The damp, 200-year-old house looked about ready to fall down. This was home for me and a number of other riders, but at least we each had our own room. What we shared was the same dream to become pro riders. In February 1985, Per Pedersen, my mate from Herning, had grabbed the bull by the horns, and off we went to live in Luxembourg. After having been told that I should give up trying to make a career out of cycling by the national coach, I’d been left with two options: do what he suggested, and stop – or head off abroad and start all over again. A friend of mine in Denmark, Per Sandal, had some contacts in Luxembourg, and invited Per and I to go with him. The plan was that Mette would follow me if I got a contract with a pro team. In the meantime, Per Sandal introduced me to Marcel Gilles, the sports director of a semi-pro team called ACC Concern. “You won’t regret giving me a chance,” I promised him.
“In that case, you’re in!” said Gilles.
The team was a long way from the pro teams I’d seen on TV taking part in the Tour de France. There was no wage, but the team paid for all our equipment and covered everything we needed to race and train. The directeur sportif, Gilles, was one of the good guys, with his heart in the right place. He’d put his hand in his own pocket to help cover our rent whenever our own pockets were empty. The truth, though, was that, rather than pay rent, we should have been paid to stay in that crappy old house, which really wasn’t habitable, but as young riders we couldn’t expect to live in luxury. On a good day, we could come away from a race with 1,000 kroner (£55) each, splitting any prize money we won between us. And by keeping my living costs and outgoings down, the prize money we earned was just enough to get by on.
I’d survive on spaghetti with tomato ketchup, or tinned tomatoes, or even some meat if I was feeling flush.
Gilles understood how hard things were for us, financially. “You boys hungry?” he’d occasionally ask us, and either invite us to eat with him at his house, or take us out to a local restaurant. He felt an element of responsibility towards us, I think, and didn’t want us to go hungry. Still, it never seemed that bad, either, as with no real responsibilities – no girlfriend, wife or kids – I only had to look after myself. But our poor existence served as a good reminder that we had to make every kilometre of every training ride count if we wanted to get a pro contract out of it.
That way of life wasn’t for everyone, though. A number of riders tried their luck in Luxembourg, including Jesper Skibby, who would later turn pro. A couple of months in Luxembourg as part of Gilles’s team, however, didn’t live up to Jesper’s expectations. “I can’t be doing with this shit,” he decided, and went off to seek his fortune elsewhere.
Per and I had both had a pretty promising start to our time in Luxembourg, and won a good number of races between us. We raced a lot in Belgium, Holland and France – it was those races that we had to do well in if we wanted any chance of becoming better riders. You could almost feel the desperation among the riders in these races. Everyone wanted to get noticed in order to keep their dreams of being spotted by the professional teams alive. And that meant that no one was scared to race all out – taking risks, making good use of their elbows and using all sorts of dirty tricks. The other riders were hungry, ambitious, and some were just plain idiotic in the way that they rode. It made for some very tough racing, but I learned a lot. Some riders were scared of how dangerous it was, but I felt like I thrived on it. I tried to use each race as a stepping stone to something better.
During the races, I began to get a good idea of what my strengths were, and found that I was particularly good on the climbs, which gave me one over on most of the others. Climbing fascinated me, as it provided a kind of natural selection. Each time I managed to drop the others, it gave me a much-needed confidence boost. During our first season in Luxembourg, Per won 11 races, while I did even better by winning 16. This must have looked pretty good from the outside, but I still felt like I needed more control over where my career was headed.
I’d often use Gilles’s office phone to ring Dad for a chat, which always helped cheer me up, and he always reassured me that I was doing the right thing. He’d ask what the races were like, and whether I could keep up. Every time I won something, I’d give him a call, too. “That’s brilliant, Bjarne,” he’d say each time, proudly. It was great to have such good support, and it was the same with Mette, too, who I’d ring from the office, or sometimes from a phone box if I had a bit of money.
I’d fill in my training diary every day, as I always had, but none of what was in there was structured training. I had no one to tell me how to train or to give me advice, so I just stayed at the same level. The training methods in Belgium and Luxembourg at that time were rudimentary and old-fashioned: ride a load of kilometres in training, and you’ll eventually reach some kind of good form. Day after day, hour after hour, I’d be out on my road bike, in every kind of weather and with varying degrees of intensity and enthusiasm. Five hours’ training, with no goal, structure or system, was miserable and demotivating in the long run. But the sheer number of kilometres in my legs, the hard racing and the training in the hills all appeared to have added up when I went back to Denmark to race. It was a good gauge of where I was compared to the riders I’d grown up racing against. Especially noticeable was how much better I’d become at climbing, and that gave me real satisfaction – the kind of satisfaction you can only get from having done something yourself to improve your performance. Racing in Denmark also gave me an extra little push in that it felt like it was me against the world. In front of those who hadn’t believed in me, those who had stopped me from going to the Olympics and those who had said I should have packed it in a long time ago, I would show them all that they were wrong.
