Rough Ride

by Paul Kimmage

  The stage to Hull was flat and proved uneventful. We had a shaky start and let a dangerous break go clear, but regained control half-way through and I rode into Hull with the jersey still in my possession. The rest day was great, it was an extra day to savour the glory. Being race leader was fun but it wasn't enough any more. I wanted to win. I couldn't sleep for thinking about it – the pressure was enormous. There were just three more stages to go; if I held out on two of those the race was mine. The first hilly stage across the Yorkshire Moors to Middlesbrough was the real test. On the first climb, all my team-mates were dropped and I was left alone to defend the yellow shirt. On the savagely steep Farndale Moor, I suffered terribly but broke clear with a sixteen-man group. Rottler, Eaton and Yates were left behind. I was so happy that I didn't bother to go for the stage win and was content to roll in at the back of the group. I had defended the lead on my own. I was convinced I was going to win.

  There was just the difficult seventy-mile stage to Harrogate to master. It started with a steep first-category climb, the Stang, but I was flying and crossed the summit in seventh place. The bunch had split in two, and all my team-mates were behind so I was vulnerable. The Americans noticed and started attacking. One by one I brought them back, enjoying the defiance. When they saw they couldn't get rid of me they slowed the pace and my team-mates got back on.

  I met my Waterloo after thirteen miles. A mile from the bottom of the second climb, the Fleak, I had a puncture. Eaton noticed my deflating front tyre and ordered his men to attack. My two team-mates Eddie Madden and Mick McKenna waited with me and we changed wheels. I didn't panic because I felt sure we would get back on. But the Americans split the field to shreds on the climb, and neither Madden nor McKenna could stay with me. I picked my way through the stragglers and chased alone down the descent. But I started to take chances, ran off the road at a T-junction and fell off. A puncture and a crash – the bad luck was too much. I got back on the bike, but lost heart; chasing alone was now a pointless exercise. I waited for a group and finished the stage thirteen minutes down. I slid from first to thirty-third overall. The next morning Matt Eaton pulled on my yellow jersey and we strolled to the race finish in Blackpool. At the race banquet I was presented with a watch as the most unfortunate rider of the race. I gave it to my father, remembering his words: 'In cycling there is more heartbreak than happiness.'

  Knowing what I now know, I should not have lost the race. I should have paid money to a team-mate to defend the lead. In the modern era riders do not lose stage races because of punctures and crashes. But I returned to Ireland a hero. Only one other Irishman, Peter Doyle, had ever worn the yellow jersey in the Milk Race. I had equalled God. Not bad.

  The Milk Race had made me the top rider in the country, and I confirmed my new status with two good wins on my return home. Two weeks later I rode the Manx International. On the last lap I broke clear on Snaefell mountain with six others. We dashed down the mountain, turned Governor's Bridge and entered the finishing straight. Joey McLaughlin opened the sprint and I came round him, heading for the line like a bullet. I got that feeling, that wonderful, 'I'm going to win the Manx International' feeling. The line was there just in front of me, but then the Swiss Hans Reiss passed me ten feet from the line, edging me out by a hair's breadth. Second. So near and yet so far. Again. The press started calling me 'the nearly man'.

  The Tour de L'Avenir was the second memory of 1983. The L'Avenir, starting in Lorient and finishing in Marseille, was a fourteen-day mini Tour de France for pros and amateurs – and my first chance to race against Continental pros. It was very different from my previous races. They rode much closer together; I can remember leaving Lorient on the first stage with brake levers in both buttocks and feeling very uncomfortable. The style of racing was also completely new. With amateurs it was arse-up, head down, and go from the gun. But in the L'Avenir there was no set pattern to the racing, except at the finish, when it was always eyeballs out. From the opening stages survival was the goal.

