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For me, if I’m not with Sean, parking is a nightmare because no one is willing to help and I don’t have ‘the gift’, as my friend calls it. And if we happen to be in a medieval hilltop village, the roads and gradients are difficult to negotiate. If there’s one smell that defines the Tour de France for me, it’s the acrid reek of a burning clutch as underpowered hire cars are forced up gradients of 20%. But Sean has an amazing knack of finding little side streets where we’re not too far away but can still make a speedy escape ahead of the huge caravan that is the Tour de France. Sometimes he’ll drop me off while he parks up and will come up to me later, immensely proud of the prime spot he’s found. ‘I’ve found a great place. Fantastic place. We’ll be out of here in no time.’ And he’s usually right.

  ‘This climb is like a slap in the face with a wet kipper.’

  The Publicity Caravan

  You’re new to the game. You’ve graduated from clown work entertaining kids at the burger bar and now you’ve landed the big one: your pass says Publicity Caravan, and that gives you a special place in the race. You will be first along the day’s route, first to get away once the course clears of riders – and the last to arrive at your destination. Why? Because you are to drive one of the most unwieldy vehicles ever allowed on to public roads.

  You have just been handed the keys to an open-topped VW Beetle that has been transformed, by a skilled fabricator, into what now resembles powered castors beneath a plastic log cabin 6m (20ft) high, from which a honey bear 3m (10ft) tall is leaning out of a window giving his famous (in France) winky, grinny, thumbs-up salute. Something he has been doing since a so-called design guru dropped the 72-year-old bee logo of this famous honey brand in favour of this ‘Awesome Orson’ back in 1983. It’s now your job to drive this monstrosity on an extremely hazardous three-week journey all over France, while battling wind and rain, mountain roads and country lanes, motorways and city centres. Progress will be slow. Very slow. However, despite journeys that are sometimes six hours long, you will smile all the time. It’s in the contract.

  Welcome to the world of Grand Tour Publicity, the commercial circus that pays the bills and causes grown men and old ladies alike to fight small children in order to grab the most modest of freebies hurled from some of the very odd-looking vehicles that pass by the massed ranks of cycling fans and confused tourists at the roadside on each stage of every day of the tour.

  Every Grand Tour has a publicity caravan. These are the engine room of the sponsors’ summertime promotional push to the masses that gather, sometimes 20 deep, along the roadside of the biggest annual open-access sporting events on the planet. The public loves the publicity caravan. Those working on the race, not so much. And if you feel sorry for those driving these glass-fibre behemoths, then spare a thought for those of us stuck behind the damn things. They are a bloody nuisance, particularly when trying to get around them on a mountain pass. I hate Awesome Orson and his brothers in plastic arms.

  Due to safety reasons, the publicity caravan makes rather modest progress along the road. These unwieldy floats are regarded as dangerous at more than 65km/h (40mph). So, in deference to the poor sods who have to drive them for near inhuman lengths of time, there is a vogue among race organisers to let the caravan set off ahead of the press corps at the end of each day’s stage. This is not appreciated by those wishing to get in some solid wine time after a hard day’s broadcasting. So whine time it is, then; particularly if we happen to be going up a mountain road, where overtaking opportunities are few and far between.

  Many risks have been taken as Kelly goes for it on a slightly straight bit of road, only to be faced by an oncoming car that means we have to force our way into a modest gap between the Haribo Kid and a giant leg of ham. Having been forced to back off, the driver of the leg of ham now goes for the familiar salute – a blast from the horn – only to realise he’s forgotten that it’s been rewired, and now fires a plinkety-plonkety theme tune, accompanied by a song blaring from those ‘The circus is coming to town’ speakers:

  Jam-bon, jam-bon, s’il vous plaît, Ma-man,

  Ma-man, Ma-man, s’il vous plaît jam-bon.

  All this while showing us the internationally recognised sign ‘You’re Number 1’ . . . well, it was just the one finger; I’m sure that’s what he meant. Though he wasn’t smiling.