Even though I had made a good name for myself in Luxembourg cycling circles, I had no idea what would happen next. I just hoped that my results would be good enough for the bigger teams to take notice of me. I’d won 16 races, after all, including small stage races in Belgium and France, but there didn’t seem to be any professional teams falling over themselves to sign me.
Gilles did what he could to get Per’s name and my name out there. He wrote several letters to the bigger teams recommending us, but nothing came of it, and a lot of them didn’t even bother to answer. Time was running out, and it didn’t look too likely that I would get a pro contract with anyone.
But then, suddenly, there was some unexpected interest. One of Gilles’s contacts was starting a new pro team called RMO, and had been on the lookout for decent, ambitious riders. Gilles put both Per and I forward, but was told that the team actually only needed one more rider. Just like that, Per had switched from being a friend to being the competition. It was pretty awkward, as both of us knew that whoever wasn’t picked was likely to have to give up and go home. Eventually, the manager of the new team chose Per. “He’s the one I want,” he told Gilles. It was tough to have to put on a brave face and congratulate Per. He thanked me, but hid his happiness well. He knew that the chances of me getting any kind of contract at this late stage were pretty slim.
Everyone was gearing up for the new season, and the possibility of a contract had all but disappeared. Gilles was disappointed for me, and told me that all the teams worth joining had filled their rosters.
“What’s left?” I asked him.
“Only crap teams,” he told me.
“One of those will do me,” I said.
The teams that were left were the small ones – the pro teams that were badly organised, Gilles warned me. He said that they weren’t really places to progress as a rider, and that they might actually damage my career. “I’m happy to try anything,” I told him. I didn’t have any choice.
He knew some people in Belgium who were setting up a new team called Roland Van de Ven. Florent Van Vaerenbergh was the directeur sportif, while Guillaume Driessens was team manager.
They looked at my results and listened to what Gilles had to say about me, and it apparently convinced them that “the Dane” had some potential, and they offered me a contract. I signed it immediately without so much as a second thought, and finally I could call myself a professional bike rider. The salary was a modest 6,000 kroner (£500) a month, plus prize money. Signing the contract meant that we would have enough money for Mette to move in with me. She’d finished her qualification as a chiropodist that year – 1986 – and was willing to give living together abroad a go.
Mette got herself a job as a chiropodist and, together with my salary from the Roland team, we were soon able to get a new flat, which we were happy with and which we could afford – and where it was just the two of us, too. No more mould on the walls, no more washing up piled up in the sink, and no more sweaty cyclists stinking out the whole house.
Cycling in Belgium in 1986 was exactly what Gilles had warned me it would be like: a school of hard knocks, where it was a daily battle for survival as part of a small team like ours. Joining the Roland Van de Ven team was like stepping back in time. The main sponsor, Roland, was a Belgian organ – and these days keyboard – manufacturer, and most of the team was made up mainly of neo-professionals. The team owner, Guillaume Driessens, was a charismatic, older man, and a big name in Belgian cycling circles, who still dined out on the fact that he had once been one of cycling legend Eddy Merckx’s directeurs sportifs. Driessens ran the Roland team as though it was still the 1960s, and that meant that it had the same values as a team from “the good old days”, too.
During the Tour of Belgium, where there was a split stage, meaning that we had to ride two stages in one day, he ordered us to eat steak for breakfast, and then again in between the two stages, and once more in the evening. “That’s a real cyclist’s diet,” he told us. As dietary advice went, it was a new one on me, but if that’s what we were told to do, then that’s what we had to do, and we tucked into our steaks. Driessens loved telling old stories about heroes, villains and how to win bike races. I took it all in, but knew that there were only a few things that I could learn from him that were genuinely useful.
Belgium is a traditional cycling nation, and the Belgians like nothing better than a home-grown hero. Every town with any self respect has its own race, too. Belgians are also used to fighting for things. As a young rider, you have to show your worth before you can expect to be shown any respect, and so it was for me. My job was to uncomplainingly work for the others on the team. Whenever a decision had to be made about tactics or strategy, no one ever asked for my opinion. I’d just listen, nod, and get on with doing what I was told to do, accepting my place at the bottom of the pile.
