So Sky had a conundrum: Froome had to test himself in competition – but not win. Too much aggro would follow such a victory. With the Giro looming and the Salbutamol case rolling on, the pressure might just build enough to deny him a start in Italy. Careful planning was needed.
Stage 1 predictably went to the sprinters, Sacha Modolo taking the run into Granada. Then Stage 2 came along, and the first full-on European climbing day of the season, up to Alto de las Allenadas. A group of exceptional quality was battling for the win and ultimately the race lead. Mikel Landa (Movistar) and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) were busy, as was Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal) and Wout Poels (Sky). Louis León Sánchez (Astana) and Marc Soler (Movistar) were there too, along with Chris Froome.
Froome had put on a familiar burst of pace to bridge to the group that mattered with 1,400m (4,590ft) to go. He was at the rear and Poels up front. There was no need for a radio signal to know when to go for it. Poels launched in the last 500m (1,640ft) and did a double job. Not only did he win a stage to take control of the race, he also deflected attention from Chris Froome, who must have been delighted by his own form.
So Froome was now a contender. Remember, the plan was to race on hard but avoid victory. A difficult balance indeed. There was, I guess you might say, always the chance of an accidental performance just being too good for the plan. And that nearly happened.
Another sprinters’ day on Stage 3 gave way to the race’s pivotal stage ahead of the finale of the time trial. Froome was looking very good. Ooops!
An uphill cobbled finish beckoned to the line at Alcalá de los Gazules. Froome was in contention, and on any ‘normal’ day he would have been a red-hot favourite. Other riders around him were tiring, so this looked to many like his chance of glory. I took a (perhaps more cynical) view. The individual time trial was beckoning the following day, and I judged that Froome would want to test his time trial legs properly on the last day without also winning the race, which meant he had to shed time on this day. How was he going to do it? I speculated on air that the answer might just lie in a ‘puncture of convenience’. And guess what? Within 10 minutes, the cameras cut to Froome standing by his bike in no hurry whatsoever. He managed to lose two minutes.
I imagined the PR department lighting cigars: no pressure on the final day. Poels with a chance to win the race and Froome with a nice time trial against quality opposition, able to go for it without a chance of victory. Job done. Well, almost. Tim Wellens won the race eight seconds clear of Poels, but Sky were as content as they could be. Their main man had passed many tests at this race. He’d faced the public, the media, some sterling opposition and bolstered his own physical and mental condition. Battles well won, though the war continued to rage on many fronts.
‘It’s Heartbreak Hotel out there and everyone’s a resident I’m afraid.’
At that initial launch of Team Sky back in 2010, there was a big press conference to reveal the team kit. The black Adidas jersey was a departure from the garish colours favoured by most teams of the time. Much was made of the blue stripe that ran down the back of the jersey from the nape of the neck to the waist. This, declared Dave Brailsford, represented the clear blue water that separated old cycling culture with its dirty, murky history and the new culture that Team Sky championed. Team Sky was at the very forefront, spearheading a squeaky-clean organisation that would not accept anyone to work or ride for them who had been tainted by dubious activities in the past. The blue stripe down the back of the jersey was the line that separated this new team from others, and a line that should never be crossed. Team Sky painted itself as one of the good guys. It also painted itself into a corner, a corner where spotlights glared. This, everyone thought, had better be good . . .
The debate goes on as to whether Sky did, in fact, ever cross the line. What we do know is that at least ethically it seems they were pushing up against it as hard as possible.
16
The Dark Side of Cycling
Ever since the sport of racing bicycles began, it’s had a murky side. Riders have always sought an advantage over their competitors. For the best, this simply means doing what comes naturally. For those missing a certain competitive percentage or two, the temptation to find an angle in the great chase can mean a step towards the dark side.
‘Doping’ is a generic term, and it can take many forms. There is a spectrum here. It’s not just about needles, pills and potions. No. The word now extends well beyond the chemical, and includes Accommodation Doping and Mechanical Doping.
