal place to catch a bag at, say, 25km/h (15mph) is close to the bag itself. The higher you are up the handles on collection, the further away you are from a perfect take. The bag becomes a pendulum, sometimes weighing a couple of kilos or more. This then swings violently behind the back of the rider, who then veers off line, losing control. A bag-swinging rider can easily collect others around him – and often does. No wonder, then, that feed zones are, at best, places of argumentative finger pointing and, at worst, crashes and injury. So, in more ways than one, riders need to take their feeding seriously, approaching the matter with both focus and skill.

  Treats!

  The inquisitive and sharp-eyed among you will, I’m sure, have noticed that some of the items emerging from riders’ knapsacks are far from the standard fare you might be tempted to buy off the shelves in the bike store. Forget hi-tech gels and bars; in the peloton, some extras inside the bags can be a bit freestyle, to say the least.

  These occasional non-standard items might be there to satisfy the peculiar tastes of a star rider, or a treat designed to cheer up a flagging athlete – a candy bar, say, or a Coke. Other items are sometimes included simply to make riders laugh.

  One former Dutch Champion tells of a rider in the gruppetto bursting out laughing on a particularly miserable day in Belgium after opening a sandwich that had been lovingly wrapped in a page from a porn magazine. Apparently this was started by an American team. The mirth spread as the page was handed around. It raised the spirits of a damp and grumpy band of brothers whose job of driving the peloton in the opening hours had been done. The porn habit soon spread to other teams and became a real diversion on long hard days, so to speak. Sadly, when this became an obsession for the riders, who would look forward to the rude stuff being handed out, the team managers stamped on it. The sight of riders zigzagging to get a look at the latest piece of filth was being caught by TV cameras. Not good for the sponsors.

  Jelly, Spam and Figs – A Recipe for Disaster

  The whole sedentary lifestyle of commentating, coupled with plenty of rich French, Italian or Spanish food, tends to have a swelling effect on my body. And having the top-heavy physique of a rower doesn’t exactly give me the classic svelte figure of a cyclist. To be frank, after a few weeks on a Grand Tour, any interview I might do with Chris Froome should carry a graphic tag: The Stick and Ball Show.

  Rather than try to hide my mass, I tend just to badge it up. The Americans help out in this department significantly. Firstly, ads for cycle gear stateside sometimes offer the tempting headline: ‘Look Like a Pro right up to XXXXXL’. That’s five Xs, by the way. Pity the guy who needs six! I slip gently into just two. OK, three.

  Couple this with some rather self-deprecating team names that look good on any end of the balloon scale right up to Goodyear Blimp. Indeed, Goodyear has just re-entered the cycling market after a break of 120 years. Surely this is just for me! Where’s my complimentary kit?

  Conveniently, there are a number of cycling teams whose name brings an acceptable irony to a tubby rider: I did consider the JellyBelly team, who have kindly graced the sport for some time. However, their kit, although great, lacked a certain uniqueness. Then I came across a SPAM jersey . . . in XXXL. Featuring a picture of a SPAM fritter burger front and back, with a mere suggestion of salad, the logo read: SPAM . . . CRAZY TASTY! This I had to have.

  The enormous yellow and blue jersey was forced through my regular-sized letterbox by a huffing and puffing postman just before I departed for the Tour of Turkey.

  My mate Brian Smith and I took our well-packed Vitus bikes to the airport, and hop
ed they would survive the journey to Istanbul. These had been kindly loaned us by Sean Kelly’s An Post–Chain Reaction team. They didn’t provide any clothing kit, so naturally I took my new pride and joy.

  Turkey has some spectacular scenery. Its people are among the most welcoming in the world. Their food is amazing and the cycling is superb. Strange, then, that I managed to mash up all these wonderful elements into a near-unholy disaster.

  On the day of a team time trial, we finished early, giving Brian and me a chance to get on the bikes and head inland away from the coast. Brian is a former professional rider who has competed in Grand Tours, not to mention the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and he’s clearly a much better and fitter cyclist than I could ever be. ‘You going out in that?’ said Bri in his Paisley burr. ‘You’re having a laugh!’

  ‘Yeah, good, isn’t it! Got it sent over from the States.’

