INTERVIEW: LILIAN CALMEJANE
When the Tour de France arrives in Albi for the first of three days this July, one rider will know the area better than anyone else: Lilian Calmejane. The French former Tour stage winner tells Procycling what it’ll be like to have the world’s biggest bike
Total Direct Energie’s French baroudeur is a modern rider with an old-school style
From Lilian Calmejane’s home you can see the walls of la Cathédrale Sainte Cécile, the world’s largest brick built cathedral and Albi’s focal monument. Dating back to the 13th century, this is Albi’s epicentre; the town was quite literally built around its walls and sprawls out from its 800-year old foundations. The cathedral is more regularly mistaken for a medieval castle than a holy site – the tall, narrow columns that decorate its 113-metre long sides could easily pass as turrets, with the River Tarn flowing below the castle’s moat. On 15 July, the Tour de France will finish here, under the cathedral’s looming shadow, not far from the home of Albi’s most famous cycling resident.
Though Albi has hosted the Tour 13 times previously, this year it welcomes the race for its longest stint of three days – a stage finish, rest day and stage start. While Laurent Jalabert was from Mazamet, also in the Tarn département about an hour’s drive down the road, the town is more rugby than cycling mad, meaning 26year-old Calmejane is the only current professional cyclist born here and the only one living here. “For me, it’s exceptional,” Calmejane tells Procycling, about the impending arrival of the world’s biggest bike race. “Three days like this, one day of rest there. I can go to my house, take a break in my swimming pool.
“My parents live just five kilometres from my house, the house that I grew up in, then my brother has lived in Paris for 10 years, but he comes back often. I have lots of family near Avignon in Provence, so it is a region that I like a lot, also. But when I came back to buy a house - I did my
first year as a pro in Vendée so spent three years in Vendée – I said at the beginning, ‘Oh yeah, maybe Provence as the weather is very, very good,’ and I went there but the mountains are not the same. The southwest of France is my region.”
Calmejane quickly cemented himself as a favourite among home fans, despite only turning professional in 2016. This summer will already be his third Tour start. By his own admission he’s not the best climber, he’s not the best puncheur and he’s not the best sprinter, but he is unpredictable and aggressive, and for the French public who idolise heroes of cycling’s past like Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil, that counts for a lot. France might have Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot challenging for the overall race win, but the true spirit of the Tour for French fans is encapsulated in riders like Calmejane. It also helps that he rides for a team that’s thoroughly French, in Total Direct Energie.
It was using this classically baroudeur style that Calmejane won stage 8 of the Tour in 2017, on his debut in the race.
On a blisteringly fast day in the Jura mountains, Calmejane attacked from the breakaway to ride off solo, even surviving a last-minute case of agonising cramp to win over half a minute clear of the chase.
“I have to be aggressive and take risks. I like to go on the front, I always have this in my mind. And I like to do something that’s unexpected for the team. Sometimes it works, sometimes no, many times no, but when it works it’s something that other people remind me of after the win. They don’t forget the win because it’s special. For example, at the Tour de France, the cramps were quite unexpected and crazy, but to win with panache, it’s very, very good.”
It’s no surprise that when Calmejane cramped his way into the public’s attention with that Tour stage win, comparisons with another darling of the French public were quickly drawn: Thomas Voeckler. It’s easy to see why. Both are rogue attackers. Both like the element of surprise. Both like to win in style and create a show. Both rode for the same team. Even the way Calmejane stuck his tongue out as he struggled during those painful final few kilometres was reminiscent of Voeckler’s signature facial expressions.
“I know Thomas very well and he gave me lots of advice at the beginning of my career,” says Calmejane. “I think a rider like Thomas Voeckler is too specific. His career, his behaviour, his face on the bike, you cannot be the same, it’s impossible. The comparison is not good for me but it’s...a pleasure; it’s something good, it’s a compliment. But you cannot be the same. The mystique of racing, to be aggressive on the bike, to do breakaways, to win, to be allowed to dream to win a big race without the big ,big potential of other riders, only in this way we are a bit similar.”