Racing and training on those rain-drenched Belgian roads was tough. Finding myself feeling alone in this strange bubble reminded me what an odd career choice it was. It was certainly character-building – no doubt about that. But on the other hand, I could also just have considered it a waste of my time and talent when the possibility of career progression was made up of a couple of pieces of really quite average advice at the dinner table occasionally. Perhaps my preference for good advice and some proper coaching was stronger than for some of the other team members. It didn’t make it any easier that I couldn’t count 100 per cent on my team-mates. Everyone just rode for themselves, and plans were not usually stuck to.
The team’s star rider was 29-year-old Belgian Ludwig Wijnants, a past winner of a stage at the Tour de France. Winning something like that earned you both respect and status. But, for the rest of us, getting the backing of your team-mates all depended on how much of a chance you had going into a race. If they thought they had a chance of winning, they’d be desperate for my support, although when a race was more suited to my strengths, they were usually nowhere to be seen. Luckily for me, I had two Danish team-mates – Brian Holm and Jan Østergaard – to hang out with. I got on especially well with Brian, who knew what he wanted from his career, and was prepared to start from the bottom and work his way up. Brian’s riding in the peloton was quite reckless and, unlike me, he didn’t think before he acted. He took risks, used his elbows when necessary, and was cheeky enough to take chances. In comparison, I was too nice, too analytical, and would think too much about things. During a race, I’d try to think through how I could win. Except that, by the time I’d made up my mind what to do, the winning breakaway would have disappeared up the road. Driessens had noticed that I needed to believe in myself a bit more. “Don’t think so much about things, Bjarne,” he told me once when we were talking about why I wasn’t in the mix at the end of races too often. “Just ride.”
My biggest hope for success was in stage races, where I could plan several days ahead, scout out stages beforehand, and get stronger and stronger as the race went on. It was also during stage races that I’d get the chance to use my strength on the climbs, which meant not necessarily having to work for anyone else. But stage races weren’t big things in Belgium. It was all about one-day races there, and it would be my task to ride for the others as I didn’t have much of a sprint to speak of.
The other end of the spectrum to normal road racing was kermesse racing, which I got introduced to while riding for Roland. A Belgian phenomenon, the one-day races were cycling’s equivalent of the Wild West. Virtually every Belgian town organised its own kermesse, which was a kind of carnival based around a bike race. There would be fairground rides, betting stands, loud music and food carts selling chips and waffles. Spectators drank and ate while they watched the racing. The races themselves tended to be around 150-170km long, and were made up of spectator-friendly circuits, which were perhaps 10 or 14km long, often on narrow, dangerous roads. Many of the smaller Belgian teams existed for kermesse racing alone; prize money was good, and there were plenty of races.
Brian was somewhat of a kermesse specialist, and helped teach me how to ride them – and win some money in them. He referred to the races as “paid training”. He lived in Belgium and knew most of the riders and team managers, which meant that he knew who we needed to stick close to in order to earn some money. He’d study the start list before the race, picking out the local teams who would be desperate to win the race on their own turf. We’d do some work for the local hero, he’d win, and his team would pay us for having contributed to their victory. Sometimes we were the ones who were desperate for the victory – such as the time when we took part in a kermesse in Ludwig Wijnants’s home race in Putte. “The King of Putte” they called him, and it was imperative that he stood on the top step of the podium.
Many of the riders taking part in the kermesses were not always in good form, yet they always seemed to ride like greyhounds for the first 100km. One day, Brian explained why that was. “You’re in for a shock,” he told me. Kermesses rarely had doping controls, and the riders knew that. Riders would often get changed for the races in local riders’ or managers’ garages, and it was here that they’d prepare themselves for the races, too – with amphetamine-filled syringes. “It won’t be long before they’re doing hundreds of press-ups, playing football with the garbage cans and acting crazy,” Brian warned me.
Sure enough, once they were ready to go, many of the riders were like different people. They were absolutely wired, with wild eyes and, once on their bikes, they stamped on the pedals like crazy. “But I’m not interested in all that,” Brian told me.
“Me neither,” I replied.
We both distanced ourselves from what they were doing, which was a real culture shock, and not something we were used to.
But right from the off, the racing was fast, and that meant that, on the narrow roads, you needed to make sure that you were up near the front. It was a real fight to be up there, too, and any sign of weakness often meant that you’d end up on the ground.
“If you can survive a kermesse, you can survive anything,” Brian would say.
