So You Want to Ride a Sportif?
Paul Kimmage recalls his return to the Alps to take part in the Etape du Tour, where he raced against MAMILs, wannabes and an F1 champion
Paul Kimmage recalls his return to ride a stage of the Tour de France
ONE of the abiding memories of my life as a professional cyclist was a conversation with my team manager, Bernhard Thevenet, during the 1987 Tour de France. We were driving to the start of the 21st stage at Bourg D’Oisans, down the 21 hairpins from our hotel at L’Alpe d’Huez, when we noticed hordes of ambitious amateurs racing up the climb with stopwatches on.
“They’re timing themselves,” Thevenet observed. “They’re trying to measure themselves against what you did yesterday.”
It wasn’t rocket science to figure that there was serious loot to be made from accommodating these geeks, and six years later the Etape du Tour — cycling’s biggest sportif — was formed, offering aspiring pros and pot-bellied MAMILs the chance to ride a stage of the Tour on closed roads.
In July 2006, the chosen stage was a classic — 187km from Gap to L’Alpe d’Huez — and 7,548 riders had signed up for the ride. They had been training like demons, abstaining from sex and shaving their legs for months. Don’t ask what possessed me to join them. I had trained minimally, refused to shave my legs and had availed of sex at every opportunity.
Okay, so they had their caffeine gels and their power bars and their expensive carbon wheels, but I had pedigree. And if there was one thing these anoraks did not understand, it was that when God created bike riders, he created thoroughbreds and donkeys...
Monday, July 10 2006: EEEE-AWWWW.
Christ! Where to begin? The alarm sounds at 4.0 am; I fall out of bed and shovel a disgusting bowl of raspberry-jam-sweetened porridge down my neck. I remove my kit from my bag, apply some axle grease to my shorts and spend 15 minutes on the loo trying to shift last night’s foie gras. Unsuccessful. It is not a good start.
The start in Gap is a one-hour drive from my hotel. And complete bedlam. I abandon the car, strip by the side of the road and ride past the queueing coachloads ferrying riders to the town. I deposit a rucksack with some spare clothes at the baggage truck, find a shaded bush to urinate (yellow, reasonable flow) and follow the pink arrows (numbers 1-350) to my starting corral. I’m number 67, so I’m up front with the thoroughbreds.
Alain Prost, the former F1 World Champion, is escorted through the horde to the front row of the grid. I don’t recall losing to him in qualifying but decide not to object. He’s riding a Colnago, the Ferrari of racing bikes, and looks as fit as Floyd Landis. A few rows further back I spot the former Dutch professional Steven Rooks, who won the stage to L’Alpe d’Huez in 1988. He looks as fit now as he did back then. Don’t any of these guys work for a living?
There are ten minutes to the start and the tension is starting to build. A few guys have edged past me to steal a couple of lengths. Others are dancing and stretching limbs. The roof of my mouth is like a parched field. My bowels are starting to shift. I haven’t felt this many nerves since my first World Championship in 1983. And I’m the only guy at the front who hasn’t shaved his legs!
Bang! The start gun is fired. It’s 7.0am. Two twats collide and crash after 500 yards. Some other guy attacks and there’s already a split at the front. I notice Prost’s blue jersey ahead and sprint to close the gap. My legs are filling with toxins; my lungs are screaming for air; my inner voice is pounding me with abuse: ‘You fucking idiot! You haven’t done two kilometres and already you’re in oxygen debt!’
But there are things you don’t lose: the skill of moving your bike around a bunch packed like sardines; the nous to put yourself in a position to avoid the crashes. We reach Embrun after 39km and I’m starting to enjoy myself. The competitive juices are flowing and I’m holding my place with the big boys.
As we climb up through the town, I place a friendly arm around Prost and introduce myself. He looks worried. The crashes are obviously getting to him. He seems to be breathing heavier than me and is visibly under pressure. ‘N’est pas peur, mon petit,” I assure him. ‘You’re in good company here.”
What you do lose is the horseto power, the ability to shift gears when the going gets tough. I’m almost two stones heavier than I was when I first raced these roads in 1986 and I’m starting feel them now as we leave the village of Guillestre and head for the Col d’Izoard. At the foot of the climb, a 15km brute that rises over 6,000 feet, I calculate there are about 300 riders in front of me. But suddenly my legs are powerless and I’m going backwards.
I stop at the side of the road for a pee (orange, poor flow) and my bowels explode with a fart that almost shakes the valley. Considerably relieved, I remount and try to attack the gradient again but I’m belching like a trooper (that bloody porridge) and still going backwards.
A woman glides past before the village of Arvieux. (That may sound sexist but I’ve been cycling since the age of 11 and it’s never happened before.) I haven’t passed anyone since the bottom of the climb. It’s said that age waits for no man and I’m starting to believe it — I have just been caught and passed by a smooth-pedalling pensioner.
The summit finally comes and I begin the welcome ride to the feeding station at Briancon where a reporter from a local radio station requests an interview. At first, I think it’s because he has glanced at my race number and realised I’m an ex-pro but it’s soon pretty obvious that he thinks I’m a donkey.
“How have you found it so far?” he asks. “Tres, tres dur,” I reply. “Is this your first time to ride the Etape?”
“Yes,” I laugh. “And it’s definitely my last.”
It’s almost 30km from Briancon to the summit of the Col du Lauteret. I reward myself with a cold can of Coke and begin the long descent to Le Bourg d’Oisans with plans to call it a day. It’s been a long, hard day and my tank is almost empty. What’s to be gained by climbing Alpe d’Huez? It’s not as if I’ve anything to prove.
But the Alpe is the Mecca of cycling. And when I reach the final watering hole at the foot of the climb I am plagued by an inner voice: ‘You can’t climb off now!’ ‘Watch me.’ ‘You’re 13 kilometres from the finish! That’s an hour-and-a-half at worst.’ ‘Too bad.’ ‘What would your father say?’ ‘Umm . . . okay.’ I climb back on my bike and cover the first nine hairpins at a painfully slow crawl. It’s 37 degrees and I’m starting to hallucinate.
I spot a small patch of shade and decide to pull over — the first time I’ve ever stopped on a climb. There are exhausted bodies scattered everywhere.
I resume after a ten-minute break. I’m thirsty. The heat is stifling. I’m wondering how much more I can take before having a heart attack. And what my ‘colleagues’ in the press room would say. I push on for another five hairpins and rest again. The village of Huez is four kilometres from the summit. I take another quick breath and dig deep to the finish where a guy removes the timing chip on my ankle and another hands me a medal. These are the statistics of my ride: it has taken me 1 hour 57 minutes and 12 seconds to climb Alpe d’Huez and 8 hours, 52 minutes and 9 seconds to cover the 187km. I have finished 907 th in my category (40- to 49-yearolds) and set the 2,635th best time. Alain Prost and Steven Rooks have beaten me by almost two hours. The winner, 21-yearold Blaise Sonnery, was an hour quicker again. There was a time that would have bothered me, but not now.
A guy who has just finished is spilling his guts out on the pavement; others are being attached to rehydration drips in the medical tents. Their ambition was to ride a mountain stage of the Tour; they wanted to live the dream and experience how it feels. And now they know.