At Speed: My Life in the Fast Lane Page 4

  “There’s no chance whatsoever that he’s coming to a bike race that I’m in.”

  “There’s no chance of Greipel winning a ’monument.’”

  It certainly wasn’t news at this stage that André and I had had our ups and downs. Having ridden on the same team for just over three years, there were two problems between us as far as I was concerned: One, André continued to make too many mistakes, losing wheels and thereby wasting his teammates’ hard work; and two, he was basically a nice bloke and I wasn’t. Not only could I be a dickhead, I could also be very blunt (or, if you were being kind, honest). André and I had actually messaged each other a few times over the winter, spoken a bit at the team training camps in Lanzarote and Majorca, and both probably thought that we’d laid the old animosity to rest. What he’d said after San Remo, though, to my mind verged on delusional; I’d watched him at Paris–Nice while I was at Tirreno–Adriatico, and I’d seen him making the same old mistakes. So I believed what I was telling Richard Moore; I just hadn’t done it very tactfully.

  With that one telephone call that I should never have taken, I’d pissed off Greipel, added to Bob’s concern about me joining Sky, and served up yet more evidence for the already sizable contingent of people who thought I was a mouthy, arrogant, disrespectful little upstart. The only small mercy was that the team seemed more angry with Greipel for what he’d said than my reaction to it.

  There was always that unpleasant, sinking sensation when you dived into one of these controversies, and this one simply raised a tidemark that had been inching higher since the start of the year. We were now getting toward late April and I’d won one race. Only I knew the pain that I’d felt in January, how many setbacks I’d had, how complex the overall picture was, but those intricate, textured portrayals never sell as well as the ones painted in broad brushstrokes, particularly in the mainstream press. “Cavendish’s nightmare year” was a titillating, convenient, catch-all hook.

  All I could do to alter that view and stop the doom-mongering was to start winning. The Tour of Romandie looked like the perfect time and place; in spite of all the agitation, the sense of some invisible, dark force nagging and gnawing at me, my bike had been my refuge, and I’d trained well throughout April. Romandie is the French-speaking part of Switzerland, so you’d expect a bike race there to be mountainous and hardly the ideal terrain for a rider like me. I knew, however, that at least one of the six stages could conceivably end in a sprint; that would be the day when I finally made my critics eat their words.

  The race kicked off with a short prologue around Porrentruy. I’ve always liked and been good at short prologues, have even won a few in my time, and I rode well here to finish 17th. The next stage was a lumpy one through the Swiss Jura. Although I could feel the form coming, slowly blooming through my legs, it was still slightly too tough for me, and I finished in a big second group.

  Day three, then, was going to be the one. Had to be, because all that remained after that was a time trial and two final stages with profiles like an alligator’s dental X-ray. I was familiar with the finishing circuit, because stages had finished in Fribourg with an almost identical loop when I’d ridden Romandie in 2008 and 2009; on both of those occasions I’d been spat out the back on the final climb, so I knew it was going to be tough.

  This time around, I floated over. The pedals were purring. I almost could have celebrated at the top of the climb, because by then I knew there was only going to be one winner. Instead, I started thinking about what would be an appropriate way, besides the exhibition of sprinting I was going to give them, to respond to the journalists—the British ones in particular—who had been giving plenty of coverage to my lack of success so far in 2010.

  The sprint itself proved trickier than I expected, if not for me then for my team. The wind was gusting into our faces and we’d committed early, which meant that everyone was doing mammoth turns on the front. I just had to sit tight and wait for Bernie to pull off, then Renshaw, and finally I went.

  My kick was there, the spring, the zip, and I was never really in trouble. Fifty meters from the line I knew I was safe and that I was about to stick two fingers up at everyone who’d doubted me.

  The problem was, I did it literally: Clasping the inside of my right elbow with my left hand, I jerked my right arm upwards and raised my middle and index fingers in an emphatic V-sign. V for victory. V for, well … you know. In the moment or two after I crossed the line, it didn’t really occur to me that I might have just ridden myself into yet more grief. Blood rushed to my cheeks, but in elation, not alarm or embarrassment.

  “Better now?” Bernie asked through a huge grin as I turned around to thank him.

  Of course I was. Winning was always the cure.

  The first hint that I might be in trouble came in the press conference immediately after the stage. I didn’t sugarcoat it: I said the gesture was intended “to send a message to commentators and journalists who don’t know jack shit about cycling.” Far from taking it personally, the journalists in the room chortled as they typed or scribbled.

  That night, though, you could almost hear the storm rolling in. It started with texts arriving on my phone, like thunder in the distance, which were no doubt in response to stories appearing on the Internet. The irony was that I’d provided all of those people who had been writing me off, the very commentators and journalists who were the targets of the gesture, with yet more ammunition for the story line they’d been peddling: Cavendish has lost the plot, it’s all gone to his head, he’s finished.

  Until this moment, I’d failed to realize two things: one, how people love seeing a meteoric rise but are even happier when it’s followed by a precipitous fall, and two, how cycling and I had outgrown the niche where the only attention we ever received in the UK was positive.

  One journalist with whom I’d had a couple of run-ins in the past, Susan Westermeyer from the Cyclingnews web site, had immediately called the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). What action did they intend to take? They said nothing publicly but contacted Bob Stapleton, who then called me. One of the best things about Bob was that he never tried to curb my, shall we say, volatile tendencies. Perhaps he just knew that he’d be fighting a losing battle, but I think he also knew that I needed license to express myself, within reason, on and off the bike. He also probably realized that my lack of filter made me highly marketable.

  Lance Armstrong aside, Bob seemed to think I was the most charismatic and valuable name in the sport. It was just a shame that he tended not to bear that in mind when we were negotiating a new contract.