  One of the saddest sights I think I’ve ever seen was a clearly demotivated teenager in a thick velour banana outfit staring forlornly at the ground as his ‘boss’, no more than a couple of years older, was busy giving him a pep talk before he began his gig at the finish line: ‘Alfonse, you have to feel it! You have to want it! That’s your public out there . . . and we are going to give them what they want. That’s you and your gifts! Come on, they will love you. So let’s feel the love. Take control of the moment. Throw those banana candies high and proud! Feed them! Honour them! OK?’

  Alfonse said nothing. It was 36°C (97°F) and he was clearly suffering. An hour later, I noticed a big yellow banana was being stretchered off course. Heatstroke, I believe.

  ‘It’s déjà vu all over again.’

  4

  Security, Good and Bad

  10 a.m. The Tour de France TV compound, Bergerac, France.

  It’s around two hours before we go on air. We have arrived and parked the car in what Sean Kelly describes as ‘A prime bit o’ real estate’. This means we will get away quickly later. I retrieve my bag from the back of the car without disturbing Sean’s underwear, which he has hung up to dry in the day’s heat. People always wonder why our car is usually steamed up. I saunter up to a man who looks like he could have arrived by parachute. He is dressed in near fatigues and wired for sound and armed with several devices of varying degrees of lethality. He is demonstrably well conditioned and looks like his spit may contain nails.

  Me: ‘Bonjour, Monsieur, est-ce la zone de presse ici?’

  CRS officer: Silence

  Me, again: ‘S’il vous plaît monsieur, est qu’il—’

  CRS officer: ‘Allez!’

  This conversation was now over. It was also probably the best outcome you can get when interacting with a member of France’s riot police, the CRS. Simply being told to go away was a bonus. Communication is apparently something these guys reserve only for themselves. They live in compounds with well-equipped gymnasia and shooting ranges. They are a breed apart. Welcome to the fittest and meanest division in the hierarchy of the French police.

  At the bottom of the pecking order of Les Flics, you find your local police; often chubby and driving tatty Renault Clios. Like all police here, they are armed, but in their case their weapons probably get drawn only for compulsory practice.

  As you rise up the pecking order, you go through the regional police, with slightly better cars as well as slightly better levels of intellect and fitness. Go higher and higher, and you will get to the Presidential Guard. Basically the equivalent of the SAS. Close to this pinnacle is a subdivision marked ‘Hard’ where you find a utility division called the CRS, Les Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, but otherwise known as Car Rempli des Singes (cart-load of monkeys). This is the Riot Squad.

  As you may have gathered, they are not necessarily here to serve the public: they are here to control the public. The clue’s in the name; their job is to police riots. And that means no small talk or indeed any talk at all – unless they are letting their fists do it. ‘Don’t mess with the CRS’, says the T-shirt.

  By and large, most people attached to the Tour de France are glad to have the CRS in the vicinity. Those who ignore them are in more trouble than they realise. Indeed, this trouble can come rather quickly and, be warned: you will bruise. The regular police can, to a certain degree, be messed with. You can ask a regular cop, ‘Why?’ and he may take the time to wearily explain his instructions. But with the CRS, you get just one chance. I took the order ‘Allez!’ with good grace and did indeed allez rather quickly. Others have, in the past, fared less well. The CRS can get a little, well, enthusi
astic. Like with Antler Man, for instance.

  Antler Man was a crazy American cycling fan who’d turn up on the Grand Tours wearing an American Football style helmet, sometimes with bison horns, ram horns or moose antlers attached to it. Known variously as the Raging Stag, Moose Man and Antler Man, his real name was Dore Holt and he was an aircraft mechanic from Seattle. He’d run ahead of the riders waving the Stars and Stripes with this ridiculous headgear on and he made a nuisance of himself because he couldn’t go as fast as the riders, even uphill. As he looked round, he’d come close to knocking off the riders with the horns sticking out of his helmet.

  My fellow Eurosport commentator Juan Antonio Flecha, who used to ride for Sky, told me of when he once snatched Antler Man’s flag off him in the middle of a race because the American was annoying him so much. He then rode with it for a hundred metres or so before chucking it to the side of the road. Later on in the day he saw him and apologised for taking the flag.

