It only takes one sponsor to pull out, and the team’s budget is suddenly a few million short. Sponsors only put money into a team to get media exposure and their advertising budgets may change from year to year, meaning that cycling teams lead a precarious existence.
Star riders like Chris Froome and Peter Sagan make millions, but you don’t have to go very far down the professional peloton before the salaries tail off dramatically.
A domestique in the Grand Tours will earn a decent enough salary to live off and have a bit left over at the end of his career to set him up in a new profession after retirement, but you only have to go down one level to pro-continental to find that isn’t the case at all.
In 2018 the P&P World Cycling Revival Festival put on three days of racing at the Herne Hill Velodrome, an iconic venue that hosted the 1948 Olympic Games. One of the races was an invitational Brompton race featuring stars like ex-Grand Tour rider David Millar, and a selection of UK-based professional riders from teams like JLT Condor and Specialized-Rocket Espresso. They were racing for a Winner Takes All prize fund of £10,048.
What should have been a light-hearted affair, of decent riders chasing each other around a velodrome on fold-up bikes, turned into one of the most hard fought and competitive races of the season. The riding was fierce with the inevitable crashes, grazed skin and even broken bones. The reason? This was the greatest amount of prize money most of these riders had ever raced for. Let there be no doubt: riding bikes for a living is very tough financially.
Matt Stephens, my friend and co-commentator, is an incredible character who combined a professional racing career with another as a police officer. His first taste of professional cycling came as a youngster when he joined French team Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt in the 1980s. The club remains widely respected; indeed, five times Tour winner Jacques Anquetil was a member. That didn’t mean it was an easy ride for any one of the many Foreign Legionnaires who rode for them, among them Stephen Roche, Rob Millar, Sean Yates, and his ‘cellmate’ Jaan Kirsipuu. They lodged in a former police station.
Matt had been very excited when told that his salary was enough to live on. In fact, it was about £25 a week, which, even back then, was way less than the minimum wage. He could barely afford to buy enough food. There had to be a way of surviving. One of the tips passed around the ex-pats was to hang around when the local markets packed up at the end of the day, then scrounge around for discarded or bruised fruit and veg. This helped to cheer up the pasta meals they made themselves.
Training, racing and resting was the mantra. It was his life triangle. Matt never went out partying and barely ever had a beer.
In cycling, most of the prize money won at races is paid out to teams only at the end of the season. This allows for any fines to be deducted. So it’s difficult to rely on this to supplement your income. The exception to this rule are primes (rhymes with teams), which are the prizes handed out for intermediate minor sprints within a race.
Matt was starving and knew his energy levels were best suited to the mid-section of a race. This was where he had a chance to win food money. As a result, he became the King of the Primes. He was always in the early break. He figured: ‘Have a break, have a Kit Kat’ . . . literally.
To give you an indication of how small these amounts of money can be, Sean Kelly and I were amazed in 2015 when we checked what the prize was for placing third at an intermediate sprint on a stage of the Vuelta a España. €30.
So Matt survived and contented himself each night with the thought of his share of the team’s prize money due at the end of the season. Surely it would be a nice little bulging envelope; the team were going OK. Payday duly came – and the word was the bonus sum was around £3,000 per rider for the season. Matt was handed a rather thin-looking brown pay packet that was stapled to a much larger bill. ‘A bill?’ Mais oui!
Matt’s bill was a long one. After fines there was a long list of kit he’d used. This even included spent tyres and inner tubes. ‘They made me pay for every bleedin’ puncture!’ Deductions were £1,800. Totally deflated, he received a paltry £1,200 for his season’s work. I asked Matt if that was a nadir in terms of winnings. ‘No. I once won a lettuce for coming third in a race in Norfolk. There wasn’t even a podium. We used a stepladder for that. The winner balanced on top, one in the middle and me on the ground . . . with my lettuce!’