  And with that, off I set to get a margin on the man with thighs like granite-filled sandbags. Very quickly Bri cruised up alongside. Arriving smoothly and silently with threatening intent, like a sleek Zeppelin. We rode on for a while together with Bri looking at me and shaking his head gently as he issued the occasional ‘Sheesh!’ By now, I was also shaking my head, but from side to side as I tried to keep up with him.

  Unsurprisingly, we ended up going our separate ways. He disappeared up a mountain, while I decided to take an easier route. It was still pretty hilly, but I was happy spinning along through the countryside and little villages. The road kicked up and naturally my pace slowed. Then, as I ploughed up through a village surrounded by fig groves, my troubles started.

  What struck me was the way folk looked at me and stirred from their relaxed state, becoming tense. Men stood up and told their kids to go indoors. As I struggled up the modest incline in the heat of the late afternoon, one house called out to the next to warn neighbours of my approach. I was now being greeted by men and women at the edge of their land with hissing sounds and what were clearly insults. They were getting quite animated! I pushed on.

  Out the other side of a village, the road I was on simply petered out into a dirt track that was too rough for my road bike. This, of course, meant I had to turn back. Oh dear.

  I was about 200m (656ft) clear of the top of the village and down below me the road was filling with my friends. I stopped in a moment of would-be Clint Eastwood cool and cleaned my glasses as I pondered my fate through squinting eyes. I was going to have to go for it. Specs on and head down, I grabbed the bars like a track cyclist and braced myself. I could imagine the start gate at the velodrome about to release me. Everyone in the road below stopped too. As the dust around their feet struggled to settle in the orange twilight, there was a brief staredown. I tensed. In my head I heard the starter countdown: ‘Booop, booop, booop, beep!’ I was off.

  As soon as I began my run, the crowd immediately started theirs.

  I picked up pace quickly with some of the slickest gear changes I’ve ever done. Cool as a cucumber, I was about to be met with . . . figs. Lots of figs. A figgy blizzard indeed.

  As I got within about 50m (165ft), I was going at around 60km/h (37mph) and I was looking good. But not for long.

  The first rotten fig caught me on my collarbone and exploded up the right side of my face. The sweet jammy smell was a counterpoint to the verbal bile being issued my way. This was a cue to everyone to let loose. The crowd numbered no more than 40, but their hit rate was impressive. As my vision was gone in seconds thanks to three headshots, I naturally slowed dramatically. I can report that clincher brakes struggle with fig jam. Coming to a juddering halt, I pulled off my specs. Thankfully, the mood had changed and everyone was now laughing uproariously. I smiled just in time to see a kid on his dad’s shoulders tip a boxful of purple fruit grenades over me. I waddled through them. Clipped in and rode away to the sound of an entire village in wild celebration.

  Ten minutes down the road, Brian pulled up alongside me. ‘What the f--k happened to you?’

  Waving a couple of wasps away, I told him. ‘. . . and they just f--kin’ pelted me! For no good reason whatsoever!’

  ‘It’s a bloody Muslim country, idiot. Spam is a pork product, you dickhead.’

  ‘Ah! Let’s get the hell out of here.’

  Food Fights

  Racing is about power and delivery.

  In my view, Formula 1 racing is largely about the car. In cycling, it’s about the man. Sure, the bike comes into the equation, but it’s the man numbers that matter.

  A good engine and aero package is vital. In motorsport, this is about light alloy power units and bodywork. In cycling, it is the rider himself who provides these elements. Now, as we all know, if you get the fuelling wrong for any engine, it’s likely to go pop! Let’s ponder this.

  A rider struggles to get 6,000 calories into his body to cope with the physical torment of a regular racing day. Such are the demands of cycling for four hours and more at a pace that, even in cruise mode, would see off even the best club riders after 20 minutes. Fuelling such a feat of endurance takes dedication to ingestion. And sometimes indigestion.

  Getting prepped wrong brings on the knock, where energy levels collapse – as do, sometimes, the riders themselves. This physical demise can happen with dramatic speed, and even the best riders in the world can suddenly come close to fainting and begin weaving across the road. As soon as these earliest signs present themselves, there is not much time to act. The body can short-circuit without the power derived from food and its internal resources. Get your feed wrong and, at best, you are going to have a losing run. At worst, you can end up in hospital.

