it’s over. There’s a belief in pro road racing that everybody at the pointy end of a mountain stage in a Grand Tour is three minutes from letting go. That’s how they get through, they hold on for these three minutes, then the next three, and the next, and the three after that, until they cross the finish line or they cross their physiological and/or mental thresholds.
Then, one by one, riders let go. That’s what they call it. They say, ‘I had to let go’ or ‘I blew’ – another cycling word. The stage is over for them now, and all they can hope for is to limit their time losses.
Sometimes they lose ground slowly, agonisingly. They drop to the back of a group then fight forwards, drop back, then forwards again, then back until this time there’s a gap to the back of the group, and it grows bigger. Limitations accepted, they join the group behind, promising to challenge later. It’s not all over, they think. They will come back, they think. They seldom do, not at this stage. Others fail in a worse way. They go into the red, a zone of effort the body can’t maintain. It goes into oxygen debt, a debt that can only be repaid by slowing down. And if they stay too long in the red, and some can because toughness is high up on a pro road racer’s job description, they slow down rapidly and irretrievably.
All the above has played out on this final climb. We are three kilometres from the summit now. The front group of five looks good. Behind them more flog past where I stand, some don’t look so good, but others have found something; they are chasing, eyes full of hope and fixed ahead. Ones, twos, little groups and bigger groups, pass until the last big one, known as the auto-bus.
That’s where the sprinters live on mountain stages, helping each other get through and beat the time limit. It’s not easy, because their physiques, so powerful and so fast on the flat, work against them here, but they push on, trying as hard as the climbers at the front but with less encouragement.
The wave of emotion rolling up the mountain peaks with the passing of the first riders, then slowly ebbs away as the others pass. The sprinters get respect, they certainly deserve it, polite applause and encouraging words mostly. There’s occasional abuse too, but even the front riders can get that. It comes from people who should know better, and some do, but alcohol has turned off their inhibitions. Considering the millions of people they pass, the riders don’t get abused so much.
Up front the battle is on, war is being waged. Two kilometres to go now, and four riders are chasing one who has launched a decisive attack. Attacks must be 100 per cent, especially at this point in a stage. The best road racers in the world are fighting for the biggest road racing prize. Attacks in this company at this point must stick. If they fail, the rest will blow right by and the attacker will lose time, and probably any chance of winning the Tour de France this year.
But this attack looks good. This rider is on top of his game, at full stretch but totally in control, making a superhuman effort he can keep all the way to the finish line. His legs are on fire, but his will to win overrides them. Total concentration, his pain-face some call it, not strained, just set: a steely glare ahead. One kilometre to go, keep it going, this is good; this will work.
Push, push. At this point a rider might feel everything around him starting to fade. His peripheral vision is slowly fading, even the colours he sees become muted. His muscles are demanding so much oxygen that his body sends everything to them. His eyes can wait; his legs, lungs and heart can’t. They must have oxygen now.
But there it is: the last corner, the final straight, the finish line. The noise is just as loud now as it was lower down, but crowds are corralled behind barriers for the final kilometres. Safety and space, the riders need both. He will win. The others aren’t far behind, but they aren’t closing, and they have started watching each other. They have lost time to one man, but can’t afford to lose to another.
The leader knows now; he punches the air, still low over his bike, still absolutely on it. Pushing as hard as he can, determined to gain every precious second he can. Attacks like this cannot be mounted every day, so he has to make it count.
At last the stage is his, and depending on how much his attack has gained, the Tour de France might be too. Across the line, under the banner; a salute, two hands off the handlebars, but only briefly – he’s given too much for joy to sustain him any longer. He falls into the arms of a team helper, a carer who has waited with colleagues from other teams, all looking for their man. They are the confessors of cycling, the first person a rider sees after a race, the person to whom they confide their unmitigated joy, or their disappointment, before they tone either down and put on a different face for the press and other team personnel.
That’s road racing at its highest level: a sensory feast; a battle, raw and beautiful. It can even be noble at times, but it’s always intensely human. This book tells its story, good and bad, from the first ever road race to road racing today, and seeks to explain its language and the way it works.
There’s debate about when the first ever bike race was held. Many quote a race in Parc St Cloud, Paris, on 31 May 1868. It was won by an Englishman, James Moore, but it was part of a series of races in the same park on the same day. The names of the other winners were lost, and only Moore’s survived.
It’s possible that other races pre-date the St Cloud meeting, although it can’t have been by much. The first bike with pedals – the act of pedalling is what I think defines cycling – was made in 1864, and the first patent for a pedal-powered bicycle given in 1866. So there wasn’t much time between those dates and the Parc St Cloud races.
But because they were held on a 2-kilometre lap of prepared cinder paths inside the park, not on the open road, they weren’t the first ever road races. The first proper road race of which there is a record happened in November 1869. It went from Paris to Rouen on normal roads. But since James Moore also won that race, he is the father of road racing.
There are stories of races on the public roads of Europe in the spring and summer of 1869, but they weren’t very long and only attracted local riders. For example, the writer and researcher Rosemary Southey discovered an account of a short bicycle race on the roads of what was then the English county of Cumberland, now part of Cumbria, in May 1869.
‘The race is recorded on the 21 May 1869 issue of the Carlisle Patriot newspaper,’ Southey says. ‘Under the title “Grand Picnic and Sports at Keswick: A Velocipede Race”.’ The report continues: ‘Perhaps the greatest novelty of the day was the bicycle race. The course was along the Lake-road to Portinscale and back. The winner took the lead at a rattling pace, was never headed, and came in victorious by a great distance. Much merriment was created as the defeated competitors returned through the streets, many of them not riding their “iron horses” but, puffing and flushed, one foot propelling them along to the point from which they had started. The greatest good humour, however, prevailed, as was evidenced by one of the disappointed, struggling at the tail of his “steed,” replying to the badinage with which he was assailed, “Well, never mind, there’s three more behind.”’
‘The results read “Velocipede Race: 1 Mr Irving, Carlisle. 2. Mr G Graham, Carlisle. 3. Mr Stalker, Carlisle.” The Keswick event is the earliest I can find on the road in Cumberland, but there