  Before riding the L'Avenir I thought I knew what mountains were. I didn't. The first mountain stage came after ten days. It was a split, with a morning stage from Bourg-de-Péage to La Chapelle-en-Vercors and in the afternoon a return to Bourg over the same climbs. I had been waiting all week for this day, the day of glory, but I was wiped out. It was so hot and the climbs were so long that I couldn't handle it. On the morning stage I was dropped with John Herety and Paul Sherwen, two British pros riding with French teams La Redoute and Coop-Mercier. Both were noted non-climbers and at the time I felt humiliated to be in their company. I had fancied myself as a Lucien Van Impe. I was deeply discouraged, and for the first time being a professional did not seem such a great thing after all. I reached La Chapelle at least half an hour down. My teammate John McQuaid finished with me, but Raphael and Gary Thompson, the only other Irish survivors, were further back again. We changed quickly and ate a pretty miserable lunch in a run-down shack of a hotel. Bernard Thevenet, a double Tour de France winner, was at another table. Word had it that he was a native of La Chapelle.

  We rested between stages in a cold, stone cottage on damp mattresses. The morale in the team was zero. We just looked at each other with the same thought in all our heads: 'What the hell are we doing here?' I decided that this pro life wasn't for me. I hated it. The afternoon stage was a nightmare. Some Portuguese bastard attacked at the bottom of the first climb and the green jerseys were immediately dropped. Raphael was in a dreadful state and was coughing up blood. Gary Thompson was physically and mentally knackered. They both quickly abandoned. I rode on in a group of five which included a Japanese rider, Takahashi. For a Japanese to get this far in the Tour de L'Avenir was an outstanding achievement. His team manager was leaning out of the car window with a loudhailer in his hand, and screamed encouragement in Japanese every time the road went up, which was regularly. This started getting to me after a while. I was irritated by my poor form and annoyed that I would have to endure the race for another six days. And now, on top of all this, there was this bloody manager making all this noise for a guy who was half an hour down. Had they no shame? The rage became uncontrollable and I turned to the Japanese team manager and shouted at the top of my voice, 'Shut fuckin' up.'

  I will never forget the look on his face. He was terrified, horrified; he sat back in his car and did not say another word for the rest of the day. I felt guilty about it the next day, so I went up to him and apologised.

  Raphael and Thompson both left for home and I envied them. There were only myself and John 'Kippers' McQuaid left. 'Kippers' would have got great pleasure in returning home the only Irish finisher and I would have heard about it for the rest of my life. I suppose it was this more than anything that made me go on, but I hated it. I dreaded getting up every morning to face another day's racing. And the pros irritated me: always good humoured, always laughing and joking. I had started the race as a morning grouch but by the end I was an all-day grouch. Cyril Guimard, the famous professional directeur sportif, also upset me. I was on the massage couch getting a rub and the hotel door was open. Guimard walked in, much to my surprise and delight. I looked at him in wonder. The great Cyril Guimard in my room. He approached the massage table, lifted the towel that covered my privates and said 'Baf!', waving his hand in a dismissive way and then walked out. The bastard; I hated him for it.

  'Kippers' was eliminated with two stages to go, leaving me the sole Irish survivor. Five of those who had abandoned had flown home but there were no more air tickets and so we had to take the boat. I didn't really care, I just wanted to get away from there. It had been a bad end to a great season. I was saturated with cycling and needed a good rest.

  I finished my four-year apprenticeship at Dublin Airport shortly afterwards. It was the policy of the company, Aer Rianta, to train apprentices and then sack them once the apprenticeship was over. I was out of a job. Where next? My plan had always been to complete my apprenticeship and then go to France to try for a pro contr
act, but the Tour de L'Avenir had opened my eyes. For four years Raphael and I had told our friends, family and, most importantly, the cycling journalists that we would be going to France in 1984. Could we turn back now? Then there were the Olympics to consider. Los Angeles was fast approaching and, although I was fairly sure of a place, there was no guarantee. France could clinch my selection and offer me the best preparation. So I suppose it was three things, no job, Los Angeles and the fear of being called 'chicken', which led us to the ACBB club in Paris in February 1984. We were following in the footsteps of the greats, Elliot, Roche, Millar and Anderson. We were also following in the not-so-glorious footsteps of our father, who had set out on the same quest twenty-five years earlier.

