The Racer

by David Millar

  Another classic Vuelta stage: 207 kilometres on the same road, travelling in one direction, with ten kilometres neutralised before we even get to the official start. Like the other day, nobody is really in the mood to race, the outcome seems inevitable, being flat and so simple it’s a given it will be a bunch sprint. Once again, that’s when bad things can happen, especially on the Spanish plains.

  We had a suspicion there’d be crosswinds in the finale, but it was hard to believe as we’d be travelling in the same direction all day on the same road – it seemed a little far-fetched that things could change so much all of a sudden at a certain point. Even though that’s the case I’m not going to take any risks. With forty kilometres to go I tell Dan to stay glued to my wheel, and sure enough everybody has the same information and the race starts to speed up as every team tries to position themselves at the front.

  I’ve studied the map this morning and have a good idea of where it will happen. We’ve had a tailwind all day, and the wind is forecast to shift slightly from westerly to southerly in the final, with the road also turning slightly more to the east – all this has made the possibility of crosswinds real. Most teams are drag-racing each other at the front. Dan and I stay out of the way slightly behind them. I reckon we are best to punch through at the last minute when I start to feel us going into the gutter.

  Dan and I trust each other implicitly. I know he won’t lose my wheel. Like Tyler Farrar he knows me well enough to predict what I’m going to do. He has a similar style to me when it comes to riding in the bunch – we’re both relaxed, able to float among the wheels. He keeps a cool head just like me. We lose the rest of our team doing just that, so when it starts to happen there are just the two of us left against all the other teams that are still drag-racing up front.

  I take him up the moment I start to feel the race breaking up, holding him in position next to Saxo for as long as I can before I blow up, by which point all the damage is done behind. I leave him near Contador as I explode. Job done. I ride in relieved we didn’t fuck it up this time.

  * * *

  Aug 30

  Im really gonna miss @millarmind next year

  * * *

  Day 9

  First proper summit finish today, which also means a big old breakaway day. The whole team ride brilliantly, covering everything at the beginning. Ryder is our man for the break and makes it in there again, along with Summie; the rest of us look after Dan. He is on a stormer, attacking the Contador group, proving he has the legs for the mountains and is a genuine general classification racer. It rains towards the end, which is pure bliss compared to the heat we’ve endured so far.

  The highlight of the day is the 250-kilometre bus transfer to Zaragoza. Ryder and I decide to up the game and get some real beers instead of our faithful Radlers. We are drunk by the time we get off the bus. Long pre-rest day bus transfers are my favourite thing about Grand Tours. The bus turns into a mobile disco, only we’re too tired to dance.

  Rest Day

  I think Ryder and I drank too much last night, although it doesn’t matter because it’s a rest day. It’s a pure joy not having to go anywhere. Although we’ve become so institutionalised by now that we’re almost lost as to what to do. The only thing we have to do each day is race. Everything else is done for us, so being left to our own devices for a day is like throwing a spanner in the works. Every day has a schedule that is decided for us, and we rely on this competely. It used to be a sheet of paper we’d receive at the dinner table in the evening that listed the timings for the following day; now it’s all done by email, and we’re forever checking our phones to confirm departure times, none of us ever know for sure, so we’re always asking each other, ‘What time are suitcases?’ ‘When are we leaving?’ ‘What time are we eating?’ ‘How far is the hotel from the finish?’ ‘Is it far to the start?’ It never stops, all day, every day.

  The bus is our constant; it ferrys us everywhere. It picks us up at the airport then takes us to our hotel, then to the race, then to the hotel, then to the race … Our hotel rooms are allocated before we arrive. We don’t even go via reception: our room keys are handed to us as we step off the bus on arrival at the hotel and we wander in like zombies, straight to wherever our rooms may be.