  ‘I don’t mind you taking the flag,’ Dore Holt said. ‘But you didn’t respect the flag. You threw the flag away.’

  Antler Man was a royal pain in the arse and I always made a point of ridiculing him in my commentary, so I hope I had something to do with his recent absence from major races. He was warned many times by the police, but he just wouldn’t keep away and continued appearing on mountain stages, getting in the way and coming close to poking various eyes out with his antlers – the eyes of riders, of spectators, and of the CRS.

  When the CRS have had enough of such miscreants, they often decide to throw them into the back of the van. Sometimes before they’ve remembered to open the doors. It’s a statement.

  We haven’t seen much of Antler Man in Europe in recent years, although I understand he still likes to ply his trade back in the US.

  ‘He was on the line but it was full of washing.’

  5

  The Five Lions

  While we are pondering the characters that surround the Grand Tours, it’s probably worth taking a moment to talk of the guys at the top of the game. They’re British, don’t you know!

  2018 was when the Three Lions of British cycling became Five. We had Cav, Wiggo and Froomie. And then Geraint Thomas produced a truly remarkable display of selfless dedication and opportunism to land the biggest prize in cycling. G went from super-domestique to King of the Hill in just 21 remarkable stages to win the Tour de France. Then La Vuelta beckoned. Simon Yates went for it, and became part of an historic record. I can’t stop saying it: Three Grand Tours with three different riders all from the same nation!? Likely as not, this will never be repeated. In cycling terms, it’s epic.

  As we well know, we find ourselves in the middle of a now well-established cycling era. It’s British, and our friends on the continent do not like this fact one little bit. Europeans began to wake up to the threat in the early 1990s. British track success was generating a little mild amusement at Eurosport’s hub in Paris, where Patrick Chasse, the then doyen of all things cycling on the channel, would pontificate: ‘Graeme Obree! With his washing machine bits and bobs. Formidable!’

  It was, of course, damning with faint praise. This mild mockery took another turn with the arrival of Chris Boardman, who began to smash records all over the place on the track and time trial bike. Chasse again: ‘He is a freaky one-off, on a spooky bike! Good luck to him.’ But he wasn’t a one-off, of course. This was the start of something very special in British cycling. There had been other greats in the past and, to be fair, why should continental cycling have feared a couple of Brits and their ‘funny machines’? Nonetheless, just to make sure these interlopers didn’t get above their station, rules were changed regarding machinery in the velodrome and on the courses. ‘Bicycles must look like bicycles’ was the UCI edict. If a bike did not fit to the strict parameters of what was defined as an acceptable competition bike, you could not ride it. The simple fact was that the geometry of the frame was to be the parameter. The new rules hobbled progress a little, but British success was no cheap firework display with a few pops and bangs in a remote car park. It was the start of a magnificent extravaganza, the like of which has not been seen in cycling. For a nation to come from the sidelines to become the reference point in terms of the entire approach to the sport was nothing short of seismic.

  Cycling was a sport that many thought would always belong to the Old World on the European mainland: France, Belgium and Italy, with Spain carrying some bragging rights as well. That’s the way it always was, and many of those nations wished it to be just so for ever. But change had come and now at the top of the hill, for the time being at least, sits Great Britain. For a time we were great at hitting and kicking balls of various shapes and sizes, and when we went racing it was with horses, boats or motors. But now we also happen to be very, very good at cycling. Something of a dynasty has been created.

  The last 10 years have seen a phenomenal rise in the prominence of British riders. This has in turn generated a huge following for cycling in the UK. TV audience figures have gone through the roof, particularly for the Grand Tours but also the Monuments (classics) and the great preparation races such as the Dauphiné or Tour de Romandie. As a result, participation has grown exponentially; people are getting on their bikes, huge numbers joining local clubs and taking part in sportives. The fan base is clearly visible at the roadside during races such as the Tour of Britain as well as the Tour de Yorkshire, newly elevated to a 2.HC event on the UCI Europe Tour. This after Yorkshire hosted the Grand Départ of the 2014 Tour de France with phenomenal success. Côte de Buttertubs may not have the resonance of Mont Ventoux or Alpe d’Huez, but it most certainly sits in a new crucible of great cycling venues.

