by Paul Kimmage
Table of Contents
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
PREFACE TO THE 2007 EDITION THE DEPARTED
INTRODUCTION- ON THE NINTH DAY . . .
Chapter 1- IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
Chapter 2- THE FIRST IRISH POPE
Chapter 3- PACKET SOUP AND FRUIT CAKE
Chapter 4- THE NEARLY MAN
Chapter 5- NATIONAL SUCKERS DAY
Chapter 6- GLORY DAYS
Chapter 7- BRAND-NEW ANORAK
Chapter 8- SHATTERED DREAMS
Chapter 9- GRENOBLE
Chapter 10- TOUR DE FRANCE
Chapter 11- THE ARMS RACE
Chapter 12- QUALIFIED PRO
Chapter 13- TOUR '87
Chapter 14- 22 JULY
Chapter 15- ONE OF THE BOYS
Chapter 16- THE FAB FOUR
Chapter 17- COFFEE AT ELEVEN
Picture Section
Chapter 18- RESCUED
Chapter 19- JOURNALIST
Chapter 20- GIRO D'lTALIA
Chapter 21- CARNON PLAGE
Chapter 22- THE LAST CRUSADE
Chapter 23- SPITTING IN THE SOUP
Chapter 24- ANDRE
EPILOGUE- THE SOUP TURNS TO BLOOD
POSTSCRIPT TO THE 1998 EDITION- IT'S ALL WRITTEN DOWN
DEATH OF AN EAGLE
TOUR 2006: PLUS ÇA CHANGE . . .
ROUGH RIDE
Since writing Rough Ride, Paul Kimmage has gone on to become one of the UK and Ireland's most respected sports journalists. Currently chief interviewer for the Sunday Times sports section, he is also the author of Andy Townsend's autobiography, and of the highly acclaimed Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino.
ROUGH RIDE
Behind the Wheel
with a Pro Cyclist
PAUL KIMMAGE
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
ISBN 9781409078340
Version 1.0
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Yellow Jersey Press 2007
4 6 8 10 9 7 5
Copyright © Paul Kimmage 1990, 1998, 2007
Paul Kimmage has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 1990 by
Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd.
An imprint of Random House UK
First published in 1998 by
Yellow Jersey Press
This edition published in 2007
by Yellow Jersey Press
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited
can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9781409078340
Version 1.0
In memory of John Walsh (1982-95)
'Teacher? You said that Joseph and Mary
and the baby Jesus were poor, but . . . what
did they do with the gold from the
three wise men?'
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Sean Kelly and Martin Earley for good times in the peloton and support when Rough Ride was first published. To the ever brilliant David Walsh for showing (and continuing to show) me the way. To editors past and present, Vincent Browne, Aengus Fanning, Adhnamhán O'Sullivan, Alex Butler, Marion Paull, Rachel Cugnoni, and Tristan Jones. Thanks to 'Les Amis Français': Gérard and Muriel Torres, Marc Mingat and Pascale Budzyn, the great Andre Chappuis and Jean-Michel Rouet. Agus do mo cháirde: Micheál and Bríd O'Braonáin, Mary Walsh, Alan English, Gary and Sorcha O'Toole, Tony Cascarino, John and Canice Leonard, Ray and Annette Leonard, Christy and Marion Leonard, the Nolan brothers, Aidan Harrison, Fanny Sunesson, Iain Forsyth, Tom Humphries (Mozart), Gwen Knapp, Billy Stickland, Evelyn Bracken, Dermot Gilleece, Alan Hunter, Richard Stanton, Craig Brazil. We've lost Pat and Monny Nolan since the last edition was published but they are forever in my thoughts. The Kimmage mafia thankfully are still going strong: Christy (the Don), Angela, Raphael, Deborah, Kevin, Aileen, Christopher, Eilish. And finally thanks to my darling Ann and our children Evelyn, Eoin and Luke . . . I swear I once caddied for Nick Faldo!
Photographic and text permissions
For permission to reproduce copyright photographs, the author and publishers would like to thank the following: AllSport/Vandystadt; Paul Daly; J. P. Filatriau/La Voix du Nord; Inpho; Irish Press; L'Equipe; James Meehan; Photosport International; Presse-Sports; Billy Stickland; Muriel Vibert.
