Magic Spanner

by Carlton Kirby

  Farina was so small that there was a lot of room around him in the driver’s seat. He used this space as a sort of exercise yard and constantly fidgeted in his seat. He even once sat cross-legged after setting the cruise control to 165km/h (102mph), only to go into ninja mode when a traffic jam suddenly appeared. His legs were still knotted under him until the last moment when our screaming tyres finally found purchase. The clouds of tyre smoke billowed past us as we came to rest about 1m (3ft) away from a truck’s back lights. The silence in the car was broken by our lunatic chauffeur who, seeing the halted traffic extending far off into the mouth of a tunnel, observed in a matter-of-fact way, ‘It was here in that tunnel I had my third big accident.’

  Wide-eyed and pale as a night poacher, I was able to say only, ‘Oh.’

  Back on the mountain, we rounded a corner, the car just starting to splutter, and came upon a mountain lodge restaurant with a host of race vehicles parked outside. Sanctuary!

  ‘Right, this’ll do. Thank you, gentlemen.’ I flounced out of the car and dragged my bag from the boot. Tapping the roof, I said, ‘Off you pop! See you in the morning.’

  I could hear the sound of the restaurant through the double-glazed windows. As I climbed the steps, the door flung open and a wobbling barrier guy exited, guffawing with laughter as he made his way over to a tree. He couldn’t be bothered to battle for the loo through the mayhem inside. There must have been 200 covers, and not a seat was free. Production crew, barrier guys, and promotion caravan teams of all descriptions were theatrically engaged in a food festival. The mood was buoyant to say the least; rowdy even.

  Doing the world television feed on-site is a privilege. You are a member of a big but tight production team and thus very much part of the gang. So they knew who I was. ‘Ciao, Carl-toni!!!’ echoed around.

  I asked a harried waiter who among all his clients was about to finish? He pointed to a table of trolls. These guys needed a bath. I didn’t care because they were kind, going my way over the mountain and apparently had space in the cab of their heavily laden flatbed truck stacked with hundreds of aluminium barriers. They also reflected the diverse heritage of the barrier crews, whose job it is to secure the race route with a line of shiny aluminium. My new mates were, it turned out, Italian, Slovakian and Sicilian.

  Espressos necked and cigarette butts flicked, we got on board. It was tight. They said they had room, but this was clearly for the size of an arse that belonged to Farina. His arse, meanwhile, was heading down the mountain in a dance of death with hairpins and oncoming TV trucks. I didn’t care.

  With the smile of an escapee in sight of freedom, I wound down the window and hung an elbow into the cold air just to give my shoulders some room. There were four of us on the bench seat of the cab. We were as cosy as four grown men can be.

  It’s hard to pass sweets when your shoulders are compressed to the side of your face. With arms out front in a begging position, we passed around a plastic box of Tic Tacs and launched the sugar pills into our mouths as if we were tossing pancakes.

  The road got progressively steeper and more broken. The municipality had not got around to fixing the winter frost damage and the truck was duly being troubled by the uneven surface. On we bounced for around 20 minutes before we rounded a headland to be met with a terrible sight: red warning flares were firing their powder into the night. It looked like an emergency chopper landing site from Apocalypse Now. This was serious.

  Out of the hellish fog came a policeman. I imagined Verdi’s Requiem as the smoke billowed and wafted about him as he walked towards us.

  We turned our engine off to hear the fizzing fireworks as the officer drew near.

  ‘Landslide?’ I enquired sympathetically.

  ‘No . . . no, no, no,’ said the policeman with a huge grin on his face. ‘Party!!!’ It was then I noticed the very faint thrum of rock music. I think it was Lynyrd Skynyrd.

  ‘You park here and walk around the big hole . . . 200m you find the party.’

  ‘Thank you, officer.’

  We found the big hole alright. Clearly a pothole that had once been covered, as we discovered, by a 5cm (2in) thick sheet of iron to accommodate rolling trucks. The bolt holes were fresh in the road. So was the air temperature as we marched on towards what looked like a Native American encampment.