So, cycling: let’s be straight about how bent it was. And is.
For those of us who love the sport and defend it, modern doping offences leave us wincing. It is the most rigorously tested sport on the planet. Which means cheats have a significant chance of being caught. When they are, it is wounding for us fans. That said, some of the older ruses can indeed raise a smile. Let’s call it Pirate Syndrome; think Blackbeard rather than Pantani (aka Il Pirata) for a moment.
Kids love a tale of derring-do with a bit of swashbuckling, whatever that means. Truth is, pirates were evil murderous marauders responsible for some truly heinous crimes. Time has softened their reputation to the near comedic. So it is with some early cycling cheats.
Choo-Choo Cheats
1903 saw the first Tour de France, with Maurice Garin the inaugural winner. It was a small band of brothers who survived that first amazing test of endurance. Garin beat Lucien Pothier by a margin just shy of three hours, with Fernand Augereau a further hour and a half behind in third.
Garin and Pothier had a fine year getting paid for talking about the great event in smoky cafés and packed town halls. They ate and drank well, being fêted throughout the land. Unfortunately, this celebrity regime took a toll and then, in the blink of an eye, it was suddenly time to defend the title. . . Ah!
Maurice and Lucien had both fallen victim to the ‘Winning and Dining’ lifestyle. They were a bit fat. Neither was in the mood, or shape, to go through the hell of Le Tour again so soon. Thus it is rumoured that Maurice, Lucien and others decided to seek help – in the form of steam and railway timetables.
The Tour was dogged with controversy and nine competitors were disqualified for, among other things, being pulled by or even sitting inside cars.
The original results saw the miraculous Maurice Garin successfully defend his title, with Pothier again coming second – though by a much narrower margin of 6 minutes 28 seconds. Hippolyte Aucouturier won four of the six enormous stages that circled France to finish fourth behind the winner’s brother, César Garin, who made up the podium. Cosy.
The results weren’t to last, however, because the French cycling union, L’Union Vélocipédique de France, decided to interview competitors and witnesses, and then, in December 1904, disqualified the first four finishers.
The UVF never revealed its reasoning, but there are rumours of Garin taking a train. This claim was confirmed many years later by a man who, as a boy, had heard Garin tell this story.
A total of 12 riders were disqualified. Henri Cornet, who originally finished fifth, was now blowing his own trumpet as the newly declared winner.
Things had to change and for the 1905 Tour rules were tightened, and the scrutiny of results, and just about everything else, now became the norm. Sadly, despite this welcome rigour, cycling now had an image problem regarding integrity. It still has.
Baaaa-d boys!
In more modern times, it’s said racers in Ireland used to be able to hire a flock of sheep to ‘help out’. Apparently in the 1970s the going rate was equivalent to about €35. Timing was of the essence to pull this one off. The chosen rider made his breakaway ahead of the appointed location, whereupon a gate was opened and a flock of sheep went about its business moving from one field to another via the country road that formed part of the course. Sean Kelly told me once, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘That could gain a man as much as ten minutes. That’s a good night out in Carrick!’ I still don’t know if he’s pullin
g my leg on this one.
‘He’s got welder’s goggles on at the moment and he’s white hot.’
Sticky Stick Doping
It’s in time trialling that most of the questions have been raised about riders gaining an unfair advantage. It’s the race of truth – just one man against the clock – which gives it a certain purity. But if one rider has an outstanding ride, questions are sure to be asked. One such incident came in the Milk Race in the 1960s when one rider recorded an extraordinary time that had jaws dropping all the way down to the tarmac. Nobody could work out how he’d done it. No rules appeared to have been broken.
