Rough Ride

by Paul Kimmage

  In April I left Paris for a week. I was picked for the national team for the Sealink International, starting at Skelmersdale near Liverpool. I felt sorry to be leaving Raphael behind. His good humour was a real tonic on the bad days at the flat. He deserved a place on the team more than I did, but Irish selectors were always reluctant to pick the two of us and so I got the nod. It was great to get out of France. My parents came across from Ireland and followed the race for the week. I struggled for the first few days – too many National Suckers Days had left me short of condition. But I started to ride well towards the end, and I returned to Paris with much better morale and form.

  The classic Paris-Rouen was my first race with the club after my week's 'holiday'. The alarm went off at four in the morning and we climbed out of bed wearily. Steak and rice were consumed with the usual enthusiasm and then we gathered our kit and went down to the ground floor. It was a damp, miserable morning so we waited inside the apartment front door, sitting on the cold marble floor. Fifteen minutes, half an hour, an hour. Still no sign of them. We put the bikes back in the shed, walked back upstairs and went to bed. We were sick. Sick of these heartless bastards treating us like scum. Surely we deserved at least a phone call? Furious, I phoned Escalon and demanded why no one had picked us up. He gave me a half-baked excuse about trying to contact us, and to calm me asked if we wanted to ride a race on Tuesday in a place called Ostricourt in northern France.

  Ostricourt was a battle between the two strongest teams in the race, ACBB and Wasquehal, a powerful outfit being formed in the north. But the French amateur champion was also riding, and I remember being most impressed with Jean-François Bernard before team tactics got the better of him and he retired. It was a circuit race with a short climb and a kilometre stretch of cobbles on each lap. On the last lap I attacked alone on the climb and time-trialled to the finish for a solo victory. I had almost forgotten how good it felt to win a race. Ostricourt gave me immense satisfaction. Escalon shook my hand with that big smile of his but I remained cool towards him. Sunday was fresh in my mind.

  In May, shortly after Ostricourt, I was told of my selection for the Olympic Games at Los Angeles. Raphael, disillusioned and short of form, decided he had had enough. Most of the foreigners who had started the year with us were gone. But there was no shortage of replacements. Australians, Brits, Americans, all were 'warmly' welcomed, tried and then unceremoniously dumped. It was like a factory production line, and it struck me that in discovering a handful of stars the club had destroyed the dreams of hundreds of amateurs whose memories of the club would be bitter and resentful as Raphael was when he returned home. He had a talent, a great talent but never got a break or the encouragement that might have made him a star. The ACBB had destroyed him. How many other great talents had been destroyed in the same way?

  Encouraged by my return to form, I decided to stick it out. On the weekend that Raphael returned to Ireland I rode a three-day stage race in the north of France. It was my first stage race with the club. This was because of a French Federation rule that limited each club to one foreign rider per team. The ACBB had up to ten foreigners to choose from and I was never considered good enough, but Ostricourt changed that. Fifth on the first stage, third on the second, I became the race leader with just a seven-kilometre time trial and an afternoon stage to go. Escalon pulled out all the strokes for the time trial. I was given a special carbon-fibre bike and a one-piece racing suit for the short time trial. I was very nervous starting the test. Roche, Millar, Anderson – all had 'honoured' the ACBB in races like this one. This was my chance to join them. I blew it and lost the jersey by four seconds. Four lousy seconds. Escalon was not angry but I knew he was thinking, 'This Irish boy hasn't got it.'

  I rode some evening races in Paris shortly after. It was while returning home from one of these that I heard the news. My friend David Walsh, who was working as a freelance journalist in the city for a year, told me that Martin Earley would shortly be signing as a professional with the new Spanish team Fagor for 1985. I was stunned: Earley, my arch rival. The bastard had made it as a professional. I felt more jealous than at any other time in my life.

  Martin had also been picked for the Olympic Games. In July we rode a preparation race in Colorado, the Coors Classic, and then flew on to Los Angeles for the Games. I now found I no longer thought of Martin as a rival; he was assured of a pro contract, had escaped up the ladder. We became more friendly towards each other. A few days before the Olympic road race I remember training with him in the Hollywood hills. I told him that if I was given the opportunity I would turn professional for nothing. He said I was mad, but I argued that the ACBB had cost me all my savings and in a pro team I wouldn't have to put up with guys like Escalon. Looking back, I can see just how naïve about the professional game I was. Years later, when I was haggling with my directeur sportif Bernard Thevenet over my contract fee, I would often remember that conversation and smile. And there were directeurs sportifs far more ruthless than Escalon.

  The Olympics were wonderful. I had always been sceptical about them, but I must admit they were one of the highlights of my career. On the big day, I was desperately unlucky – again. I had just bridged a gap to the leading group of twenty riders when a rear wheel-spoke snapped and fell out into the gear mechanism and I skidded to a halt. I didn't see the twenty-man group again. If only . . . if only . . . 'if, that word again, 'the nearly man' once more. I was riding much better than Martin that day and he finished nineteenth, the highest-ever placing by an Irish cyclist at an Olympics. I was twenty-seventh.