  A huge teepee revealed itself, located next to a massive bonfire. It was apparently still dinner time. Over the fire was an arrangement of wooden poles, from the centre of which hung the metal sheet now missing from the road. It swung gently on its chains with piles of meat on board sizzling away about a foot above the log pyre. This was mega!

  I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many dangerous looking men gathered together in such a happy mood. ‘Ciao, welcome,’ said a man with a huge two-litre bottle of something boozy. ‘We are the Giro Mountain Guard.’ It was a Biker Gang.

  Basically, if you are a mayor, in hard-pressed times, and you want extra security for a one-off event, then the Hells Angels are a handy bunch to befriend. Apparently the local police force would struggle to secure a race such as the Giro without them.

  So here we were in a mosh of hairy men with lots of food, a fire to keep warm . . . oh, and alcohol. Booze-a-go-go.

  ‘You like grappa?’ said a man who resembled Father Christmas’s tubby brother. He displayed a bare belly, curtained at the sides by a leather waistcoat that had buttons but no chance of them ever being fastened.

  He handed me a pottery demijohn with a finger loop at the neck, from which I was clearly expected to swig. I pulled a long cork and went to take a nip. ‘No, no, you drink it like this,’ and he showed how to balance it on your elbow and tip it up. Under his excited gaze. I took a hearty swig. Wow!

  Now, I have had some drinks in my time. Toddy in Tuvalu, made from coconut tree sap; Bissap in Burkina Faso, made from hibiscus flowers; Arrack in Sri Lanka, made from palm syrup; whiskies, eau de vies, and a myriad other types of firewater from all over Planet Earth. But if you put them all on a table and I had to pick just one, I would chose Italian Hells Angel Father Christmas Juice every time. It was fabulous. Smooth as you like with a donkey-kick finish.

  ‘I made it myself,’ he said proudly. ‘It’s delicious,’ I said, handing it back. ‘No, no, no. That is your bottle, we have plenty.’ He gestured to a pyramid of unopened bottles stacked just yards away in the dancing shadows. ‘Enjoy!’

  And I did.

  I don’t know how I got to my hotel room that night. In fact, I don’t know much about what happened after perhaps my third gulp of grappa. There is a photo somewhere of me wearing what appears to be a sun hat standing at the rear of my new band of brothers. I have my arm raised, shouting cheers towards the camera. Soon after this was taken, I must have passed into oblivion.

  I awoke the next morning in a beautiful room around 30km (18 miles) away from the mountain party. As I came to, I realised I was very cold indeed. I lay spreadeagled on a king-sized bed with large French windows flung open to a modest balcony. We were facing east, so the morning sun was pouring past gently waltzing net curtains. From the bed, the view contained nothing but sky. I was clearly still at altitude. It was then I looked down to see that I was completely naked, save for one foot that still had a shoe and sock on it. Then I saw all the clothes strewn around the room. I had clearly undressed myself and performed a dance of death while trying to get my trousers off over the shoe. Luckily I’d landed on the bed instead of tipping over the balcony and down the gorge that fell away 300m (1,000ft) or so from my hotel, perched on the mountainside.

  Later that morning, with dark glasses and aspirin doing a lame job on my headache, I saw my Slovakian and Sicilian friends as they unloaded their barrier truck. ‘Was it you guys that took me home last night?’ No words were returned. What I did get was uproarious laughter and the shaking of heads as they worked on, pouring with sweat. To this day, I still don’t know how I made it to safety that night. I remain concerned that there may be a sequence of
incriminating pictures awaiting release on to the internet.

  ‘Not too hot, not too cold, just like the three bears’ porridge.’

  21

  The Greatest Ride

  What makes a great ride is not always as simple as winning a bike race. What truly stirs the emotions, certainly with me as a commentator, is when undiluted human endeavour is displayed in its myriad forms: fortitude, panache, bravery, doggedness, flamboyance, verve and sheer guts. Cycling has always been about going deep. And the deeper you go, the darker it can get.

  Greatness isn’t always accompanied by champagne and laurels. Sometimes it comes with blood and bandages. From my position as a commentator, I’ve had the privilege of sitting at the finish line and witnessing these extraordinary feats from a group of sportsmen that put so much of themselves into this dramatic sport.