The secret came down to a simple broom handle. The rules in a time trial dictate that a team car can draw alongside a rider but it must remain 2m (6ft 6in) from him. Encouragement is all that is allowed. The 2-metre distance is a hard one to bridge. But with a little good housekeeping it can be managed by the unscrupulous. It turned out that the broom kept in the car was not for tidying up. It had another use. At any opportune moment the broom handle was extended out of the car’s rear window and the end hooked behind the back of the rider’s seat post. Tidy!
Accommodation Doping
Are you all sleeping comfortably? Then I’ll begin. In 2015 the term ‘Accommodation Doping’ was first used after Team Sky’s ‘marginal gains’ drive extended to the sleeping arrangements for Richie Porte, the Giro d’Italia team leader. Rather than being billeted in hotels with his teammates, Porte had a luxury motorhome parked outside each of the overnight stops. It meant the same room and conditions for Porte throughout the race. Same bed, quilt and pillow, teddy bear, night light . . . you name it. All this without the need to pack, unpack or check in anywhere. Luxury.
Other teams objected. Small teams could not afford to copy the Sky model, and were not happy at all, complaining about the potential advantage. This gathered some critical momentum in the press.
Under the existing rules, teams were required to take as their location for the night of each stage the hotel booking that had been arranged by the race organisers. The quality of the hotels does vary dramatically. Tales and complaints about a lack of air conditioning and missing mosquito nets on certain stops abound. But any imbalance on a particular night is deemed to even itself out in terms of quality and comfort over the full run of a three-week Grand Tour. Sky had simply figured a way of avoiding all this variation for their leader.
After due consideration, in stepped the UCI and banned the practice.
So there is now a detailed list of accommodation issued at the start of each race, which must be adhered to at all times by all teams and all riders. It’s a handy document indeed. Especially as you now know exactly where your enemy is sleeping. And with this list, if you are evil, your rival might find it potentially difficult to sleep. Game on for the naughty.
If you can’t speed yourself up, slow your opponent down. You don’t need sheep. Just stop your rival counting any himself. A tired rider is a slow rider. There have been numerous complaints by teams of night-time noise being used as a weapon. Hard to prove of course, but it is remarkable how many revellers, partygoers and indeed even live bands have found themselves outside some major team hotels in the small hours of a Tuesday morning, the date of which seems of no apparent significance. Usually in Italy.
Of course, every day of the year has a saint allocated to it. This can provide a lame, if half decent and wily, excuse: ‘Ah, sorry. Today we celebrate Saint Cuthbert the Unruly. It’s in the diary. Have a look!’
Helicopter Doping
The 1984 Giro d’Italia remains one of the most controversial of all time. There were two main protagonists. Step forward the bespectacled Laurent ‘The Professor’ Fignon, the Frenchman who had won the Tour de France the previous year. And then in the blue corner was the popular local choice: the Italian Francesco Moser, who had already broken the hour record that year as well as being victorious at Milan–San Remo. The Italians do like their fellow countrymen to win their national race, and everyone was speculating that Fignon was fitter than his Italian counterpart. The French press were livid, accusing the organiser, Vincenzo Torriani, of drawing up a parcours that was fairly flat by Giro standards and cancelling mountain stages in order to favour either Moser or his fellow Italian Beppe Saronni.
When the Stelvio climb, the third highest pass in Europe, reared its head, the officials declared that it was impassable because of snow, despite many commentators of the time claiming that the roads were either clear or could easily be made clear with snow ploughs. Fignon claimed later, ‘They knew I was capable of winning the Giro and they made sure I lost. They knew Moser couldn’t have followed me.’ In his autobiography, Fignon wrote: ‘Chains of tifosi had lined the cols to push him up. The referees helped as well by fining me twenty seconds for taking a feed outside the permitted area.’
But more was to come. The final general classification rested on the results of the time trial from Soave to Verona, 42 km (26 miles) of undulating twists and turns, which Moser chose to tackle on his revolutionary time trial machine. He set off ahead of Fignon and was duly followed by a low-flying helicopter, ostensibly there to take TV pictures, though others noted it seemed to be flying so low and so close to Moser that the downdraft blew him along the road. Fignon set off from his start position but was now behind a helicopter. One aircraft was blasting Moser along the road while the other was ‘pushing me back’, said the Frenchman, who now had to work twice as hard! Moser won convincingly. In fact, his winning margin had everyone shaking their heads in disbelief.