  The Cambridge Dictionary defines crucible as ‘a place or situation in which different cultures or styles can mix together to produce something new and exciting’. That, my friends, is British cycling. Sorry, everybody else, it’s true.

  Over the years I’ve got to know our heroes to varying degrees. We are members of the same travelling circus, after all. I’ve seen them on and off air, before and after races, chatted, and even shared taxi rides. So I’ve been able to gain some insight into what makes them tick. Although I come from the position of a professional commentator, I am also a huge fan of all of them. I admire their achievements hugely and indeed often become highly emotional while calling the exploits and witnessing their triumphs as well as their failures.

  Our heroes have found success in most of the varying forms of racing, dependent on their body shapes, motivation, skills and character traits. Our five Lions are all very different but have each in their own way contributed immeasurably to the spectacular success of British cycling.

  Mark Cavendish

  Interviewer: ‘So, Mark, you have a problem: you have won a Harley Davidson! How are you going to split this with your HTC teammates?’

  Cav [beginning to grin broadly]: ‘Um.’ [Shrugs his shoulders.] ‘F--k ’em!’

  Mark Cavendish is a fast man oddity; slight of frame yet a sprinting machine, whose reaction time, tactics and phenomenal aero position helped him become World Champion and winner of the points jersey in all three Grand Tours. He’s obsessed with perfection and, as I write, he has 30 Tour de France stage victories to his name.

  In 2003, when Mark came over from the Isle of Man to join British Cycling in Manchester, he was seen as a bit of an enigma. On the one hand he was winning races on the track, but when the statisticians looked at his numbers, his lung capacity, power outputs and so on didn’t quite add up. The analysts said he fell short of what was required to be an elite rider. Put simply, at a height of 1.75m (5ft 9in), he was told he was not only too short but also too stocky to be a cyclist, especially if he was looking for a career on the road. Well, how wrong were they!

  Thank the Lord that Mark Cavendish has bags of self-belief. Mark simply redoubled his determination to prove the numbers men wrong. He still talks about making them eat their words. It’s an injustice that smoulders deep
inside the man. He refers to it occasionally in a valedictory kind of way.

  You see, Mark has proved that sprinting is not simply about power. He’s rewritten the profile on what makes a great sprinter. So let’s ponder why he is able to win so often with far more powerful guys around him.

  Firstly: aerodynamics. This plays a huge part. Mark is able to hunch over his bike in the most amazing aerodynamic position – one that isn’t matched by anybody other than the young Australian Caleb Ewan, who mirrors Cav by placing his chin almost touching the front wheel over the handlebars.

  Physically, Mark is far smaller than most of the sprinters around him, so he naturally faces far less wind resistance than his bigger opponents. This advantage is compounded by the fact that if Mark follows the big guys he gets a bigger assist than when they follow his wheel.

  Genetics also play a part. Tests have shown Cav to possess a fast twitch muscle response that is remarkably quick. This means the command from brain to body for action is exponentially quicker than that enjoyed by almost anybody else. His explosive response to a cerebral command is virtually unmatched.

  Mix these significant advantages with remarkable brainpower, bike-handling and his very personality, and you have a winning combination that has made him the most successful sprinter of a generation, maybe of all time.

  Usefully, Mark possesses a near photographic memory of every sprint finish he’s ever done. Whether it’s one from yesterday or 10 years ago, he will clinically dissect each one in such a way that he could write a chapter on every stage he’s ever contested, whether it ended in victory or defeat.

  That mental sharpness is something that he hones and develops through brain exercises and mental challenges. He’s a demon Rubik’s Cubist and uses what he calls a brain gym app to test and stretch himself. Clearly he likes his brain to be as fast as his legs. If he’s won, he will tell you exactly how he did it, who was doing what, where they were, what they were thinking, what wheel he chose and the point at which he decided to make his move.