  The greatest riders have always been the ones able to suffer for longer than the rest. Think of Jacques Anquetil, Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartali. But it wasn’t just innate talent that helped them win. Sure, they had that in spades, but never forget how important is sheer bloody-mindedness. It’s perhaps almost the most vital strand of any successful rider’s DNA.

  Post race, commentators are often given to pondering great rides of the past over a beer or at dinner. As a group, we are in awe of those about whom we speak. It’s a reverence. And we often drift into a mild cycling quiz, asking questions of each other. Testing. Wondering. There used to be a regular question that drifted in: ‘What’s the greatest ride for you, then?’ In recent times, I’ve witnessed some remarkable rides that have had me pouring emotion from the commentary box. And they haven’t all been famous victories, either.

  Iljo Keisse on the Tour of Turkey 2012 led the pack into Izmir by 16 seconds at the flamme rouge. He fell on a right-hander, remounted and then dismounted again to put the chain back on. Finally on his way, he then held off big sprinters like Alessandro Petacchi and Marcel Kittel in a drag race to the line.

  Think of Nairo Quintana on the Tour 2015. He was second in the general classification, behind Froome, and his do-or-die push in the Alps had me out of my seat and willing him on. First he did it on La Toussuire, then he dropped his rival again on the following stage on Alpe d’Huez. It was amazing.

  Then there was Thomas De Gendt up the Stelvio Pass at the Giro in 2012, beating off Michele Scarponi by nearly a minute and coming very close to stealing the entire race.

  And who can forget Steve Cummings’ stage victory on the 2015 Tour, when he bridged to Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot on the way up to the airfield at Mende, winning on Nelson Mandela Day for the South African team MTN–Qhubeka?

  These were great rides. There are many more. Some you’ll find elsewhere in this book. But if you’re looking for an historic ride in recent times, and possibly of all time, look no further than the Giro d’Italia on 25 May 2018 and Chris Froome’s extraordinary stage victory at Bardonecchia, where his 80km (50-mile) solo break clinched the Giro. It was awesome – in the correct use of the term. I remain, as do many, simply in awe of the achievement. It will never be forgotten.

  It had been a crazy race up to that point, bizarre and intriguing and full of the unexpected. To understand how Froome performed this seemingly superhuman feat, you have to understand the context and what had happened in the preceding months.

  The problem with great rides is that if you do them, there are question marks, and if you don’t . . . there are yet more questions. When Froome came into the Giro, half the press corps thought he shouldn’t be there because of the Salbutamol case hanging over him. Many others thought he was undercooked because he would surely have to hold something back for the Tour de France.

  He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Had he not won the Giro, everyone would have been saying, ‘Aha! So he’s now no longer got the stuff that won him four Grand Tours.’ Then he wins and people go, ‘Aha! He’s still clearly taking advantage; this must be questionable.’

  Froome had crashed some days earlier, while on a recce of the course for a time trial in Jerusalem. And he looked in poor form there too. At that point, my heart really went out to him. Turns out he was running himself into form, because a few days later he skipped up Monte Zoncolan like a gazelle and won the stage. The press reaction was, ‘That’s amazing – or is it?’ The stage victory seemed to attract dark clouds of suspicion.

  The next day he was dropped spectacularly and the speculation then was that he was finished, spent like a cheap firework. The focus moved on to Simon Yates, who had become the unexpected race leader. As Froome fell further behind, he seemed to be completely out of contention. His odds went down. One of my editors, Massi Adamo, asked me, ‘Do you think he can come back from this?’ Because he was way down, over three minutes behind in the general classification, I said, ‘It’s possible, but it’s unlikely.’ Massi put on €40 at 50-1 at that point. Then the day before the big stage – the now remarkable, historic stage – Massi doubled his money up. ‘I had a dream!’ he said. And of course sometimes, just sometimes, these come true.