A similar technique has been employed in more recent times in time trials, with team cars riding up as close as they can get behind their rider. Everyone was asking, ‘Why the hell are the team cars getting so close these days?’ The answer is that a car driving at 40–50km/h (25–31mph) produces a bow wave aero effect that pushes the air in front of it, helping the rider. There is now a 25m (82ft) rule for following cars.
Banned Kit
Skinsuits are constantly changing and adapting as the technical development evolves and improves. Some teams spend millions of euros on researching how to improve them, making for a great deal of inequality between teams. One of the biggest advances was the introduction of the phenomenal ‘flying squirrel suit’. A piece of aero cloth filled much of the gap between ribcage and underarm and at the same time drew the material down and away from each side of the sternum. In effect, the rider became a wing – a flying squirrel. The aerodynamic effect, according to one coach who tested it in a wind tunnel, was to benefit the rider by an extra 20 watts. The suits were worn by Garmin–Transitions riders during Stage 19 of the 2010 Tour de France. Foul, cried the press. Good point, thought the UCI. The commissaires later deemed the design to be approaching a ‘fairing’ in contravention of the rules, and the suits were thus banned from future races.
That hasn’t stopped the clothing companies from trying to gain other advantages. The shift in focus moved from the shape of the suit to the fabric itself. Movistar appeared to have the edge here. Unfortunately, they just didn’t have the riders to match the performance of the cloth. The material would not be the natural choice of an athlete. It looked like something out of Strictly Come Dancing. I’m sure the first fitting was a bit of a giggle, but there was sound technical reasoning behind the design. It followed the principle of the dimples on a golf ball: air becomes trapped in the dimples, which makes the surrounding air ride over another cushion of air as opposed to the surface of the body. Interestingly, Movistar used the suit for two seasons before Sky adopted similar technology. When the blue-stripe boys started getting better numbers, the opposition went crazy and sought to have the suits banned. The UCI naturally declared there was no case to answer since the suits had long been in use.
Hair Doping . . . Seriously!
All this research and development into aerodynamics in time trialling led a former Formula 1 technician from Red Bull, Professor Tony Purnell, to devote many hours of time and many pounds of
money into researching how body hair, and specifically leg hair, can help or hinder a cyclist’s aerodynamics. We all know that cyclists shave their legs, but Purnell wanted to find out if this offered any benefit.
A range of experiments conducted at Cambridge University looked into the various options, starting with the difference between completely shaved legs versus hairy legs, then moving on to consider legs that were partially shaved at the front but not at the back, beardy fronts and baldy backs, even beardy sides. Every possible combination was tried and tested in wind tunnels at an exorbitant cost. Was it any use? Well, the conclusion that Purnell reached after many weeks of testing was that, because everyone’s hair thickness is different, it’s impossible to draw any conclusion at all. However, he did find that with certain types of hair, the ultimate aerodynamic leg shave would involve a bald front of the leg but a hairy back.
The true reason cyclists shave is to make massage less painful and wound dressing easier. And for purely aesthetic reasons, I thank God that no one seems to have taken Professor Purnell’s advice.
Other Tricks . . . Some That Work and Some That Don’t
As well as aerodynamics, cyclists have worked hard for over a century to make their bikes go faster by making adjustments to the frame and wheels. We all know those riders who struggle to get up a hill or mountain but plummet down at breakneck speeds on the descent because they’re just that bit heavier than the others. So, it’s not rocket science; we all know that more weight will go against you on the way up, but benefit you on the way down. Hence the use of a lead-filled bidon passed to the rider as he tops the peak of a climb, to be inserted in the bottle cage.
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