I didn’t even know if there was anybody up the road when I attacked. But, as I pressed on the pedals and looked ahead into the freezing gloom, I noticed with an excited alarm that there was no one between the finish line and me. I was the first rider on the road. I was alone in front, racing towards the win. This was it.
The 2011 Vuelta a Asturias was a tough race. Smaller and less renowned events were always hard. In the absence of clear favourites everyone saw their opportunity to grab a win, and this five-day stage race in the north-western region of Spain was no exception. The racing had been savage and unpredictable up until then, and the inclement weather had made things even tougher.
The first 170 km of the fifth and final stage since setting off from Lugones that morning had been so hard that when we came to the final climb of Alto del Naranco the race had been whittled right down to the strongest and most determined riders in the field. Earlier in the week I had suffered food poisoning caused by a meal served at our appalling hotel – so dubious a dish that we were unsure if it was fish or turkey. But, despite this setback, my form was good. The tiredness in my bones was still there, but it had relaxed its hold over me. My United Healthcare teammate Christian Meier was well placed overall, holding eighth position. The stage, and the race, were only five kilometres from their conclusion, but it was far from over. A group of riders had escaped on the twisting, undulating roads heading to the climb, and I knew that if Christian was going to get back into the race there was work to do …
And so it was that I found myself in the action in that small Spanish race, riding for an American team almost by accident. I had very nearly ended up not racing in 2011 at all. In the autumn of 2010 I found myself at the mercy of some frustrating contract negotiations that followed my difficult summer. Only two years previously when I had signed my contract with Silence-Lotto I was in demand from all sides, but it seemed that those twenty-four months with the Belgian team had changed things dramatically, and now teams who were once forthcoming and honest were difficult to contact and refused to make commitments.
Despite my feelings of doubt towards the sport, I knew that the shambolic and sporadic attempts at racing in the autumn were no way to finish a career. I wanted at least one more year to put things right and to finish the job on my terms. The cycling world is as cruel and fickle as a tabloid newspaper. Finishing up when you decide to, and not when you are forced to, is the only dignified exit for an athlete. It is something that every rider wants, but few really get. I felt like I had honoured my profession, and I wanted my profession to honour me this way.
At first, finding a contract for 2011 hadn’t seemed like it would present too much of a problem: in the spring of 2010 I had interest from the most surprising of places. Bradley Wiggins had previously contacted me about a potential move to Team Sky, the new outfit that British Cycling were setting up. I believed in Brad, and I have the utmost respect for him, and I would have really enjoyed riding for him, despite whatever had happened in the past between me and British Cycling.
Marc Sergent told Alex at the Tour that Lotto wanted to keep me on the same money, and that everything was fine for me to continue there. So, thinking that I was OK either way, I was still quite relaxed. Even if Sky did go cold – which it ultimately did – then I was safe with Lotto, or so I thought.
I had completely forgotten about my early exit from the 2009 Vuelta, but the management at Lotto obviously hadn’t. In September 2010 I received an email from Lotto that said the words I had never had to read before: ‘We will no longer be requiring your services.’
Disappointment after disappointment followed. Teams acted interested, only to pull out or stall at the last minute. It ground me down to a point where I knew I had to make a decision. I wanted another year, and there was an offer on the table from a small American team – United Healthcare. UHC wanted an experienced road captain to help their young American riders adapt to life in Europe. After genuinely enjoying playing my small part in mentoring Adam Blythe the previous season, I was attracted to the idea of passing my knowledge on to young riders. After some deliberation I decided that I would go for it. It felt nothing like the satisfaction of my two previous contracts, but I knew my options were thin on the ground. On the day I signed with the team that November, after hardly speaking a word through dinner, I looked over at Camilla and said, ‘At the end of the day this gives us nine months of paid time to think about what to do in the future.’