They were so fast, though – often ridden at an average of 50km/h for the first hour. But at that point, riders would suddenly tire. It was as if the amphetamines only worked for about 100km at most. The pace would drop, and a quick look around revealed that a lot of riders would be on their last legs, having ridden at such a crazy pace for most of the first part of the race.
The prize money normally went down to 30th place, so it was all about making sure you were still there at the end. And if you’d also made the right deals, you could earn enough money to cover your transport costs and even have enough left over to pay some of the household bills. The best kermesse riders knew just how to play the game, and would enter into multiple alliances so that they earned their money almost no matter who won.
The bunch sprints could be frightening. Brian hit the deck in one once and ended up in hospital having fractured his skull. Still, that didn’t stop me giving it a go a couple of times. Sprinting really wasn’t my strong point, and I’d end up getting squeezed out of contention, but at least I’d managed to get through it unscathed.
“What are you doing sprinting?” Brian would ask.
“How else am I going to learn?” I’d reply.
Very occasionally, anti-doping officials would turn up at the kermesses unannounced – but there were ways around them, of course. Two hundred metres before the finish line, you’d suddenly catch a glimpse of a man at the side of the road crazily waving a flag. This was to warn the riders that the anti-doping officials had turned up, and there were two options to avoid giving a positive test. The first was to stop before the finish and simply disappear. The second, similar, tactic was to sprint across the finish line and then keep sprinting for a couple of hundred metres and lose yourself in the crowds.
But despite a kermesse being a colourful, good place to learn and a way to supplement the regular wage, this Belgian style of racing wasn’t really for me, and I didn’t end the season with any decent results to my name.
When Roland started planning for the following year, it was without me on the team roster. The sponsor was putting more money into the team, and so was trying to attract some bigger-name riders, rather than hold on to an unknown Danish domestique. After just one year as a pro, I was left without a contract. But again, I was saved at the 11th hour by another small Belgian squad.
I’d entered into contract negotiations with the Lucas team, although “negotiations” was probably too strong a word. I didn’t have any other teams interested in me, and the proposed salary was actually pretty good. Just as I’d done the year before, I signed the contract without any fuss, and the deal was done. The downside was that a number of people had warned me that the people behind the team were a bunch of gangsters. Rumour had it that they weren’t exactly on top of their finances and were likely to muck me about. The salary was 9,000 kroner (£800) a month – but only when it turned up, which wasn’t too often. The riders on the team frequently had to chase the management to get paid. “But we don’t understand it,” we’d be told. “We’ll make sure we get it sorted.” But nothing would happen.
After not being paid for a number of months, I’d had enough. The main sponsor, Lucas, made furniture and, furious, I turned up at their factory one day. “I want my money,” I told them.
“Well, we’d better get it all sorted, then,” they told me, clearly surprised that one of the team’s unknown riders had confronted them over it.
“You’ve said that before, and yet nothing’s been done. If you can’t pay, then I want furniture in lieu of what you owe me,” I continued, and pointed at the pieces of furniture in their collection that I wanted.
They dutifully noted it down. “We’ll sort out your money,” they said.
A few days later, a removal van turned up outside our house. “What’s going on?” Mette asked me, pointing out of the window at the van. We watched as the removal men unloaded a load of furniture onto the pavement. The crooks had taken what I’d said seriously and gave me furniture instead of my salary.
I resigned myself to the fact that things were as they were, but made up my mind to make the best of the situation and be a bit more selfish with the way I rode. I started to think about doing my own thing in races more often, in the hope of attracting the interest of some other teams. That chance came unexpectedly at three-week stage race the Vuelta a Espana, or Tour of Spain.
Our Lucas team rode on Spanish Orbea bikes, and we had a few Spanish riders on the squad as a result. The race started surprisingly well for us when one of the Spanish riders won a stage. It was a massive deal, and everyone was thrilled – and it showed that perhaps we could play ball with the big boys after all. It was almost too good to be true and, sure enough, a few days later our stage winner was suddenly in a hurry to pack his bags and leave our hotel. The explanation came only weeks later when we heard the results of a dope test taken on the day of his victory. After that, the team fell apart completely. One after the other, my team-mates left the race, and by the end of stage 10 I was the only rider left. I wasn’t in contention for the race’s overall classification, but I’d gone into the race hoping to do as well as I could, again in the hope of catching the eye of another team.