  Feeding regularly, then, is important and the timing of it vital for success. Make a mistake, and you are going nowhere. But this constant intake has its issues – not the least being how to get it down if you really don’t fancy it.

  Cyclists are fussy. It’s what they do well. All of them.

  Food is one element you have to have ticked close to the top of the To Do list. But liking what is going into your tum certainly helps the process. Despite what the ads tell you, some of these ‘highly nutritious and delicious’ gels and bars are, um, yucky. Some riders simply do not like them, which becomes a bit of an issue on a long day in the saddle. Everyone has different needs and likes, and some truly great cyclists have food habits that would involve social services if you fed your kids on such a programme. Let’s talk jelly! (Or, if you really insist, Jello!)

  Dan Lloyd, who sometimes commentates with me, told me how, as a newbie racing for the Cervélo test team, he committed what was a cardinal sin. He nicked his leader’s lunch! Kind of.

  Cruising into a feed station is a precarious business, as we know. Pace, timing, bike-handling skills and determination all count if you’re going to make a tidy collect without stopping. The juggling begins as you shoulder your prize and begin rummaging for nosh.

  Dan executed what he regarded as the perfect take and soon found enough road space to sit up and cruise with his hands off the bars and the bag on his belly. He began foraging. ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ said his expression. ‘F--king jelly sweets!!! Is this a f--king joke?’ said his mouth. Dan took the full water bottles and a small tin of Coke. His arms did the talking next as he flung the huge candy-bag towards the enthusiastic roadside fans.

  He began to drift back to the team car to get something useful to eat. Just as he knocked off the speed, with feeding riders passing him and stuffing provisions in mouth and pocket, David Millar cruised by, swearing. Seeing Dan bagless, David assumed he’d missed a collect and slammed a full bag into his chest. ‘Here’s some shit.’ Then he went on the radio. The smile on Dan’s face after being serviced by his team leader soon disappeared as his earpiece crackled to life. It was the Directeur Sportif: ‘Guys, whoever has collected Dave’s Haribo, can you please hand it over. Now!’ Dan said nothing and rode on with the slightly strange expression of forced innocence one adopts going through Customs at airports: ‘I have absolutely
nothing to declare’, said his face.

  If you are surprised by Haribo and cans of Coke, then add to the list women’s tights. On a hot day a can of chilled soft drink is one thing, but a pair of tights filled with crushed ice is a whole different level of satisfaction. It’s a true example of secondary design. Filled with crushed ice, a pair of tights sits nicely on the back of the neck and as the water runs down it cools both jugulars, anterior and exterior. If tights – or ‘ladies’ panty-hose,’ as Sean always calls them – didn’t exist, you’d have to invent them, just to cool down a cyclist on a hot day.

  Thirsty?

  Heat and dehydration are a couple of the biggest problems a rider has to overcome on a Tour de France stage in the middle of July. Great care has to be taken to constantly top up with liquids. You often see a whole team, all eight riders, take a sip from their bidon at the same time because their Directeur Sportif has just reminded them over the team radio to take a drink. Hydration is so critical to the correct functioning of the body that it has been the centre of much research. One of the findings is that the signals your body gives you – thirst – arrive too late. This means that if you are experiencing thirst, you are in fact already too late to maintain full function. A top athlete is already behind the ideal hydration curve. For this reason, teams are constantly nagging riders to drink on a schedule tailored to the day and their need or exertion levels. It’s all very scientific. It wasn’t always the case.

  The effects of thirst can make a rider do silly things. Over the years there have been many teams sponsored by beer companies, Pelforth (a fine drop) being one of the better known in the early 1960s. One of these teams had the bright, yet rather sneaky, idea of hobbling the opposition by putting out a trestle table lined up with iced glasses full of beer on the approach to a series of late climbs. The vessels were real glass, not plastic – which these days you’re not allowed to take on to the course. And they looked so tempting, all frosted up on a blisteringly hot day. To the thirsty peloton, this was irresistible stuff. Many fell on the frosty vessels, heartily swigging down what must have been pure nectar. Half an hour later, all those who’d succumbed to the temptation had completely had it. The pack was decimated and half the peloton trundled in some minutes behind the leaders. Of course, the riders who were in on the trick stuck to their water rations and came in ahead of their rivals – and were rewarded with a few cold beers beyond the line.