I guess that’s when the Cheshire Constabulary beckoned to earn a real living. He did, of course, go on to become British Road Champion and now has a successful career as a broadcaster.
Even some of those closer to the top of the cycling food chain can struggle. I was talking to a well-known Monument winner who began his career in Belgium: he rose through the ranks and was getting some handy results at Belgian Cup races like Le Samyn and Nokere Koerse. He was on the verge of breaking into the top league and well regarded in the press. However, like Matt, he had to find ways to supplement his meagre income. A big-framed chap, he needed feeding beyond the limits of his team’s catering budget. What to do? The answer lay in kermesse races.
Belgium is famous for its kermesses. These are criterium-style races on a circuit around a small town or series of twinned villages. They are hugely popular, very much at the heart of grass roots, old school racing. The locals support them enthusiastically. These events are also big on ‘informal betting’. Informal – as in unlicensed – local bookies set themselves up in a café at the heart of the course with a leather suitcase full of cash and a chalkboard. It’s great fun.
Importantly, kermesse races offer prize money that can be taken home on the day. Good riders can pull in quite a fund from these events. Some may even get appearance money. There are also other ways of making a living on the day.
With all the unofficial betting that’s going on at these events, it’s unsurprising that some of the bookies have been known to get involved in massaging the results. For this, they pay good money. Imagine the scene as a cigar-munching bookie sidles up to our hungry young gun.
‘I can help you here, but I need you to do something for me. I need you to come third. Not first. Not second. But third. Understand?’
Payment already delivered, it was vital for our friend to get in the day’s breakaway. Once there, the real money poured in. Being in a break and the clear favourite, as he was, meant he had a sellable position. Negotiations began in earnest with those up front.
Our man simply pointed out that he could win the race hands down but was willing to ease off to let the other two go first and second – for a fee. Discussions ensued between the riders and their team cars, after which they came back to him to say that yep, they’d pay him to throw it. After a couple more visits to the team car, the bargaining finally settled on an acceptable fee. Double Double Bubble, you might say: the bookie paid him, so did the teams of the two riders who finished first and second. There was also a prize for finishing third and the original appearance money. Nice!
There are apparently more than 60,000 footballers who earn over €300,000 a year. There are fewer than 500 cyclists who can claim this. There are a handful of super-earners who make cycling a sport of princes – while those on the lowest rung of the ladder are the paupers doing all that they can just to survive.
The system doesn’t exist for the riders but for the teams themselves. Riders are part of the business model. And as with all models, some of them are not attractive at all.
There is a spectrum here. At one end you have the likes of Team Ineos, super-business-like and super-funded. At the other? Enter one Gianni Savio, known as the Little Prince.
With a dapper moustache, tailored suits and a diminutive frame, this Italian team owner/manager hasn’t earned that moniker for nothing. He’s also the ultimate survivor and fixer in world cycling, and succeeds in finding money where there just shouldn’t be any.
One way of keeping the ship afloat is to find sponsorship. And in Savio’s case it seems just about anybody can join the fun. For a fee.
In 2012 there were so many sponsors of the team that the actual name was Androni Giocattoli Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni. On TV graphics they always abbreviate the team name to just three letters, which proved something of a problem. In the end they just went with AND. This represented Androni, of course, but it could also have been shorthand for the link between the five main sponsors Androni and . . . and . . . and.
With so many sponsors, the riders’ jerseys looked terrible. A white background with almost every square centimetre featuring the logos of the main sponsors and secondary sponsors. From a distance, it looked like a bad pizza. It’s not much better today.
Still, all those sponsors must be well pleased by his team’s efforts. It’s a magical mix of fading European stars and South American super-kids – all cheap to hire, they get themselves into just about every break going. And sometimes, just sometimes, it seems that Savio might pull off a big trick. Stage 18 of Giro 101 saw Mattia Cattaneo come agonisingly close to a win. He finished third that day on the big ramps up to Prato Nevoso. Maximilian Schachmann won ahead of Ruben Plaza, but the entire commentary team, from all nations, wanted it to be the Androni man.