  I returned to Ireland straight after the Games for the Irish championship in Kelly's home town of Carrick on Suir. My performance at LA had not gone unnoticed in the Irish press, and they made me favourite before the race. I was obsessed with proving that bad luck had robbed me from being top Irishman at the Olympics. I had to win. I attacked from the start and followed every move. With one lap to go, I got clear with Eddie Madden of the Irish Road Club. Eddie was riding strongly and my efforts were starting to tell, making me a bit wary of an attack from him. But incredibly he said to me, 'Don't attack, we'll sprint it out at the finish.' I was surprised, Eddie was a hopeless sprinter – he couldn't have been feeling too good after all. Da drove behind the race carrying spare wheels, with my mother and Ann for company. With two miles to go he drove up alongside and reminded me of the rule forbidding the lifting of both hands from the handlebars in a victory salute. I thought, 'He's sure I will win. But what if I mess it up?' I became suddenly nervous. In the finishing sprint we both kicked at the same time and for a second I doubted but then I drew clear and won easily. Champion again.

  I returned to Paris for the end-of-season classics and rode a stage race, the Tour of Seine-et-Marne. I was riding quite well, but in the time trial on the second day, Martin beat me by over two minutes and took the race lead. I made a big effort to win the last stage and thought I had it, but I was swallowed up within spitting distance of the line and finished sixth in a downpour. I remember lifting my head and seeing Martin raise his arms as the race winner; I felt ill. I rode the remaining classics with little motivation or conviction and left Paris with a vague promise from Escalon that I could return the following season. I agreed, but in reality I wasn't sure that I wanted to.

  On returning home, the gravity of my situation hit me. Should I go back for another year? Earley had made it, but had taken two years. Why not try once more? Work was impossible to find in Dublin. Raphael was also out of a job and we both signed on for the dole for a few weeks. Then a friend of ours, Michael Collins, found us two places at the government training centre, ANCO in Finglas. Michael, who was cycling mad, seemed very keen that we try again. There was no way Raphael was going back to ACBB, but I couldn't make up my mind – at least they assured you a pro contract if you performed. A phone call from Sean Kelly made up my mind.

  He was home for the winter and, besides keeping himself fit, spent his time entertaining the numerous journalists
and businessmen who flocked to his door from the Continent in search of a story or a product endorsement. One of them was a man called Guy Mollet, who did PR for a French company, Reydel. Kelly had used Reydel saddles for two seasons and Mollet was over to negotiate a new deal. Mollet was also the president of CC Wasquehal and he wanted the Irish champion for his team for 1985. He had organised the Ostricourt race which I had won in May. At first I hesitated and told Kelly I would be going back to the ACBB. Kelly said he was coming to Dublin in the afternoon to leave Mollet at the airport, and arranged for us to meet and talk.

  Chubby, curly-haired, with nine and a half fingers, Guy Mollet was a shark. He said he was great friends with Kelly's directeur sportif Jean de Gribaldy, and assured me a pro contract with him if I produced the goods. He also promised free lodgings, £150 a month to live on and attractive cash bonuses for winning. I did not have to reflect too long. ACBB had cost me £1,000 and I had never received a centime from them in prize money. Mollet was a rogue but he was a likeable rogue. We shook hands and the deal was done.

  6

  GLORY DAYS

  January 1985 was like January 1984, a difficult month. I noticed the change in Ann a week before leaving. She became moody and less gay, and I would often catch her with a tear in her eye, which she would quickly brush away and refuse to talk about. I knew what was upsetting her: soon I would return to France and the long winter we had passed together would be just a memory to sustain her till God knew when. I felt the pain, too, but tried not to show it. Men are not supposed to cry. Our relationship was three years old and we were totally committed to each other, but my obsession with cycling made it impossible for us to plan anything.

  Wasquehal would be my last chance. I decided to stay with the club for as long as my savings would support me. Raphael and I left for France at the end of January with about £500 between us, half of what we had taken to ACBB. This time it was make it or bust. A weird twist of fate turned us once more into the hands of Monsieur Wiegant. He had been overthrown at ACBB by a coup d'état. Escalon was now in full control of the team. Mollet phoned Wiegant and asked him to look after the Wasquehal riders for the month's pre-season training on the Cote d'Azur, and so, for the second year on the trot, we found ourselves at the Hotel La Quietude under the spell of the old sorcerer. He was a bit of a swine, but I respected him and felt almost sorry for him as he pined over his downfall. My form on the Cote was dismal and I didn't get one decent placing. Mollet was getting a little impatient with us, but I promised him I would get better once I was back in the north.

  We rode our first northern classic, Amiens-Beaurains, a week after returning from the training camp. With twenty kilometres to go I broke away with three others, and in the finishing sprint was narrowly beaten to the line by my Wasquehal team-mate Jean-François Laffile. Mollet was delighted and kissed and hugged me in gratitude. I was pleased, he was pleased, I liked him.