  Our suitcase is already there. A lot of the time we won’t even open it immediately, preferring to collapse on the bed, awaiting the knock on the door that will beckon us to massage. We’ll have a forty-five-minute massage then, on the way back to our room, look on the room list that’s stuck to a door for where the ‘food room’ is, pay a visit there, have a bowl of cereal, or a yoghurt, some biscuits or maybe some fruit, then wander back to our room. By which point we might have the energy to open the suitcase. Although there’s not much reason to – the only thing we need from it is our toiletry bag. We just open it a lot of the time in a poor attempt at nesting. We lie on the bed again and wait for dinnertime. If our roomie is there we chat a bit, or stay in silence. It depends on the dynamic. Then one of us will say, ‘Shall we go down? It’s nine, that’s when we’re eating, right?’ Then we go down to the restaurant where Sean and Olga, our team chefs, will have whatever incredible meal they have prepared for us ready. They’re amazing. We can have a whole Grand Tour where we never eat the same thing twice. Every meal has a different twist to it; it’s like fine dining for athletes. It’s perhaps the best part of the day, when we all relax and pretend we’re not at a bike race. Then, once we’re done, we all slowly get up and head back to our rooms to lie on our beds, talk to our wives or girlfriends, and wait for when we’re tired enough to sleep. Which can be harder than people would think, as a lot of the time the more fatigued we become the more difficult it is to sleep.

  In the morning we wake up and head straight to breakfast. Or, rather, I do, before everyone else. Even when others are around, there’s not much laughter at the breakfast table. We then collect our washing bag containing our previous day’s kit, which we’d left on the bus after our post-race shower the day before. It’s been picked up and cleaned and left in a basket near our breakfast table to be collected. We then head back up to our room, put our toiletry bag back in the suitcase, decide if there’s actually anything we need from it – probably not, so close it and leave it outside our hotel room door to be collected and whisked away to the next hotel. We empty our laundry bag, and pack everything into our backpack for the bus, then lie on the bed again and call our wives or girlfriends, and wait for the departure time, which usually comes around way too fast. Then it all begins again. That’s the bike-racing life. Almost every race follows the same routine.

  Day 10

  Day 11

  It’s always the way in a Grand Tour: a couple of days easy then everybody is game on. It is possible to feel the enthusiasm at the start today – the polar opposite to how the bunch had been feeling at the start of Stage 9, when everybody still had everything to lose. Now, with the first mountain-top finish done and the time trial completed, the general classification has taken shape. For the guys still at the top of the classification the stress remains, but they are now a minority. For many teams their general classification hopes have evaporated, which means their priorities have now switched to stage wins, just the way Ryder’s race plan has shifted.

  We still have Dan, however, and although he’s racing general classification he doesn’t require a full team to look after him, so we are split between looking after him and helping set Ryder up for breakaways. Although one rest day and a thirty-seven-kilometre time trial isn’t enough time to offer recovery to the body, it is plenty for the mind. This, with the altered tactics of many teams, means the first hour of racing is manic. We average 51km/h, and it isn’t exactly flat. I feel better than I have done the whole race, covering numerous moves, not with the ambition of being in the break – because the summit finish won’t suit me even if I do make the move – but more to check out the movers and shakers for when I really want to go for a stage win in the final week. It also
means things are covered and we are always represented, allowing the team to remain relaxed behind.

  In the end a small group breaks free, but is not big enough to make it to the finish, so the race in the peloton becomes general classification- and stage win-orientated. We drop Dan off at the foot of the final climb, and he ends up being one of the strongest – maybe too strong as he attacks so many times he becomes marked out, allowing other riders to counter him. Coming up the mountain far behind but still in radio contact means we can hear all the info and encouragement from the directeur sportif to Dan. It feels like we’ve gone from being a part of the race to a spectator, albeit without seeing anything. I can hear Bingen, the directeur sportif, ‘COME ON, DAN! You’ve got ten seconds. Froome’s in trouble.’ In every gruppetto you’ll see loyal teammates with their fingers in their ears trying to hear what’s going on up ahead with their leader. There’s a pride in knowing the work you’ve done is paying dividends up front. At the same time it always seems incredible that they’re capable of attacking each other while racing up the same mountain we’re struggling to ride up.