The end was coming now, and I had finally accepted it. I had a year of racing ahead of me that I knew would be my last. Knowing that I was nearly done seemed to have calming effect on me. It was like a burden had been lifted; the big show was over and I was like a band coming back on stage for an encore. Each day that I went out on my bike that winter I was besotted with the simple pleasure of training. Becoming race fit after a break is like a change of season in your body, and I loved feeling that. I could feel the familiar sensations of fitness rising through the fibres of my muscles as, day by day, I became stronger. I enjoyed the feeling of being able to ride faster, and watching my body change as it got into shape. I loved to watch my numbers too: the mathematics of my work. I knew the figures that I needed to be competitive, and it was those figures that kept me motivated. The figures didn’t lie, they didn’t hassle me and they didn’t betray me. They cleared out the junk from the world of cycling that was cluttering up my mind. Clarity is something that you don’t often have as a cyclist: decisions are clouded by the desire to perform, and then are lost in the fog of fatigue. I felt no pressure any more, and despite the fact that UHC turned out to be a small and shambolic team, my new-found freedom was about to be unleashed.
• • •
As we made our way towards the conclusion of that final stage of the Vuelta a Asturias I was faced with a scene that was all too familiar from ten years spent in the professional peloton: an uphill finish and a gap to close. I knew exactly what I had to do. As soon as we hit the lower slopes of the climb I was itching to get going. I ramped up the pace as the gradient steepened and plunged myself into that familiar zone of discomfort. I felt good, my legs pushed hard, but my hands were relaxed. I didn’t need to grip and wrench the bike towards me with my arms like I did when I struggled to make the pace; instead, I pushed the bike away from me with my legs. I found my pain threshold and I kept nudging at the edges of it to allow me to find more, to go faster. I could hear in my mind the delightful sounds of the elastic snapping behind me as rider after rider gave in to their own limitations. The climb was fast; as I came out of each of the hairpin bends I kicked as hard as I could with Christian right on my wheel. With three and a half kilometres to go our time check came through: 23 seconds.
The game in my head began. It was one I had played so many times before. I had to close that gap before the line. No matter how fast the escapees were going I had to go faster. It was a game I played blindly, always telling myself that they were going faster, and demanded of myself that I push harder. With two and a half kilometres to go the next check came through: 19 seconds. I was winning, but not by enough. I had to push harder still. Whatever speed they were doing I had to better it.
With a little over two kilometres to go we shot out of the trees and the mountain rose up ahead of us. I could finally see my prey. The game would get easier now, but it wasn’t over. I had to dig in and give more. I could sense that Christian was on his limit behind me. I glanced back to see him tucked on my wheel, with only one other rider keeping us company. My pace had detonated the race. Sucking in deeper and deeper the cold air that thinned around me, I lifted the pace once more. I had to get Christian back to the race leader if he was going to have a chance to go for the win. I had to lay it on the line.
I clawed back the inches between us like a man dragging himself to safety. For the next 1,000 metres I squeezed out everything, every ounce of energy I had. I timed my effort to perfection. As we passed under the 1 km banner, it was done. We made the junction and for the first time since the climb began I found myself on the wheel of another rider.
I had been so focused on catching this group that when we caught them suddenly my mind went silent. I had done my job. I had succeeded in my own eyes and in the eyes of my team manager and teammates who relied on me to play my part. There was no failure left to fear that day.
But I wasn’t done. With only half a pedal revolution to recover, and without a single thought forming in my mind, pure instinct took over. With 800 metres to go I stood up out of my saddle and attacked.
The gap between myself and the group opened up in what seemed like an instant. I looked over my shoulder once and the group already looked smaller; I looked over a second time and they seemed to have disappeared. The gap grew so quickly that I began to doubt that I had attacked for the win. Maybe there was someone in front of me, and I was racing for second? But as I looked forward I saw the TV motorbikes were all focused on me. There was no one in front. I was the head of the race. A feeling came over me that had been hidden so deeply inside that I thought I had learnt to deny its very existence. I felt that heart-stopping realisation that I was going for the win.