I was my own boss now, and didn’t need anyone’s permission to ride my own race in an event that was perfect for me. But the idea of using the Vuelta as my own shop window for my talents wasn’t one my Lucas team shared – especially not the two directeurs sportifs, two mechanics and two soigneurs, who took care of things like massages, who were still left on the race with me. “Bjarne, don’t you think you should quit the race so that we can all just go home?” one of the directeurs sportifs asked me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. “I’m feeling in good form, and I’ve got no plans to quit.”
Two days later, though, the team got their wish. I woke up with a nasty stomach ache, which got progressively worse as the day went on. On the bike, I felt completely drained of energy and had no choice but to retire from the race.
“I have to give up,” I told the directeur sportif who had stopped next to me in the team car.
“That’s a shame,” he said, although I somehow doubted that he meant it.
I had no proof whatsoever, but I was convinced that the team had poisoned me in order to make me quit so that they could go home. After that, there were no two ways about it: I had to get out of that team, and quickly.
The Danish rider Kim Andersen was a big name in cycling, and with the results he’d achieved it meant something when he recommended me as a rider. He had twice worn the yellow jersey at the Tour de France, over a number of days in both 1983 and 1985, and had won stages there, too. They were the kinds of achievements I would have killed for. And Kim put my name forward when a new French squad, Toshiba, was being put together from the remnants of the La Vie Claire team.
“You’ve got a year to show us what you can do,” the team told me as I put pen to paper on a contract worth 12,000 kroner a month (£1,000) for the 1988 season. I was 23 years old, and it was the chance of a lifetime.
The big star on the team was the Frenchman Jean-François Bernard, who had finished third at the 1987 Tour de France. Bernard, who had also worn the yellow jersey that year, and won two stage victories, including the mountain time trial on the legendary climb of Mont Ventoux, was definitely one of the big boys. My role on the team was as a domestique to Bernard and the others – their loyal helper, who would keep them sheltered from the wind and generally look after them. Bernard was a strong rider – or he was when he was in form, at least – and was at a level way above anyone I’d been on a team with before.
The Toshiba team was quite different to the small teams I’d previously been part of. The main difference was just how many riders there were, which meant that the team had more of a choice over who was selected for particular events. And that meant that you needed to make your presence felt, else risk being ignored and forgotten. We had all the big races on our programme, the riders on the team were all really good, and I was given the opportunity to prepare for the races that suited me. I’d always dreamed of taking part in the Italian grand tour, the Giro d’Italia, and with Toshiba I got my chance. It was going to be my biggest race so far as a pro cyclist.
I arrived at the start line full of ambition, as did the team, and everything was going to plan when Bernard took the pink leader’s jersey. If I could help the team get the success it was after, I realised that the race could also be the chance for me to get my international breakthrough. Bernard had won three stages, and we were managing to defend the jersey, when it all went horribly wrong. He crashed, and injured his back so badly that he had to quit the race, which was a real blow for the team and left us a bit direction-less.
On one of the mountain stages, I was told to help the German rider, Andreas Kappes, who was higher up in the team’s hierarchy than me. But on this particular stage, Kappes wasn’t feeling great, and was dropped by the peloton. The directeur sportif drove up alongside me. “You need to help Kappes get through this stage,” he ordered me. It was hard to see the reasoning behind the order, as to me the German looked to be have had enough, but I let myself drop back to him in order to help him as much as possible. And to me, he was acting as though he’d already decided to call it a day, and was just going slower and slower.
“Just ride, Bjarne,” he puffed. By that, he meant that I should leave him to his fate – that there was no need for me to risk not making the time limit for the stage.
“No – I’ll stay with you. Team orders,” I told him.
But with 100km still left to go, he’d had enough. “I’m finished,” he said, and climbed off his bike to wait for the broom wagon.
All that effort on my part had been for nothing, and now I was left far behind by the rest of the race, and by a team who couldn’t care less about me. But I decided I’d show them I wasn’t the sort of rider who gave up just because the going got tough and my chances of making the time limit to stay in the race didn’t look good. For kilometre after kilometre I kept going through the mountains, which were made that much harder by the fact that I was on my own. Using up my last ounces of energy, I made it to the finish, and promptly collapsed off my bike. The only thing that mattered was whether I’d made the time limit, and could continue in the race.
“Did I make it?” I asked the people standing over me.
“You missed it by a minute and a half,” came the reply.
I was out of the race, and felt like a laughing stock. I’d been handed an impossible task and had given it everything, only to have my own race ruined. All I could do was go back to the hotel, pack my suitcase and head home to Luxembourg.
