The making of a Tour star
It all began in a little bike shop in Golden Bay. Carolyn Bauer would make the 18-minute drive from the family home in Parapara to get groceries at a supermarket in Takaka, the largest township in the area, and her son Jack would shoot across the road to The Quiet Revolution Cycle Shop.
He would read through all the mountainbiking magazines and would beg the owner for copies. But he could not afford to buy anything of significance. In fact, it was a rare occasion when he had actually saved up enough pocket money to make a ‘‘small purchase’’ like a drink bottle or new helmet.
‘‘That’s where the dream began for sure,’’ said Bauer, on the final rest day of the Tour de France.
‘‘Back in the day, all I knew of cycling was once a year that Lance Armstrong would appear on TV in July, dominating the Tour de France. Aside from that it was just mountainbiking, mountainbiking, The Quiet Revolution Cycle Shop in Takaka and the Rainbow Rage.’’
The owner of the store, Martin Langley, said Bauer was an extremely enthusiastic child. He recalled him riding a patched up Milazo Crazy Horse and said Bauer would ‘‘poke around’’ the shop, situated on Takaka’s main strip, seeing if he could find a little axel or some other part that could improve his ride.
‘‘He always wanted to know how to do stuff, how to fix stuff, what would work, what wouldn’t work and how he could basically string things together on as tight a budget as he had,’’ Langley said.
‘‘As soon as he got on to some decent wheels he was away and there was no stopping him.’’
Living next door in Parapara, Langley always took an interest in Bauer’s career and said the first sign of his potential came in 2007 when he beat world multisport champion Nathan Fa’avae to win the Rainbow Rage, the 106km mountainbike race from St Arnaud to Hanmer. He was 21.
‘‘Right in the thick of it there were 1000 people and Jack turned up and cleaned everyone up. I thought ‘wow’.’’
Although trips back home are less frequent now that he’s a professional rider, Langley said Bauer always swings by the shop to say gidday when he’s in Golden Bay, and on his last visit he even dropped off a signed jersey, which is now proudly on display on the wall for all of the customers to see.
‘‘Most of the others are crazy downhillers from various parts of Europe so it’s nice to have one of the local boy’s jerseys,’’ Langley said.
Bauer was a late arrival on the road cycling scene, after concentrating on mountainbiking in his younger years. He would make jumps with his brother Josh during the summer months and they even dared each other to ride off the roof.
‘‘I decided when I was 12 or 13 I was going to be a professional mountainbike rider. The Olympics was the end goal and I was pretty decided on that. I didn’t ride a road bike at all,’’ Bauer said.
"It was a big part of our lives and like everything I put my hand to I wanted to take it to the next level, which for me was the world championships in 2006.’’
Bauer made it to the world championships, riding in the under-23 category, but he decided to call it quits, believing there would be little to no chance to make a living from it.
That decision was based on how few riders were actually able to turn pro, although Langley always thought Bauer was a bit too tall and lanky for mountainbiking anyway.
‘‘To see the likes of Sam Gaze and Anton Cooper coming out of Christchurch and Rotorua and riding professionally as mountainbikers and being at the top of the game is something incredible to see but for me back then I decided I was going to hang up the bike, I was going to finish my degree down in Otago and I was going to be a rock star.’’
Bauer played bass in a rock band called Dream Farm after graduating. They played various gigs around the South Island but never reached stardom like he had intended.
In order to maintain his fitness he worked as a bike courier and joined the Tasman Wheelers, the local road cycling club in Nelson, which is where he first met George Bennett, another Kiwi to race at the Tour de France this year.
‘‘The Tasman Wheelers had a nice little competitive team going on,’’ said Bauer, who rode under the guidance of former Olympic Games road cyclist Robin Reid.
‘‘That’s where I cut my teeth and started to learn the game a little bit. It’s a far cry from where George and I are now, lining up together in the Tour de France. It is pretty crazy to look back and think that we both hail from Tasman but I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve made it this far in the sport.’’
Dream Farm broke up in February, 2009, which enabled Bauer to put all his energy into road cycling. He bought a one-way ticket to Belgium and hasn’t looked back.
‘‘From that date in 2009 I’ve spent very little time New Zealand; my life whole life has been over here in Europe,’’ he said.
Now 32 and riding in his fourth Tour de France, Bauer described the event as a ‘‘beast of a race’’.
Although the champagne has been flowing this year, revelling in Quick Step’s success with German sprint star Marcel Kittel winning five stages, Bauer has experienced his fair share of heartbreak in previous campaigns.
On stage 15 in 2014 he fell just metres short of becoming the first Kiwi to win an individual stage, cruelly swept up by the peloton with the finish line in sight. He had spent 222 gruelling kilometres in a two-man breakaway and was reduced to tears as the historic achievement was taken from him at the death.
Then there’s the broken femur in 2015.
Bauer’s parents, Hans and Carolyn, who home-schooled him and his three siblings, didn’t make the trip to the Tour de France this year. They’re waiting for his wedding in September before they head to Europe again.
But it was tough viewing when they did attend the Tour, watching on in horror as Bauer suffered the worst crash of his career.
‘‘It was hard as parents to see your child on the ground,’’ said Hans, who prefers watching replays on TV now, once he knows his son is safe.
‘‘We asked him after the big accident two years ago; do you still want to carry on? He said ‘well, that’s my passion’. It was incredible to come back from an injury like that. For a lot of people it’s the end of their career.’’
But this year’s Tour has Bauer buzzing. He’s thriving in his role as a lead-out rider for Quick-Step Floors where providing a platform for Kittel is the team’s sole gameplan. And although Kittel was forced to withdraw from the race after crashing on stage 17, he still has more stage wins than other rider.
‘‘I don’t think I’ll ever experience anything like this in my career ever again.’’
Lucky the music career didn’t work out.