Gianni’s boy came very close. His team did eventually secure the minor prizes of the Fuga Pinarello for spending most kilometres in the break and also won the Intermediate Sprints competition. But a stage win on a Grand Tour would have been amazing.
Rightly or wrongly, Savio’s team has been linked to or implicated in many dark arts. But he still comes up smiling through a set of teeth that look like he snacks on dark-roasted coffee beans. It’s the only thing about him that is not polished. The cameras love him too. Like a Mafia Don, he says very few words when he nods approvingly towards one of his breakaway men – but that’s enough to draw both the attention of the TV director and an extra effort from his riders.
Maybe if he looked less rakish, people would feel differently about him. But to me he represents the other side of the coin of the Team Skys, Movistars and Bahrain Meridas with their apparently bottomless bank accounts. I’m glad that cycling has him. Without sanctioning any naughtiness here, the fact remains that Gianni has to battle to keep his team alive. It’s how it always was and indeed how it remains for most of the smaller teams. As you now know: there isn’t a lot of money in cycling. The only lolly you’ll find easily is likely to be thrown from a publicity caravan with the name Chupa Chups written on it.
18
Back on the Road
It’s ironic, but when we’re covering a bike race like the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia or Vuelta a España, we rarely, if ever, get to sit in the saddle of a bike. When we’re not actually commentating, most of our time is spent either desperately trying to get some sleep or driving from one finish town to the next. We will cover literally tens of thousands of kilometres in a Skoda Estate car hired out to Eurosport and stuffed with, at times, four presenters and all their accompanying luggage and bulging egos. For various reasons the long journeys are enormous and even the shorter ones seem to get longer as the personalities in the car start to rub.
Leaving the commentary position at the end of the day’s racing, Sean will lead the charge, barging past or cleverly dodging numerous people trying to get an interview or comment from him. As he races down the side streets through the crowds looking for the parked car, I’m trying to keep sight of his calves. They are easy to spot in a crowd because: 1. They’re massive; and 2. They have a ginger miasma surrounding them, which lights up in the sunshine like jiggling beacons. Kelly stopped shaving his legs on retirement. ‘Not doing that bloody nonsense any more . . .’
Jogging along without apparently breathing is the fitter, younger half of the Grand Tour lead team, Rob Hatch. He does shave his legs. And they are impressive. So is his agility. He glides through the fans and crew with such ease it’s like he’s invented a new art form: Crowd Parkour. So eel-like is his progress that he even has time to stop and chat to any number of members of the cycling caravan and pass a few bon mots in their chosen tongue. Rob is a linguistic wizard. I usually heave into view just as Rob is bidding his latest farewell and bouncing off again. I manage a wave and a panted ‘Hi’ to whoever he’s been chatting to before battling on in search of Kelly’s calves and, ultimately, the car.
At the car, I swig heartily on a bottle of the Dead Stuff: the worst-tasting of all water provided by the race. It’s like previously boiled kettle water. Far fresher than I and already busy on the back seat, Rob is still in terrier mode, uploading stuff and translating press releases in exotic languages. Referring to his last stop on his run to the car, I venture: ‘Who the hell needs to learn Dutch anyway? They all speak English, FFS.’ ‘Aaah, it’s fun!’ he says without looking up as he furiously types on the web. I bet he’s working on Swahili at the moment. Just for fun, obvs.
If it’s been a hot day – and we get some scorchers on the Tour – we have to wait for the car to cool down before departure. Doors wide open and the engine running with the air con blasting away. Not very eco I know, but needs must. We need to be reasonably comfy ahead of, say, a three-hour drive to the hotel.
So once Sean is able to touch the gear knob we chuck everything into the back and begin negotiating with race security for an exit from the parking zone. Finally the drive begins.