  5

  NATIONAL SUCKERS DAY

  A big man met us at the airport. He had huge, shovel-like hands, greying hair and tanned skin. We thought he might be Mickey Wiegant, the legendary ACBB manager, or maybe Claude Escalon, the directeur sportif, but we weren't sure and hadn't the courage to ask. We sat in the back of his car like two terrified children as he drove us to Boulogne Billancourt, a suburb west of Paris.

  On our arrival at the ACBB sports centre, a not quite middle-aged man in a leather jacket approached us. There was something almost sinister about his smile. I took an immediate dislike to him because of it. He introduced himself as Claude Escalon. He gave us two new Peugeot bikes, just like the pros had, and some tracksuits, jerseys and shorts. It was great to be given so much free gear but I wasn't happy with the saddle on the bike. Plucking up some courage I tried to explain to him in pidgin English that I wanted to fit my own. He laughed. We had to use the team issue saddles. Bernard Hinault used the same saddle.

  'If they are good enough for Bernard, they are good enough for you.' There was no arguing with that so I agreed to use his saddle.

  At four the next morning, we left in a VW van for the south of France. We were not the only foreigners at the club. There were also a New Zealander (Gerry Golder), two Englishmen (Kenny Knight and Christian Yates, a brother of Sean's), a Canadian and 'les frères Kimmage'. After twelve hours' driving we arrived at our base for the opening races, the Hotel la Quietude at Les Issambres on the Cote d'Azur. Mickey Wiegant was at the hotel when we arrived. He was an odd-looking man, impossible to put an age to, just one of those blokes who never seem to get any older. He wore a brown leather jacket and drove a huge Rover. He spoke at 400 miles an hour and we couldn't understand a word he said. He insisted we call him 'Monsieur Wiegant'. We ate when he gave us the order to eat. We spoke when he gave us permission to speak. He made us feel very small.

  The team's French riders drove down in their own cars. There was also a Belgian. I remember him because of all the shit he used to take before meals: pills, ampoules – he was a right bloody pharmacist. When he'd catch us staring during his pill-popping, he'd say 'vitamins'. The French formed a clan and weren't too friendly towards us. We, the English speakers, formed our own clan. A Norwegian, Dag Otto Lauritzen, arrived a few days later, but he stayed at Wiegant's house and was clearly the old man's favourite. Training started immediately. We set off in a large group and followed the team car, which was driven by Escalon but directed by Wiegant.

  They played little games with us. At the top of a hill Wiegant would hold a racing tyre out of the window – the prize for the first rider to the top. On the first training spin, I won two tyres. I found the first races more difficult.

  Monsieur Wiegant instructed us that in his team the individual rider's personal honour did not matter. It was the victory of the team that counted. To emphasise this he would buy a huge cream cake and divide it among us equally any time an ACBB rider won. Lauritzen was the star and he won several of the opening races. A fourth place in a race at St Tropez was my best placing of the month-long stay. Raphael was riding better and was narrowly beaten in a race at St Maxime, but there was no cream cake. With Monsieur Wiegant cream cakes were for winning; second was nowhere.

  During the month some of the professional riders would come to the hotel to pay homage to their former mentor and guru, Monsieur Wiegant. Bernard Thevenet, Robert Millar, Raphael Geminiani and Stephen Roche all visited and lunched with the old man. Stephen introduced me to his directeur sportif, Bernard Thevenet. He had a lovely, warm smile that lit up his face. I liked him.

  At the end of February we drove back to Paris to begin the serious races, the amateur classics. Most of the foreigners stayed together in a flat near the team's headquarters but Raphael and I were taken to a small flat on the opposite side of Paris at Vincennes. As we entered the flat, Abel, the giant masseur who had collected us at the airport, led us down to this underground dungeon with a mud floor. I can remember thinking, 'Jesus Christ, how are we going to survive here?', but he was just showing us the shed for the bikes. The flat was five floors up a narrow wooden staircase.