  Day 12

  Logrono. The bus is going to the garage after the start to repair the air-con.

  So that means there’ll be no bus at the finish, and we’ll have to do it old Belgian-style: jump in the car and direct to the hotel.

  What a boring bloody day: eight laps, pan-flat, around Logrono. Everybody is bored and saying so, which goes to show how stupid we all are as it was, in many ways, a wonderful active recovery day and generous of the organisers to think of it. We should be loving it. The only way I can alleviate the boredom and make something of it is to give myself a challenge, and that is to keep my pedalling cadence above an average of ninety. This sounds quite simple, but we are going so easy, easier than I ride in training, that it turns into a real challenge, and an uncomfortable one at that. I decide it will be good training, to keep the muscles firing without actually putting any stress on them. About halfway through the stage I regret massively having set myself this goal, but I can’t give in as that would be showing weakness.

  I am thankful, then, with two laps to go, when the speed increases and with it the power required to pedal. I feel incredible, I’ve effectively been making my life supremely uncomfortable the previous 120 kilometres, so that when the race does get uncomfortable I weirdly find comfort in it. I look after Dan and make sure he is safely at the front in the final, out the way of any potential crashes. I am supremely strong.

  The internet went bonkers today accusing Ryder of having a motor in his bike, the reasoning being that his rear wheel kept turning after his crash on Stage 7. We think it’s pretty funny. Well, we did until other professionals started accusing him, too. I went apeshit defending Ryder’s honour at least twice in the peloton today. I keep telling him that it’s a compliment. Let’s face it, there aren’t too many professional cyclists who can ride fast enough to be accused of having an engine. I was going so fast in the final today I guess I could have been accused of this. Nobody said anything, though, and I’m a bit disappointed by that.

  They couldn’t fix the bus air-con. We’re quite relieved, really. That would have killed the post-race, shirtless, Radler-drinking vibe.

  Day 13

  I totally messed up today. Rule number one: if the race starts on a narrow uphill road do not stop for a piss. I know this. I still did it. I subsequently found myself right at the back of the peloton as we crossed the official start line, watching from a distance as the first attacks went and the break almost instantly formed. What a dickhead.

  Day 14

  We start in Santander today. It’s the first of three big mountain days. In the pre-race team meeting I recommend we race conservatively while knowing for a fact that Ryder is itching to go. I calculate this is the best method – this way he can make the decision all on his own without any pressure. Ryder’s at his best when he has no responsibilities and something to prove – he can then just race for the sake of racing; he’s a purebred in that respect. He’s at his best when he makes up his own mind. The bottom line is that the stage is so hard there’s little we can do to help him anyhow.

  Once the team meeting is done I go out looking for postcards for the boys. I find myself in full kit, race-ready, standing in some bucket-and-spade beachfront shop with folk looking at me like I’m some super-dork fan. The race numbers really confuse them, though. After dropping the cards off at the bus I make my way to the start. I pass the Sky bus, aka the Deathstar, and see Dave B standing outside talking to fans. I pull over and join in. It’s just like the old days: we stand there joking around, making conversation with some Brits who’ve come to watch the bike race. Dave is on fine form, taking the piss out of himself as much as me. After a few minutes we shuffle aside to have some privacy.

  Dave says, ‘OK, you’re in for the Worlds. It’s not official yet, but I’ve spoken to Rod and some of the guys and we all agree you should be there.’

  I can’t believe how relieved I am; I realise how paranoid I’ve become since the Tour de France last-minute non-selection. I tilt my head back and groan, ‘Ah, fucking hell. Thank you.’ I don’t know what to say beyond that. It takes me a moment to continue: ‘I’ll be good, Dave. I’ve been careful to take the first two weeks here relatively easy; next week I’m going to start racing for real. I’m getting better and better as the race goes on.’

  Dave nods. ‘We know, we can see it, so can the guys in the peloton. It’ll be good to have you at the Worlds, for the whole team. It’s how you should finish.’