'He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' by W. B. Yeats is reproduced by permission of A. P. Watt on behalf of Michael Yeats.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler Yeats
PREFACE TO THE 2007 EDITION
THE DEPARTED
For the last couple of months I've been at odds with Tristan Jones, my diligent editor at Yellow Jersey, over this new edition of Rough Ride. My idea of a suitable preface was a 10,000-word opus on Lance Armstrong: 'How Professional Cycling got the Champion it Deserved'. Tristan was adamant it needed to be shorter: 'Keep it tight and eloquent,' he advised, '150 words will be fine.' Confession: I couldn't write a note to the milkman in 150 words! And my prose has never been noted for its eloquence. We agreed to compromise with an email I received in September 2005:
Mr Kimmage,
I am an American professional cyclist who has just read Rough Ride and I want to write to thank you so much for the clear and concise work – I know it has done nothing to help your popularity in the world of cycling. The events as of late though seem to be increasingly vindicating a small but select group of cyclists who have been vocal about the magnitude of the drug problem in our beautiful sport for sometime.
It has taken me sometime (ten years plus) to realise how great the problem is and as I have decided to stop at the end of the year, I am able to reflect back on things I have seen and strange happenings in the sport with a greater degree of objectivity, and with youthful naivety and enthusiasm behind me I realise in retrospect the full magnitude of the problem. Are any of these observations scientifically unassailable? No, so of course an outsider could easily attack my beliefs about drugs on the grounds that they are merely rooted in jealousy and are lacking in any sort of evidence, but when one trains and competes with other athletes on a re
gular basis it becomes very clear what is taking place.
It is as if one has to walk up a great number of stairs to arrive at a shut door that is doping. The masses of fans and club racers who have never even walked up the steps will not believe the few who have not stepped through the threshold and of course other professionals who have will not agree. This leaves a very small minority who sit at the top step trying to either convert the masses or make others repent.
Good luck with everything. It seems that your book was far, far of its time. I would imagine that with each fallen hero you feel a bit vindicated. I leave cycling not bitter, per se, but with a feeling that the whole thing is a bit of a sad farce when contrasted with what I had thought sport represented when I started off.
Best,
James Hibbard
I've never met or spoken to James but I'm sure we'd get on fine. He reminds me of a racer I once knew who hung up his bike after the thirteenth stage of the Tour de France in 1989 . . .
INTRODUCTION
ON THE NINTH DAY . . .
A few weeks ago, after a visit to the publisher in London, I sat down with all sorts of exciting plans for the re-birth of Rough Ride. The new edition would be completely re-edited. Its opening chapter would be scripted straight from the Raymond Chandler school of thriller writing ('When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun') and begin, not in 1962 with a baby boy and a kindly staff nurse at the Rotunda hospital in Dublin, but twenty-two years later when the boy arrives in Paris in search of fame and fortune. I even had an opening line worked out: 'A man with huge shovel-like hands, greying hair and a tanned, weather-beaten face was waiting at the airport.' OK, so it would take a couple of chapters before the gun was produced, but you get the drift. There would be other changes. Rough Ride was a book with too much truth and too little romance and the balance would be redressed second time around. Every chapter would be crafted with the writing that wins literary awards. The sweat would be dried, the rough edges made smooth. Rough Ride II would be a profound and important book.
A few days later, I took out my laptop and was tinkering with the text when an old friend, Peter Purfield, faxed me a message he had received on the Internet that afternoon. It read as follows:
Subject: Where's Paul??!!!
Date: Sun. 7 Dec 1997 17:15:45 EST
Organisation: AOL (http://www.aol.com)
To: [email protected]
Mr Purfield,
I am searching for information on Paul Kimmage. Where is he and why is there no mention anywhere about this man? I once owned a copy of his (and I hope this is not taboo) book Rough Ride and have lost it. As I am a racing cyclist in the US and am currently going through a drug recovery programme, his book is constantly on my mind. At the time I read it, I didn't realise the impact it would have on me years later. I guess I have only one question, maybe two: Where is that damn book? And how do I get another copy? Most book dealers have no idea. Where is Paul and how can I find him? I would appreciate any response and help you could offer.
Shaken by the coincidence and warmed by the interest, it struck me that maybe the original had not been too bad and I shelved my plan until I had re-read it. I say re-read it, but when I sat down with the book last week, it was a first – I'd never actually read the whole tiling through before. Eight years have passed since it was first published, eight years when I have occasionally plucked it from the bookshelf to scan the photographs before closing it again very quickly. If I could have my time again, I'd make sure there were a lot more photographs. I love the one from the Tour de France in 1987, where I'm riding out of Orleans with my boyhood idol Stephen Roche, all tanned and looking cool in my shades. I like the one from the Tour of Britain in 1983 where I'm heading for Halifax and the race lead with Sean Yates looking bolloxed as he tries to follow my pace. And I could study that shot where my face is caked with grime at the World Championships in Villach every day for the rest of my life. I enjoy studying the photographs because essentially they are a façade. Don't believe any of that rubbish about pictures painting thousands of words. I could look at these pictures all day because the pain, the anguish isn't there.