  The competition up north was not quite as tough as in Paris and we raced regularly, which was the big advantage. I won my first big race, the Tour of Cambresis, by out-sprinting a seven-man group in a fierce downpour. Mollet paid us regularly, and as the club won most of the races we always had a share of the prize money, so we made enough to live on. Raphael, too, was riding better. In May he won his first French race in the coastal town of Boulogne – I was second, and the bitter memories of Paris were effaced for us both.

  I had good form in May and was probably the club's best rider for the month. Half-way through the month I was third in a Paris-Roubaix-style classic over the worst cobblestones of northern France. The morning after the race I got a phone call from Mollet.

  'Bonjour Paul, c'est Guy. You are riding Bordeaux-Paris this weekend.'

  (Bordeaux-Paris is 575 kilometres long, and the longest professional race in the world. Because of its savage distance, only a dozen or so professionals started the race. They lined up in Bordeaux before midnight, cycled 250 kilometres to Poitiers, were given twenty minutes for a change of clothes, and then rode the rest of the way with each rider individually paced behind a motorbike.)

  'What? You must be joking.'

  'No, no, it's no joke. The race organisers contacted Monsieur de Gribaldy and they want one amateur in the race, so I suggested you.'

  I was taken aback and unsure how to respond. The race was just five days away. The pros riding would have more than a month's preparation in their legs. I had five days and would be on a hiding to nothing. Mollet and de Gribaldy could hardly criticise me if I refused to ride, but perhaps they would perceive this as a sign of weakness. And this would be a factor against me when I asked them later about a contract. I needed something to throw me into the national limelight; perhaps this was my chance. I agreed.

  I trained twice behind a motorbike that week or rather, I had two four-hour sessions behind Guy Mollet's daughter's scooter. On Friday I flew to Bordeaux, with a change of aircraft at Lyon. There I recognised de Gribaldy and two of his riders, Dominique Garde and Eric Guyot, going through the departures hall. I was shy and preferred not to introduce myself. I let them board the aircraft before me. Monsieur de Gribaldy sat in a front row, but Garde and Guyot sat at the back. There was a place vacant beside them so I sat there. It was fun to study them close up. The next day we would be racing back to Paris together, but they hadn't a clue who I was. They read motor-car magazines and half-way through the flight Garde opened a packet of chocolate biscuits which they shared. As they munched, they peered over the top of the seats at de Gribaldy's head and giggled like school kids. I found it all very bewildering, but later, at the dinner table, when I had introduced myself and been accepted into the group, I understood. De Gribaldy surveyed everything we ate. Portions of everything were small, and we were given miserable sweets. Monsieur de Gribaldy frowned at my waistline and said I would ride much better if I lost a couple of kilos. This was news to me. I had always worked on the principle that it was OK to stuff your face as long as you trained hard. But de Gribaldy's method was to train hard and starve. He had extraordinary presence and I didn't dare argue with him.

  We went out for a light spin on Saturday morning. After lunch we were ordered to bed from two in the afternoon until eight in the evening. Lunch had been extremely light, but I had brought a bit of my mother's fruit cake. I made sure the door was locked before I cut it. I shared my room with a pro, Guy Galopin, who couldn't believe I had been told just five days earlier I was riding. He took a great liking to my mother's fruit cake.

  We left Bordeaux at midnight, riding as a group through the blackness until we came to a small village just before Poitiers. Here, we changed into fresh gear, ate a little (a bit of chicken), used the toilet and then jumped back on the bikes. During the stop-over Guy took out some pills and offered me one. I looked at him suspiciously. He said they were for 'le froid'. My French had improved and I knew that 'froid' meant 'cold'. But it was really warm outside. Why the hell was he giving me tablets for cold when it was thirty degrees? I took the pill and pretended to swallow it as I did not want to offend him, but secretly I threw it in the bin.

  Looking back, I realise that Guy was trying to help me. He had not in fact offered me anything for 'le froid', but rather something for 'le foie' (the liver). When you ride a bike race that lasts more than seventeen hours, the digestive system gets completely screwed up from eating sweet things. Guy had offered me a tablet to help digestion, but naively I had thought he was trying to give me a charge. In my suspicious mind all pills were drugs and I would never take drugs.

  I was left behind with about 200 kilometres to go to Paris. Mollet followed in the team car, and each time he was sure that the race commissar was out of sight he instructed my pacer to push me. I freaked out when the pacer put his hand on my back. I told Mollet I was either getting to Paris under my own steam or getting off- a question of honour. I was a sorry sight at the finish and had to be lifted from my bike. Three pros had abandoned and I had beaten one, finishing ninth out of thirteen starters.
I had proved my point. This was a test of courage and I passed. But the price was high. That night I hadn't the strength to walk up the stairs to my bedroom – I crawled on my hands and knees. The mental strain of the week was over and I felt I had made a giant step towards my contract.

  In July a stage of the Tour de France finished near Wasquehal. I went to the stage start the next day with the intention of talking to Kelly and Roche but instead ended up spending all my time with Martin Earley. He was riding in his first Tour and looked splendid in his Fagor jersey. He looked the real pro, quite unlike the scrawny amateur I had grown up with. I envied him as he rode off on the stage to Rheims. It was the first time in my life that I actually admired him for something.