  I well up ever so slightly behind my glasses, repeating my previous sentiment, ‘Ah, fucking hell.’ I can’t help but be myself with Dave, and just tell him how I feel: ‘I didn’t realise how much this meant to me. Stupid bike racing.’ The siren goes off for the neutral start. I shake my head and groan. The bloody emotion. Dave pats me on the back as I turn away. As I roll off he shouts after me, ‘Dave! Just stay upright, will you?’

  I laugh, and look back, ‘Oh, you bloody know it!’

  Sure enough, Ryder makes the break of the day, although the fact that he isn’t stressed about it probably helps, as it takes nearly an hour and a half of racing for it to form; these are the days when if you try too hard you’re guaranteed not to make it. He then single-handedly rips it to pieces, using his classic self-counter-attacking technique. This involves him attacking, waiting for everybody to get to him, then attacking again. Once they reach him again, he rides as hard as he can until they start getting dropped, before attacking them again. He’s like a four-man team.

  The finish is atop a three-kilometre climb – not just any climb, one of the steepest climbs we’ve ever done, in any race. It has an average of 15 per cent, peaking out at 24 per cent in places. What we like to call a total form-fucker. We have on the smallest gears possible, 36x30 for me. Ryder has whittled the break down from twenty-three to fourteen by the bottom of the final climb to the finish. He knows he is strong but there is one rider in particular he is worried about: the Swiss rider Oliver Zaugg of Saxo.

  Being a member of race leader Alberto Contador’s team means that Zaugg has the tactical right not to work in the break. Saxo are behind, leading the peloton. Zaugg’s job is simply to be up there marking the move. This means he is sitting, sucking wheels while Ryder is counter-attacking himself on his one-man demolition derby. From the early slopes of the climb, it’s possible to see Ryder drop almost everybody apart from Zaugg, who then forges ahead, leaving Ryder in his slow-motion wake.

  Ryder recounts the stage to me, blow by blow, over a Radler on the bus ride back to our hotel. He’d had it under control all day till that point. When Zaugg went he was convinced the win was slipping through his fingers, to the point that he looked behind, realised nobody else was getting near him, and thought, ‘Ah, second isn’t so bad’, before resigning himself to respectable defeat.

  It’s hard to explain to people how incredibly steep the climb was. Everything was happening in slow
motion, everything except heart rate and breathing, which were operating at maximum capacity. So, although Ryder gave up, he had enough time to recalibrate, disengage his preconceptions of it being only two kilometres from the finish, and how close that would normally be, before realising they still had over ten minutes left till the line. That’s when he said to himself, ‘Don’t be lame.’ And engaged ‘BEASTMODE’. He timed his effort to perfection, passing and leaving Zaugg for dead in the final 200 metres.

  I was in a gruppetto twenty minutes behind when I found out. Word spread around the group and somebody told me – we were too far behind to be in radio contact with the front. It made my three-kilometre creeper of a climb up to the finish totally bearable. I crossed the line at the exact moment Ryder was going from the podium to the anti-doping control, a crowd of people surrounding him. I called out to him, he saw me immediately and broke into a massive smile and changed the trajectory of his entourage towards me. When he reached me we hugged and he took me by the shoulders, looked at me, and said, ‘That was for us, man.’ We hugged again and then he went off to continue the winner’s protocol, while I looked for somebody from my team to give me a bottle and tell me where the bus was.

  The post-win bus ride to the hotel is one of those times I hope I never forget. Normally when we get to the bus it’s the end to our day; we just want to be left alone and taken home (hotel). When we arrive at the bus we park our bike against the side, twist our Garmin off and try to avoid eye contact with anybody so we can get inside as quickly as possible. Once inside we make a beeline for our seat, because each of us will have his own for the duration of the race, his own little safe haven. Nobody fucking touches it. Ryder and I inhabit the front two seats, mine on the left side, his on the right. We sit there, remove our glasses, take off our helmets, pull out the earpieces, lean back and relax. Not for long, though, because if we stop for too long we can’t get moving again. So, after a few beats we start taking our kit off. Then we head back and have a shower.