Rookie Canadian savoring Tour
PAU, France — If there was a smiley-face jersey for the happiest rider at the Tour de France, Michael Woods would be in the running for it this year.
A rookie at cycling’s most famous race at an unusually ripe age — 32 — and with an interesting story as a former track athlete who switched late to professional cycling, the EF Education First team member knows his first Tour might also be his last.
“I’m really savoring every moment,” said Woods, one of just two Canadians in this year’s race. “Mentally, that’s a really powerful tool against my competition, but it’s also making me just a really happy person.”
If this does prove to be a unique experience, Woods has banked memories for a lifetime. Many are good, though not all of them. After the thrill in the first week of ranking in the top 10 and being among big names fighting for the Tour title, Woods crashed during Stage 8 and tumbled down the standings.
Even then, with his chin bloodied, his shorts torn and his mood “upset and disappointed,” Woods said he still caught himself smiling as he rode in more than 14 minutes behind the stage winner in Saint-Étienne, awed by the spectacle of the race and its joyous roadside crowds.
“Honestly, every day has been this, like, exceptional experience,” he said.
Woods’ promising running career — he ran the mile in less than four minutes as a teen — was derailed by injury, forcing a late conversion in his mid-20s to bike racing. He first caught the eye of Jonathan Vaughters, now his team boss, when he posted a record-breaking time in training up a climb in Hawaii, on a trip during which Woods also proposed to his wife, Elly.
“I thought, ‘Whoa, OK, this guy’s got an engine,’” Vaughters said.
Hiring a rider starting so late was a risk, though, because “many of the hardwired neurological skills that you need to be a bike racer, for maneuvering in the peloton and for going around corners fast, those are really hard to learn when you are past 16, 17 years old,” Vaughters explained.
As well as crashing on Stage 8, Woods also hit the deck on Stage 11, breaking two ribs when another racer slammed into him from behind. He soldiered on, looking forward the Pyrenees and the Alps that feature the mountain climbs on which he is strongest.
He finished 85th in Saturday’s Stage 14, 20 minutes behind winner Thibaut Pinot. Woods is now 54th overall, 56 minutes, 8 seconds behind leader Julian Alaphilippe.
“He would have fewer bandages on him had he learned how to race when he was 15 years old as opposed to 25 years old,” Vaughters said. “It was a little bit scary for us to put him into the Tour de France, but he certainly had earned his shot.”
Although new to the Tour, Woods is no cycling rookie, having ridden in cycling’s other two Grand Tours in Italy and Spain and having won a bronze medal in road racing at last year’s world championships. His preparations for the step up to the added intensity of the Tour included an offseason with a coach who specializes in helping riders improve their handling of high-speed descents, though Woods joked he never would “be able to do a one-handed wheelie while, you know, waving to a crowd.”
Still, he sees the upside of his situation.
“I’m really lucky to be doing it at this age, because I’m not taking it for granted,” he says. “It’s a far more advantageous position to be in, mainly because I think I’m enjoying it more.”