In the weeks that followed, I waited to hear what my programme was for the rest of the season from the team. But no one contacted me. The silence from the team management was deafening, and I was left to try to work out what their lack of communication meant for me. I had no idea whether I was being punished for what had happened at the Giro, but in the meantime I just knuckled down to training and tried to keep my form in readiness for whatever my next race would be. Gradually, though, it dawned on me that they’d written me off, having given me a chance at the Giro and seen that I wasn’t up to the job. Clearly they were now simply waiting for my contract to run out. It was frustrating to feel as though I was simply being ignored until I went away.
I was sitting, disillusioned, in our flat in Luxembourg when my former directeur sportif, Marcel Gilles, called. “How do you fancy riding the Tour of the European Community?” he asked me.
Again, he’d come to my rescue. He was offering me the chance to race the French stage race as part of a mixed team of riders from Denmark and Luxembourg that he’d put together. Everyone on the team had their own agenda for taking part. Some were there to get some training miles in their legs ahead of the Six Day track season, others just wanted to maintain an element of fitness, while I was there for one reason and one reason only: to try to get myself a contract with a team for the new season.
The race started in Paris, and then followed a route through Belgium, Holland and Germany, before finishing in Luxembourg. The big name competing in the race was the Frenchman Laurent Fignon, known as “The Professor”, due to his round glasses and ponytail. He’d won the Tour de France twice, in 1983 and 1984, as well as the Milan-San Remo Classic earlier in the season. Fignon’s team, Système U, was one of the stronger teams in the race, while our little team just got smaller and smaller as riders – especially those from Luxembourg – dropped out as the race went on.
As the race neared its conclusion, only Kim Eriksen, Pascal Carrara, Jan Østergaard and I were left from our team. The Système U stars – Fignon and another Frenchman, Gérard Rué – were having to work quite hard to stay at the head of the race by this point. However, Kim knew Rué pretty well, and without there ever being any official deal done, our team started to help them out. We rode up at the front of the race with the Système U boys, helping to cover breakaways and generally helping out when they needed us. It wasn’t only in the Belgian kermesses that alliances were formed, but such alliances in the pro peloton were a little different to those established in the Belgian Wild West. They were a little more serious and clear-cut.
If the team defending the leader’s jersey in a stage race needed a little extra help, for example, they might enter into a deal with a team not interested in the overall classification, but which was still looking for a stage victory. Such teams would often be the ones with the best sprinters. It would mean that there was a shared interest in keeping the bunch together: the first team in order to defend the leader’s jersey by stopping anyone gaining time in a breakaway, and the second team to ensure that all breakaways were reeled in before a bunch sprint. Most deals like that would be arranged by the directeurs sportifs, but occasionally it would be the riders out on the road who would have to make such decisions.
Occasionally money would exchange hands, although that tended to be between individual riders in a breakaway. If three riders, say, were in a break together, they might agree to all give it everything they had, but then whoever won would pay the other two something like 5,000 kroner each (£420) for their efforts if the break succeeded in staying away to the finish.
At the Tour of the European Community, Système U had apparently been happy with our efforts.
Fignon nodded his appreciation in our direction on the days that we’d worked hard for them. During the race, I managed to exchange a few words with Rué, and mentioned that I didn’t have a team for the following year. He told me that he’d talk to the team’s manager, Cyrille Guimard, about it.
The race ended in success for Système U. Fignon won the overall classification, while Rué got second. He and Guimard thanked me for my help, and I took the opportunity to ask one more time whether they might have any room for me on the team for next season. They didn’t. However, Fignon came up to Kim and I at the finish holding an envelope from which he pulled out a wad of banknotes, and handed them to us as a thank you. There was 30,000 kroner (£2,500) to share between us.
Gilles continued to try to find a team for the 1989 season that needed “a good Dane”, but no one was interested. For the last few months of 1988, I rattled around in our flat in Luxembourg, readying myself to admit that my time as a professional bike rider was about to come to an end.
I was proud that I’d achieved my dream of turning pro, but was deeply disappointed not to have managed to do better in the races I’d been given the chance to ride.
Mette and I prepared ourselves to move back to Denmark in the new year, when I’d have to get out there and find myself a proper job outside cycling. Gilles had always been one of the few who had always believed in me, but even he had to admit that it was over. But even then, he didn’t abandon me. “Do you fancy earning a bit of money while you think about what you’re going to do next?” he asked me.
“That would be great,” I answered.
Gilles also managed a travel agency, and they needed an odd-jobs man to do stuff like sort the post and run errands. “The job’s yours,” he smiled. It was better than nothing.