  We had no problems in settling in. I did the cooking and Raphael the cleaning. The flat had an old black and white television and a telephone for incoming calls only. The toilet was the hole-in-the-ground type. It doubled as a shower by placing a wooden grille over the hole. This was a great inconvenience at first. To compensate, Raphael took the middle out of one of the wooden kitchen chairs and tried sitting on the wooden frame. It didn't work, and in the end we had to squat. We became such good shots that we could shoot between the gaps in the shower grille after a while. The flat was fine. We liked being independent of the other foreigners and enjoyed the privacy. But it was awkward having to ride across Paris the day before a race to change a tyre or get information about what was going on. Wiegant remained at his house at Les Issambres, coming to Paris for the big races.

  Paris–Ezy was the first classic of the season. It started in the darkness of a small foggy village at eight in the morning. I never understood why the classics always started at such a ridiculous hour. An eight o'clock start meant getting up at four. Nutrition was the biggest problem – we had to eat three hours before the race. At four in the morning I would fry minced steak and boil rice. We had no appetite and had to force-feed ourselves. As soon as breakfast-cum-dinner was over we would leave the flat, pick up the bikes from the basement and wait in the marble hallway to be collected. In our racing tights we must have looked a proper sight to the other flat residents coming home from discotheques and nightclubs. Their expressions said it all. Getting up at that hour for a bike race was totally insane, and I never got used to it.

  As we waited to start the race, I was approached by a Frenchman who spoke perfect Oxford English. It wasn't our first meeting, as we had talked at a time trial a few years earlier when he had visited Ireland as a guest of the Roche family. I had asked him then about the professional life and he laughed at me, 'You don't want to be a professional, it's a horrible life.' I was shocked that a Frenchman could be so dismissive of what I felt was the greatest profession in the world and thought the guy was a nutcase. Today I admire him for his vision. We are still great friends with Jean Beaufils and his wife Ginette and have not forgotten their kindness to us in a miserable year with ACBB.

  Paris–d'etatEzy was run in freezing cold wind and rain. On the finishing circuit, Raphael got into the winning move, but the uphill sprint was too hard for him and he finished fifth. We were absolutely thrilled. Fifth in the first classic of the year, what a great start. But Escalon thought otherwise. There were two other ACBB riders in the break with Raphael and neither had won. One of them, the French rider Thierry Pelosso, had gone to Escalon after the race and said he had lost because of Raphael's 'selfish tactics'. We couldn't understand a word of Escalon's raving and asked Jean Beaufils to interpret. Raphael defended himself but Escalon would have none of it, and made him the scapegoat for the defeat. Raphael's joy soon turned to tears. He was never the same again.

  March and April were grim. Living in Paris was awkward for training. We had to ride for forty-five minutes in heavy traffic to find some decent country roads. So if we wanted to do a three-hour ride, we had to spend an hour
and a half choking on exhaust fumes. We rode just one race a week with the club, which wasn't nearly enough to develop any kind of good form. Training was no substitute for racing and we didn't ride well. It was easy to get depressed. Some days we didn't bother to train at all; these days we labelled National Suckers Days. It usually rained in the mornings on National Suckers Days. After breakfast we'd sit looking at each other and contemplate going out into the Paris traffic on our bikes: 'No, we'll wait till it clears up.' To pass the time we'd take the Metro and sit drinking coffee on the Champs Elysées and try to figure out exactly where the Tour finished. Afterwards we'd visit the Eiffel Tower and then eat out for lunch. The afternoon was spent walking around the record shops or at an English-version movie on the Champs. The day would finish with dinner at the flat, accompanied by a bottle of cheap vin de table and we'd sit back and laugh about how we had been ripped off in tourist-trap Paris. But inside, we were not laughing; inside, we were screaming. ACBB was not working for us.