The Grand Depart

17 MARCH 2013. THE GRAND DEPART.

Jean Bobet, brother of the great Louison (first to win three consecutive Tours), once remarked ‘One is not a real bike racer until one has pinned a number on’.

Alpe d’Huez, Champs-Elysees, Mont Ventoux. Names that strike fear and magic into the hearts of riders and racers all over the world. Most will never know what the Grand Depart feels like. Fewer still the sensation of a kiss on both cheeks by yellow clad girls, champagne, bouquets or stuffed lions.  

Bodle St. Green. A Village hall on a cold and drizzly Sunday morning. A trestle table festooned with lists of names beside numbers and pins. Tea and cakes served from a hatch in chipped cups and serviettes.

“Number 73 Mr. Deeble? I’ve been told to tell you there’s a jersey for you on the chair in the corner.” I’d forgotten about the jersey. Sign the list. Illuminous number. Team colours for the first time. Zipped up. Pinned on.

Outside the usually quiet country lane is bustling with lycra clad figures. The rumble and roar of carbon fibre machines and their men whirring into action, like great sleeping monsters awaking from hibernation. Men on rolling roads in the back of builders vans, sipping energy drinks. Shaven legs and wizard-like pointy helmets. The subtle scent of espresso coffee and anticipation.

I’ve christened by bike Giulia, after Fausto Coppi’s famous and controversial mistress. And a mistress to me she is. My machine is a Bianchi, the team Coppi raced for, and means ‘white’ in Italian. His mistress was nicknamed ‘The White Lady’ due to her appearing amid the peasant-lined steep slopes of the Tour in a gregarious white fur coat to the outrage of Italian society.      

I copy the others warming up, shuttling up and down in the area surrounding the normally sleepy white weatherboard village pub, beside the church and red telephone box. 11.13am I am to make my Grand Depart, not just in today’s time trial, but into the fully-fledged world of bicycle racing. I take my place in the starting queue.

Like so many who have come before me; Anquetil, Merckx, Bobet, Coppi, Simpson, Pantani, Armstrong, Wiggins, I’m sure none will ever forget their first countdown.

“30” calls a man in a high-visibility coat, clipboard and stopwatch in hand. I Clip in. Turn my pedals to ten and two. Check my gear. Don’t fall over at the start. Whatever you do, do not fall over at the start. Eyes fixed where the road falls away ahead of me. Visualising going over the edge, over the top. I glance at my arm where I’ve written in marker pen the distances to each turn.   

“15, ready?” I reach around to check my number. It’s there. It’s there.   

“5,4,3,2…” Eternity. No more sound, besides the steady thump of my heart, like a racehorse kicking against the traps. 

“1. Off you go, good luck.”

      The mind is subservient to the body. The tender orb that masquerades as master is no match for the will of flesh, blood and muscle. All the tension, the anxiety, the feverous churning over and over of what could go wrong are silenced by the inexorable desires of heart and lungs.

      There’s a strong and blustery south-south-easterly wind. I tuck in and imagine I’m riding in the slipstream of a rushing peloton. Elbows in. Knees grazing the cross bar. A light rain is falling. I’m racing. In pursuit of the man in front, waiting for the distant thunderous rumble of the machine behind.

First rise summitted, onto the first main drag. My slight, grimpeur figure lacks the raw power of the big men. The ones who turn great dinner-plate size gears like steam engines. The course has the famous ‘Agony Hill’ later on, this is where I’ll make up time. Be patient. Don’t waste my legs. My minute-man and team-mate appears, however not due to my catching him, but a broken jockey wheel. Black Aero-suit, bike and pointy hat, languishing in a hedgerow edging a ploughed field, looking like a crash-landed spaceman. I ask if he needs help. Despite the long painful hours of winter training, hundreds of miles in preparation for this moment, any cyclist worth his salt would stop to help a fellow racer ahead of his competitive ambitions. He waves me on.

      A rip and a roar and I’m passed at high speed. Patience Giulia. Patience. Left-turn and onto my favoured section. Steep hills give with one hand take with the other. They shelter you from the wind yet grow and grow as you reach the summit. Agony Hill. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, maybe the scientific mixture of tri-carbohydrate energy drink, coffee and Snickers bar, but the hill barely registers. Don’t blow up. But the agony never comes. I should have pushed harder. I make up some ground on the man in front, reeling him into touching distance by the turn home.

Back out onto the open road I try to stay in contact with him, but he steadily pulls away. The fastest decent is approaching. Chatter in the village hall before the race described a pair of potholes on a blind bend at the fastest point. Two trenches with a narrow bridge in between. Some say they didn’t risk it at full speed, some say it’s ‘pretty hairy’. There’s no question I’m going for it. It’s just you and me Giulia. Turning my biggest gear as I make the transition, still tucked I see the holes and punch through them, tightrope walking the precarious strip of tarmac at top-speed. I let out a little cowboy ‘high-ya’.

     Not far now. I wanted to hold off the man who would be winner and final starter until Three-Cups Corner, the top of the course and the final turn before the long drag home. He hasn’t passed yet. Head down. I’m thinking of my wife who is at the finish, not in yellow, but ready to kiss me nonetheless and how sweet it will feel. I’m riding towards her, as fast as I can.

Rumble and tear, I’m passed but some time later than I’d imagined, my time must be ok. Legs screaming, lungs burning, but it is a pleasurable feeling. One of rhythm and purpose. Poetic simplicity. No more holding back. Pull the plug and let it all out. Maybe it’s the lack of oxygen to the brain, maybe the morphine-like endorphins, but what cyclists refer to as la volupté, the ascent to a state of grace, of feeling light as air and strong as an ox, at one with the bike, the road, the universe, was tantalisingly close. I don’t think I drank of that nectar today, but I tasted it.

Chequered flag. My wife is at the line. She tells me now that I let out a roar as I crossed the line but I have no recollection whatsoever of this. I hang my head in relief, and reach around to feel for my number, it’s still there, it was there all along. I turn and meet my wife. She throws her arms around me and kisses my mud and oil splattered face.

Back at the village hall the riders have assembled around a slightly incongruous projector screen and exchange their numbers for a cup of tea and cake and watch the times come in. A couple of the star-riders give me a subtle acknowledging nod as I remove my shoes. ‘NO CLEATED SHOES IN THE HALL!’

I’ve come 29^th out of 80 starters, one minute behind our club’s fastest rider, and 20^th overall on the hill climb. I’m satisfied with my performance, but the racer in me already wants more. Tommy Simpson in his autobiography describes how as a racer even when he lost he was convinced he was the best rider on the course. Even if he pulled out and was swept up by the the Voiture Balai, the broom car at the back of the Tour de France caravan that collects up the broken and beaten souls for the ride of shame and immediate disqualification from the Tour, he was still convinced he was the best rider out there. I know how he feels.

The prizes are awarded to the winners to lacklustre applause, like a golf crowd obligingly acknowledging a double-bogey, hands otherwise occupied by slabs of cake. The biggest reception coming for Lillian and Sue, the bakers. The riders slowly disperse. My wife and I return to our van, load Giulia in the back as the rain starts to fall heavily. I think we’re the last to leave the village to sleep.

I am a bicycle racer.     

Trevor Deeble