I always pray that Kelly doesn’t have his famous ‘taste for the race’ as he calls it. If it’s been a punchy and quick kind of a day, one that would have suited him as a bike racer, then he’s at his worst – or, in his eyes, his best.
‘Can you slow down, Sean?’
‘Why? What’s wrong with my driving?’
‘Well, to put it bluntly, it’s absolutely shit; you’re taking far too many risks simply to keep up with the Germans. Pack it in!’
All the while, we have been taking blind corners and hill crests in Sean’s mission to keep ‘The Germans’ in sight: former French Champion, and one-time teammate of Sean’s, Jean-Claude Leclercq, who is actually Swiss and speaks German, and his colleague Karsten Migels. The unwritten rule is that the first team to get to the hotel has first dibs on the rooms.
So it’s a race.
This situation is a red rag to one of the most competitive pro-racers there ever was. Sean has a Porsche 911 at home. ‘Worst bloody investment I ever made. I’m too busy to drive the thing.’ Trouble is, he’s now pushing our overladen Skoda to the limits of its grip simply to keep up with Jean-Claude.
Probably the most annoying thing about this whole affair is the running commentary from the back seat. Rob Hatch is a vocal enthusiast given to involuntary outbursts of appreciation regarding things he loves. This applies to cycling greats in particular. Sometimes it gets the better of him, particularly where Sean is concerned, and so the encouragement to go for gaps that do not exist on a public road is both loud and frenzied. His favourite word is ‘Flickage!!!’, derived from the widely used cycling term flick. It’s a very common term in pro ranks and is used by most riders, particularly those who’ve spent any time in the Ardennes. ‘So I flicked him’ is almost a mantra when recounting any story of a win. It can be slightly derogatory as well. A bit like dispatching a bogie. It infers superiority when you do it yourself – or it can add a sense of injustice as you recall an unfair move you’ve suffered, as in: ‘He just flicked me.’ Rob has moved this on and added a little Franglais as polish. So, as Sean is divebombing lines of traffic into blind corners just for fun, and I am busy being terrified in the passenger seat, all that’s audible above squealing tyres and yawing engine is Rob shouting ‘Flickaaage’ in the manner of an extended ‘Olé’ from a crowd at a bullfight. What is particularly galling is that Rob Hatch doesn’t drive, so his knowledge of car handling is approaching zero. His egging-on of the nutter in c
ontrol, who is now operating under a green mist, simply adds to my real and palpable sense of danger.
‘PACK IT IN, YOU ARE SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME,’ I scream. This admission of weakness, or rather fear, is a convenient get-out for Sean. It allows him to ease off without being seen to back down under orders from a lesser being.
‘Ooooh. Right. Well, if you’re scared, I’ll knock it off a bit.’
Rob Hatch is disappointed in the rear: ‘Come on Sean, don’t listen.’
I rip in: ‘I have got a wife and kids and I would quite like to see them again, if you don’t mind.’
We drive on in silence save for Rob, who is now trying to smooth over the cracks of a parental bust-up with light chit-chat. ‘Look at the colour of those shutters . . . lovely.’ As he witters on about anything and nothing, I sit in silence, staring out of the window. There are still two hours of this trip to go before we reach our hotel. The air that fizzed with adrenaline now settles into a post-row stupor with a series of platitudes breaking the monotony.
‘Mint?’
‘Cheers.’
‘This is the Kanarieberg, and they’re not singing I can tell you.’
Some of the long transfers are enormous – we once had to get from Normandy to Bordeaux, a hell of a drive, I can tell you. It’s 650km (400 miles) and should take up to six hours. No wonder that Sean Kelly actually let me drive. But not before he’d had his fun along the way. Just the two of us in the car that day, and each time I nodded off in the passenger seat he would dab the brake to force my head to loll forward and bounce me awake.
‘Pwah! Everything OK?’ I would ask with a start.
‘Alright,’ he would say and slowly but surely I would nod off again, only for Kelly to go for it again about five minutes later.
Magic Spanner Page 13
