TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS
Manzana Postobón was one of only four teams to inish the Vuelta a España with all nine riders, despite it being their debut in the race. Procycling followed the Colombian team as the riders experienced a baptism of ire on the biggest stage
Manzana Postobón’s riders are quiet on the drive to the start of stage 9 of the Vuelta a España in Orihuela. Ricardo Vilela looks intently at a printout of the stage profile, tracing it with his right index finger. Hernando Bohórquez, Bernardo Suaza, Sebastián Molano and Fernando Orejuela sit in the lounge area of the bus, concentrating on their phones. The silence among the riders makes the constant squeaks generated by every cabinet and seat in the bus that much louder. The bus originally belonged to Team CSC years ago and was retired from use by them before Carlos Sastre had even won the 2008 Tour de France. Since then the bus has been used by several Italian squads and Team Colombia. Manzana Postobón is renting it for the duration of the Vuelta.
Locating a bus, cars and the necessary staff to take on a grand tour is a huge task for this Colombian team, which turned ProConti at the start of the year. Even details like getting the necessary amount of bidons made for the Vuelta was difficult. It’s something fans fail to understand when they approach the team cars and soigneurs asking for a free souvenir.
As the bus squeaks its way to Orihuela, a small Škoda sedan changes lanes abruptly up ahead. The driver hits the brakes suddenly, while jerking the steering wheel to the left. Two riders slide on the leather seats and nearly fall to the floor. A roar of laughter erupts as Bernardo Suaza jokes, “Damn, this guy is driving like we’re livestock back here! Hey, watch it man! We’re not pigs on the back of a truck!”
The team’s riders are suddenly relaxed and start joking around. Almost on cue, one starts to play music through his phone. It’s reggaeton, and a few quietly mumble the song’s lyrics to themselves with broad smiles. Soon, another phone starts playing a competing song. Jetse Bol, the team’s lone Dutch rider smiles, and comments that he doesn’t understand why playing only one song at a time is not an option. It’s clear that one week into their first grand tour there’s still a degree of nervous energy among the team.
Locating a bus, cars and the necessary staff to take on a grand tour is a huge task for this team
Most of the riders have never raced longer than 10 days. The Vuelta is an unknown quantity for them
And yet they’ve performed as they intended to. Manzana are the smallest team in the race but they’ve managed to be a part of almost every breakaway. Bol was a virtual leader during one stage and remains in the top 20 at this point in the race ahead of some impressive names. He’ll finish in Madrid with three stage top 10s. These may be modest accomplishments but are in keeping with the team’s expectations and what they can realistically accomplish racing at this higher level.
This duality, one wavering between quiet contemplation and jovial expressiveness, defines much of the team’s character throughout the race behind the scenes. But even in those moments when their youth shows, it’s clear that they are far from the wide-eyed Colombians who first came to Europe to race in years gone by. Gone are the days when Café de Colombia riders sought out autographs from their cycling heroes at
the start of the Tour de France, an incident that prompted then-team leader José Patrocinio Jiménez to scold one team-mate telling him, “Don’t be an asshole— they’re no different from us.”
This is a different time, and a different team. Manzana Postobón has raced and won internationally before. A sports psychologist works with the riders to prepare them for these types of challenges and the team’s staff and logistics run smoothly, due in great part to their goal of taking on at least two significant European racing blocks every year. Still, most of the team’s riders have never done a race longer than 10 days. Certainly not against the types of riders they are competing against here. A race like the Vuelta is an unknown quantity for them.
After stage 9, at the dinner table riders commiserate as they devour slabs
of chicken. Team Sky’s control of the race is absolute, and they take turns sharing power numbers and anecdotes with one another to prove their points. One rider explains that he had to hold a certain power for an amazing length of time to merely hang to the back of the bunch, all while a single Sky rider set a furious tempo for what seemed like an eternity. He shakes his head, looks at his team-mates and adds, “You know that tomorrow Contador will attack. It will all blow up again”. There’s a pause and then several riders stretch, stand up and file back to their rooms. They can be heard laughing and joking all the way down the hall, a sign that while their bodies are close to the limit, their spirits remain untouched. Almost a caricature of the joyous spirit that many attribute to Colombians.
LUIS HERRERA WAS a 23-year-old amateur when he won stage 17 of the 1984 Tour de France. His victory salute atop Alpe d’Huez was awkwardly brief, characteristic of a man who would later admit to being “unable to express emotion”. Miniscule as it was, Herrera’s celebration proved to have a significant and lasting effect, since it marked the beginning of Colombia’s first golden age in the sport, one marked by sizable victories and a stubborn emphasis on climbing, which gave these riders an alluring sense of martyrdom.
As cycling’s popularity grew in Colombia, the private sector saw the obvious marketing potential in sponsoring teams. Varta, a battery company, was first followed by Postobón, and later Pony Malta. Colombian teams became regulars in major European races. The rise of Colombian cycling happened quickly, making it that much more memorable.