My story begins with my father, Christy. Da was a champion cyclist and from the day I first saw him race I wanted to be a champion too. When I was ten he gave me a racing bike and planted in my heart a love for cycling that would blossom in my teenage years. Cycling dominated my youth; when my friends were discovering the joys of dancing and music and girls, I was getting my kicks from the thrill of racing a bike. There was nothing to match it, especially when you did it well, and the genes I inherited from my father made sure of that. At the age of nineteen I was the Irish National Champion. By the time I was twenty-three I was the sixth best amateur in the world. And at the age of twenty-four I became a professional cyclist. It was the happiest day of my life, the fulfilment of a childhood dream. Within six months the dream had started to fade.
It was during my first Tour de France in July 1986 that I faced the dilemma which would scar my professional life. Although I had witnessed abuse of drugs on a number of occasions after joining the professionals, I tried to block out the fact that you could break the rules in this sport and get away with it. For six months I convinced myself that I could still reach the summit without recourse to a syringe, but everything changed during that first Tour de France. For eight days the race was everything I had envisaged in childhood: I was the best-placed rider on the team and performing better than at any other stage in my life. But then, on the ninth day, I was knackered. My batteries went completely flat. With fourteen stages still to race, I had a decision to make. A big decision. The biggest decision of my life. Did I want them re-charged?
It was a cruel moment, and one that many sportsmen face in many other sports. A moment of truth. What was Christy thinking that day when he invited me out on the bike? He never told me it would come to this. Where was my safety net? I didn't want to do drugs! I didn't want to break the rules! But where was my safety net? Where were the investigative reporters who would expose this scandal? What controls were in place to ensure crime didn't pay? On the Tour's ninth day, sport betrayed me. I wasn't prepared to take drugs to further my career in the sport. Why? I don't know. It would be nice to state that it was a matter of principle, but that might be dishonest. Maybe I was scared. Maybe, when it came to the crunch, I just didn't have the balls to take the final step. Not blessed with any great natural talent, for me it was always going to be a case of sink or swim. On the Tour's ninth day, I shelved my ambition and began to drown.
The next four years of my life in the professional peloton were all about survival. There were some good times and some bad times and it was undoubtedly during one of the latter that I had the idea of writing a book. The book would be my story. There would be no kissing and telling, no ratting on pals. The Union Cycliste International (UCI), the sport's governing body, would be my target. I would expose their nurturing of the cancer and ignite the drive for change.
Rough Ride was published in May 1990, and although I had anticipated some controversy, I believed that once people read it in its entirety, they would agree that it was fair and inherently good. The first warning that a fatwah was in the post, that I was about to become the Salman Rushdie of the cycling world, came a week before the book was published when Peter Crinnion, who had once raced with my Da, phoned me. Crinnion, who was managing Stephen Roche at the time, told me he was concerned about some of the rumours he had been hearing and wanted me to assure him they weren't true. Well, to say that I was mildly peeved that he had already made up his mind was an understatement. I told him to expect the worst. But it was my appearance on The Late Late Show a few days later that really stoked the flames.
The Late Lute Show, or Late Late as it is known, is Ireland's most popular TV chat show. Its presenter Gay Byrne, is Ireland's most respected and professional broadcaster. Byrne is an institution in Ireland and has been presenting the Late Late for so long (thirty-six y
ears and counting) that you now read him like a book. When he likes his guests, he will almost cuddle them. When he doesn't . . . well, let's just say they know. Delighted with the opportunity to talk about the book, I was pretty sure I was in for a fair, if not an easy ride. Byrne was a big fan of the sport and had always treated me well during my career. But there was something about his body language that put me on my guard and we were a couple of minutes into the interview when Byrne started to get tough. 'The implications from what you've written,' he suggested, 'are that everyone is doing it . . .' I didn't need to be a mind-reader to guess what was coming next. Byrne had built his reputation by asking 'the obvious question' and I had anticipated before going on that he would put it to me. I had also given serious consideration to my answer.