Although Calmejane may have all the traits of a classic, old-school French rider, he’s very much the modern day pro. For a start, he speaks English, which is relatively unusual for a French rider on a French team. Of course, learning English is not the sign of being ‘modern’, but English has become increasingly accepted as the language of the peloton since the turn of the millennium, when the likes of Lance Armstrong started the major internationalisation of the sport. Most cycling teams are now made up of riders and staff from so many different nations that English is their language of choice by default. The French and Italian teams, still largely made up of French and Italian riders, tend to be the exceptions.
Calmejane’s English education came during a three-month internship that saw him move to Nottingham while he was studying for his business degree. He lived in a house with other interns from all over the world and immersed himself in the local British culture; travelling by bus, going to the pub, even getting stuck into the British time trialling scene by testing himself at the local ‘10’ time trial meet.
“It’s not a big city, it’s not a capital, it’s not Paris or London. I was just living in the neighbourhood in a house with the other interns, so when I took the bus, when I went on the street, when we went to drink a beer or something, it was more openminded and mixed up more than in
France,” he says.“To be with other young people like me, nationalities, we enjoyed life a lot because we never stayed at home. We were always in the city.”
Like most 21st century riders, and anyone born after 1990, Calmejane is a regular on social media. In between the standard team-approved retweets, sponsor friendly posts, race shots and training photos, he tries to show off some of his personality and his life off the bike. And so there are photos of him and his girlfriend on holiday, suggestions for new wines he’s discovered and pictures of his new puppy. It’s just enough of a behindthe-scenes glimpse into Calmejane’s life away from cycling to interest fans.
But that’s not to say Calmejane is a digital Stepford cyclist, showcasing a picture-perfect life. He’s not afraid to use his public platform to speak his mind and voice his opinion on subjects, even when they stray into controversial territory. At the start of this season he tweeted his praise to UCI President David Lappartient for announcing a ban on the painkiller tramadol in the peloton. He showed his support for compatriot Nacer Bouhanni, after rumours swirled the sprinter was arguing with his Cofidis sports director at last year’s Vuelta. And before the Tour de France last year he called on Chris Froome, then under the cloud of a WADA investigation for elevated levels of salbutamol, to show more transparency and release his training data after criticism intensified when he won the Giro d’Italia with his last gasp attack on the Finestre.
Perhaps Calmejane’s confidence and self-belief in speaking up comes from the fact that he came into professional cycling later than most. He was 23 when he signed for Total Direct Energie, after a year racing for Vendée U, the U23 feeder team also run by the ProConti team’s boss Jean-René Bernaudeau. He was clear, too, that he wanted to finish his degree before he focused on cycling. The life experience he has outside the sport is something not many pros, who go straight from adolescence into the cycling system, get the chance to enjoy until later in life.
“I think it is a good thing when you turn professional. It is a job, it’s not just fun, all the atmosphere around the peloton means it’s more like work. You have to be well prepared for all this kind of thing, so I think to be a little bit more mature is not a bad thing. Physically, also, it is better because you do not do lots more races – you do 80 races each year – but the races are longer, different, so to be a little bit more prepared is a good thing,” he explains.
“You adapt quicker, and when you adapt quicker you don’t waste your time. In two years I got good stages [wins], all this kind of thing around the stages – a good salary, a good position in the team, lots of confidence in me from my team.”
Albi is deep in France’s hilly southwest, surrounded by the small mountains that helped shape Calmejane when he was growing up and just riding his bike for fun. Stage 10 of the Tour travels there from Saint-Flour in the northeast, and though it takes in plenty of the region’s rolling hills along the way, the flat finish in the town centre points towards a sprint finish. If splits occur, you’ll be sure to see Calmejane right at the front of them. Yet, whether he wins another Tour stage or not, Calmejane doesn’t mind.
“I am the first rider from Albi to win a stage in the Tour de France, so there are good vibes for cycling here,” he says. “To have the Tour de France for three days in my city is just exceptional.”
“I am the first rider from Albi to win a stage in the Tour de France, so there are good vibes for cycling here. To have the Tour de France for three days in my city is just exceptional”