  Form is never constant. Class is, but form will waver, especially when you go deep on your approach to form, which is what Froomie was doing. He was striking a balance to enable him to defend his Tour de France title later in the year. You can overdo it, knock yourself back, go too deep too soon, just like Fabio Aru did on the same race. With Chris, it’s about balancing the form – famine to enjoy the feast. Carefully does it.

  When Froome set off on that stage, he’d clearly got his legs back and his team were absolutely incredible – the way that they attacked was magnificent! I was lucky enough to be calling the race that day and you could see Team Sky strategising; putting the pressure on everybody before they put the hammer down with a blistering early pace. It looked like a suicide mission. ‘They’re making plans,’ I declared, but I admit there was an element of hope.

  When Froome went off with 80km (50 miles) to go, we were thinking, he’s gone shit or bust. ‘Surely this is madness,’ I said on air. He’d been on the radio and he apparently said, ‘Come on, guys, this is it. We can do this. Let’s go, go, go.’ That absolute undiluted belief is the sign of a great rider, to my mind.

  There were two climbs that he had to conquer, firstly the dirt track of the Finestre. It was an infernal tempo designed to hurt the likes of Tom Dumoulin. Simon Yates was dropped early and when it was down to a select few, Froome powered away. All this with the magnificent backdrop of a majestic snow-covered mountain on a gravel track that called to mind the great rides of Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali. If it wasn’t for the garish team kits and carbon bikes, you could imagine you’d been transported 60 or 70 years back in time.

  If Froome’s performance up the Finestre was magnificent, he was about to outdo that achievement by an extraordinary descent, where he gained most of the time he won over the Dutchman. It’s incredible to think that there were once question marks about Froome’s descending and bike-handling skills. That descent off the Finestre was an absolute masterclass – beyond the scale of even the very best I’d seen till then.

  Of course, it’s likely he was guided down by Nico Portal in the support car behind him, in the same way that a rally driver takes instructions from his co-driver. Properly researched and dialled into the mind, the instructions would’ve sounded like this: ‘Off camber, three left . . . warning, pinch point in 300m, 200m, 100m, pinch point . . . and accelerate.’ Even so, it took masterful bike craft to deliver such a descent – and he did.

  The Finestre and the downhill dealt with, Froome then had to climb up to Bardonecchia, which he attacked in his familiarly awkward, high cadence, crabby style. And getting to the finish line he powered through, conscious of every second he could gain over Dumoulin. Dumoulin himself said that there was nothing more he could have done on the day: he’d given it his all and was proud of his performance despite losing over three minutes to Froome.

  It was a stunning performance that also highlighted the military
precision and organisation of Team Sky. Not only did his teammates put in the initial damage on the lower slopes of the Finestre, the level of planning from the management was immense. They had realised that if he was to make a break at 80km (50 miles) out, there was clearly no way he would be able to sustain the level of effort required without proper sustenance: energy bars, gels, drinks and water had to be delivered to him along the way. So it was that the entire team were deployed at key parts of the course – everyone from the swannies to the press officer to manager Dave Brailsford were on the side of the road to pass him whatever nutrition he needed, all of which had been carefully calculated the night before by the team nutritionist.

  The stage win was remarkable, but the implications even more so. Victory here put him in the pink jersey, and, with only an individual time trial to come, had to all intents and purposes won him the Giro itself. He was now the holder of all three Grand Tour titles simultaneously, something that had not been achieved in the modern era.

  The reaction to what should be more widely regarded as an historic victory, especially now that Froome has been vindicated over the Salbutamol case, was, sadly, mixed. The New Zealand rider George Bennett poured scorn and suspicion on the performance by saying live on TV, ‘No way. He did a Landis. Jesus!’ (Floyd Landis famously put in an astounding performance at the 2006 Tour de France at Morzine to win the race, only to be found positive for traces of testosterone later.) Later, Bennett was quoted in the press: ‘He made a bigger comeback than Easter Sunday.’

  I overheard one French commentator, who has always referred to Froome as The Kenyan, say, ‘Hmmm. So the jersey passes from one asthmatic to another.’ (Froome had taken the jersey off Simon Yates, a rider whose team paperwork in 2016 meant his own permitted anti-asthma treatment was not properly registered. He served a four-month suspension.)