There were 600 metres between that uncrossed finish line and my front wheel. I could see the barriers that lined the final twists and turns towards that line. I was so close. I realised then that I wanted to win a professional bike race more than anything in the world.
My heart had been bursting out of my chest. Now it seemed to bury itself deep down into my stomach. I could see the metre boards as I passed them: 500 metres to go. I was inside the final barriers on the run-in to the line. I could no longer think of anyone else. I liked Christian Meier and I enjoyed working with him, but this was mine. This was for me. I didn’t need to impress my manager at UHC, I didn’t need to impress Damiani, or Amadio or Stanga or another manager who I hoped might want me in his team the next year.
I had been at the sharp end of a race before and I had missed out every time. At the Vuelta Pays Basque, at the Tour de Suisse and at the Giro I had been in winning situations where someone, somehow had got the better of me, had outraced me. I knew that it was a weak rider who would say he is cheated out of anything, but I had swallowed those failures in the only way that allowed me to deal with the constant defeat; I had pushed them far away. I had ingrained it into my racing psyche that winning didn’t matter to me, that it wasn’t my role. I made myself so sensible and clinical that I persuaded myself that I didn’t give a fuck. I had found other things that I considered to be successes and I had gone after them instead, telling myself I was happy with closing a gap, or hurting people’s legs, and that it was enough that I was a professional cyclist without having to win races too. I had been like a jilted lover who couldn’t face committing to anyone again. With 200 metres to the line I realised that what my head had been coldly telling me for so long was bullshit. I wanted to win. I had to win, and I was prepared to give my all for it. By now, as I pushed on towards the line, my body was contorted with pain. I weighed each pedal stroke; there was no part of me that wasn’t committed to getting my bike across that line first and just once, after eleven years raising my arms in the air.
I was so close now that a feeling rushed up from inside me that I hadn’t known for over ten years. It was like someone had dusted down my youth and handed it back to me. I was going to win. I knew it now, as I threw every part of my body into pedalling, all my composure gone. My physique, which I kept so perfect and still when I raced normally, was now bent over the bike – shoulders slumping from side to side and mouth gaping. I didn’t care what I looked like, or how I did it. I was going to win.
With 100 agonising uphill metres to go I suddenly felt that horrible chill of shock you feel just before the phone rings with bad news. I felt the fear pulse through me: the other riders. They were suddenly almost inexplicably there. I heard them first, and then I saw them – Constantino Zaballa and Javier Moreno, the two riders who’d been in the break and whom I’d caught a kilometre earlier. They rode straight past without even looking at me. I couldn’t believe it. As soon as they passed me I stopped pedalling. It was over. Now, for all I cared, I could finish 80th or climb off my bike without even crossing the line. It had been all or nothing.
Those two riders fought out the win and I crossed the line in third feeling like I had just had my heart wrenched out of my chest. I didn’t know where to look or what to do. I slumped over my handlebars and began to weep. It was too much. I had admitted to myself that there was no pride for me any more in being the rider who’d had a long, distinguished career but who’d never won a race. That was gone for ever now. I had exposed myself to thoughts that I’d hidden from myself for so long. I did want to win, and it did matter, and now I had to face it all.
As my emotions overwhelmed me it felt like the stitches on a wound had been torn open and everything poured out of me. I thought if I could have just won then it would all make sense: my whole career rounded off with a nice win at the top of a famous climb. It would make sense of the shit that I’d eaten through the winter, being kicked around by teams; it would make sense of eleven years of races I’d started with no intention of working for myself; the countless races where I’d turned inside out to be there in the finale, only for my leader not to even need me; the days away from my wife, the time away from my family, and the life I’d had to live to be a professional cyclist. It would have made sense of a long career of servitude, because it would have been mine, my personal triumph. It would have been one photograph I could put in a frame: me crossing the line a winner; cycling’s gift back to me. But it didn’t happen. At that moment, as I sobbed into my hands and the tears mixed into the sweat and filth of the dirty roads that covered my face, I knew the truth about professional cycling: it’s no fucking fairytale.