However, at the 1992 Tour de France the lone remaining Colombian team in Europe, Ryalcao-Postobón (also called Manzana Postobón and Postobón-Ryalcao during different seasons), had a dismal showing. No stage wins, no jerseys, and no visibility to speak of. In fact, only four of the team’s riders finished the race. The best placed among them was Gerardo Moncada in 54th place. It was an astonishing change from the 1987 Vuelta when 10 out of the top 25 riders had been Colombian, including Herrera in first overall. At that disappointing Tour, Raul Meza, Ryalcao-Postobón’s director, began to cry as his team car entered the ChampsÉlysées. Once the stage ended, he refused to leave the car.
It would be the last time the RyalcaoPostobón team, or any Colombian team for that matter, was invited to the Tour. They quietly retreated back home.
As amazing and unexpected as Colombia’s rise and fall within the sport in the 1980s was, there’s little doubt that today’s generation of escarabajos has actually achieved far more than that generation. Colombia has produced an astonishing amount of talent recently. Interestingly, many of those riders, such as Nairo Quintana, Esteban Chaves, Jarlinson Pantano, Darwin Atapuma and Sergio Henao, all came from a single source. They were first spotted and subsequently developed by one team: Colombia es Pasion, which would become Manzana Postobón. It was with this team that Chaves and Quintana won the Tour de l’Avenir, while Pantano took the polka dot jersey.
Founded in 2006, the team has operated under different names at both amateur and Continental levels. During that time their obvious ability to spot and develop talent prompted Manzana, Colombia’s biggest soft drink maker, to once again sponsor a cycling team. It was an important and significant cultural shift in a country that has been focused on football for the last two decades, companies like Postobón included. And while little connection exists between this iteration of Manzana
They sought to be protagonists in the race, to be visible, to learn, and to give everything they had
Postobón and the one that marked the end of an era in 1992 other than its sponsor, it’s hard not to see some symbolic importance in a Colombian team racing a grand tour with that name on their jersey.
But much has changed since the days when an unknown Colombian amateur like Herrera could unexpectedly win a prestigious stage at the Tour de France. Today, amateur talent is spotted and signed early by prominent teams. If that weren’t the case, Manzana Postobón would have had Quintana, Chaves, Pantano, Henao and Atapuma on their roster at the Vuelta. The racing has changed as well, with dominant teams exerting great control over races.
Manzana Postobón’s riders and staff knew this going into the Vuelta. They would be up against the best in the sport, including some of the very riders they had cultivated earlier. With that in mind, they managed expectations ahead of the race, particularly with their sponsor and the Colombian media. They admitted that they merely sought to be protagonists, to be visible, to learn, and to give everything they had. A stage win was unlikely, they said. But even with all this in mind, there’s little that they could have done to prepare for a race that unfolded as this year’s Vuelta did, with Sky and Chris Froome controlling the race so tightly. Seeing how Manzana’s riders and staff took to the Vuelta first-hand was illuminating in terms of their spirit, but also thinking about the state of cycling as a whole.
A FEW DAYS AFTER stage nine, in the lobby of a nondescript hotel in Puerto Lumbreras, Manzana Postobón’s two directors - Luis Saldarriaga and Óscar Vargas - along with general manager Luisa Rios are deep in conversation. As one speaks and gestures, the others nod and agree. They’re discussing a strategy for the next day’s
stage to Calar Alto. It’s been decided that the team will go all-in. They are willing to risk time losses in order to make something happen. Multiple riders in the break? Stay with the favourites to the end? Battle for a stage? They’ve already decided what the goal is before walking into the lobby. While it’s clear that this is a tactical decision in the sporting sense, it’s also an emotional one in the name of marketing and branding. If they are going out, they plan to do so in a blaze of glory. And they want it known that they are here to fight.
However, when the following day’s stage comes the team’s efforts are hardly visible. The team are not present in the day’s 14-rider breakaway, and with another summit finish on offer it was clear the day was going to be one duked out by the general classification riders. The pace was so high that even potentially selfdestructive plans the team might have had are almost impossible. No long heroic breakaway, no battle for a stage win. The day is a blur, as fellow Colombian Miguel Ángel López takes the win.
At the finish line at the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, 2,2120 metres above sea level, Manzana Postobón’s soigneurs distribute jackets and gloves to riders who still have a bit of riding to do before they reach the team bus.
Trek-Segafredo’s Pantano crosses the line, and heads directly toward them. The 28-year-old has been spending time in their team bus at the start of every stage, drinking his pre-race coffee there while downing several bocadillos (a Colombian snack made out of guava paste) with the young riders. Exhausted but in good spirits, Pantano gives them all pats on the back and jokingly, mocking the tone of an elderly know-itall, reminds them, “Remember to drink some water and get on with your recovery kids… this is a long race!” They all laugh, and ride off to their team bus, knowing that the Vuelta is indeed a long race. And so is the learning process of racing at this level. But they remain upbeat, and eager to fight to the end.
In the end, all of the team’s nine riders will make it to Madrid. It’s a substantial accomplishment considering that Dimension Data will only manage to have three riders finish the Vuelta, while Ag2r-La Mondiale will have four. Manzana Postobón, both riders and staff, go into Madrid with their chins up. It’s a big contrast to the last time a Colombian team sponsored by this soft drink company competed in a grand tour.
This, they hope, is not the end of anything, but simply the start of yet another chapter in Colombian cycling. And if their track record is any indication, they are probably right.