  Bob said that the UCI was talking about banning me for the gesture. If they judged that I’d “behaved in such a way as to blemish the image, the reputation or the interests of cycling or the UCI” I could potentially get a one- to six-month suspension and miss the Tour de France. Bob said they’d talk some more to the UCI and see what happened, but one solution might be for me to issue a public apology and for the team to pull me from the race.

  One of the texts I received that night was from Katy Nicholson-Lord, who was working for my management company at the time, Face Partnership. I’d explained to Katy why I’d chosen that particular victory celebration, the Churchillian salute, and she tried to be supportive while also, clearly, having some reservations about whether it had been wise. She did also say something else, though, that pricked up my ears: According to one version, the origins of the V-sign could be traced to the Battle of Agincourt in the 15th century, where British and Welsh bowmen took to holding up their arrow-shooting fingers—the same ones that the French would supposedly cut off if they took them captive—as a sign of defiance. Hmm, I thought, that’s not bad, and I asked Katy whether she’d mind me using it if the subject came up again. She didn’t, so I tucked it away in my mental filing cabinet, ready to dust off when the need arose.

  If I thought it might all have blown over by the morning, I was mistaken. The stage that day was a time trial, and having finished
early, I was killing time on our team bus, waiting for the other guys to arrive, when Bob called again. Bob said that the UCI president, Pat McQuaid, had been hassling Brian Holm at the start that morning and that if we were going to avoid a ban, the team needed to be seen to do something. He said that, as far as McQuaid and the UCI were concerned, if I was pulled from the race and if I issued an apology, they would only give us a fine of a few hundred Swiss francs, which the team would pay. Bob was nice about it, but I, naturally, was mortified. I was also adamant, in my 24-year-old mind, that it had been a riposte perfectly in proportion to criticism of what, essentially, had been just an unlucky start to the season. However, I was also sensible enough to realize that resistance was probably futile and that for my own sake and for my chances of riding the Tour de France, I should probably just take the punishment and be on my way.

  A couple of hours later, the team sent out a press release quoting my apology: “I want to publicly apologize for the gesture I made on the finish line of the Tour de Romandie yesterday,” the statement read. “I did want to make a statement to my critics but I realize that making rude gestures on the finish line is not the best way to do that. I apologize to everybody watching the race and especially the kids. I am not proud of releasing the feelings in that way. I hope I can redeem myself and show my feelings and passion for cycling with some exciting results in the next couple of months, rather than with a gesture such as the one [I made] yesterday.”

  The following morning, in his weekly column in the Guardian, Richard Williams wrote the single most scathing piece about me that I’d had the misfortune to read since turning professional in 2007. Under a headline stating that my “cavalier behavior will sabotage a glittering career,” he’d started with a reference to my ex-girlfriend. From there it got worse; my victory celebration had been “puerile,” and “such behavior should have been outgrown by a man of twenty-four.” He felt that Bob’s decision to pull me from the race had been “a judicious form of salutary humiliation.”

  One thing that I wouldn’t have disputed was what he’d written about how I usually acknowledged and was genuinely contrite about doing the wrong thing … but not straight away. As Williams put it, “He acts first and says sorry—really, really sorry—later. And the funny thing is that you know he means it.” That was actually true. I lacked a form of self-awareness that would allow me to put my feelings and actions into perspective in real time. I was—am—good at being honest and self-critical after the event, but by then the damage has often been done.

  This was also very relevant to Romandie, the consequences of what I’d done there, and my mood generally at that time, because here, too, I was blind to what was happening. Only months later, or perhaps now, could I or can I coldly analyze the build-up of pressure within me, the way it was released, and judge whether it was acceptable or not. My objective last word on the matter now would be that I was entitled to vent my frustration and did it in a manner consistent with my temperament, consistent with my level of maturity, and consistent with the state of my life at the time.

  Would I do it again today? As a 24-year-old, yes. As a 28-year-old, no.

  By way of a footnote, if you’re wondering whether the “Agincourt excuse” ever made it into the public domain, naturally I took the first good opportunity: a press event in Soho the week before the Tour de France. Richard Williams was sitting in the front row. I made sure that I caught his eye.

  Once the embarrassment and anger had passed, leaving Romandie early gave me yet another problem: I’d lost two more race days. Fortunately, the next week I was due to set off for the States, where I’d do a mini–training camp before competing in the Tour of California. Another issue that had set tongues wagging at the start of the year had been Bob “insisting” that I race in California rather than the parallel-running Giro d’Italia, which on numerous occasions I’d called my favorite race alongside the Tour de France. I was apparently “furious” about this, so much so that it was another reason for me agitating to move to Team Sky. The reality was quite different. Yes, I would have liked to do the Giro, but I could also see why the team, which had its headquarters in San Luis Obispo, California, wanted me in the United States. I’d enjoyed California when I’d ridden there in 2008, had a good relationship with the organizers, and was in fact quite happy with the decision.

  In those few days before the race, though, as I trained and got ready, the loneliness really started to wear me down again.

  Probably the single worst antidote I could have chosen was looking at the Internet, but of course that was what I did. Having signed off from my last race with a V-sign, a lot of what was being written on cycling sites and forums didn’t make for comfortable reading. Most nights I was so wound up that I couldn’t sleep.

  I’d lie there, staring at the stars, waiting for the world to wake up again and get back on my case. I kept thinking about something Rolf Aldag had said to me in Romandie: “Mark, remember that the pen is mightier than the sword—you can’t win.” That may have been, but I also just wished that they’d stop writing about me and leave me alone. It was a weird paradox; as my results and fortunes had dipped, some of the “new friends” that had appeared from nowhere over the previous couple of years had started to drift away, all of which contributed to my sense of isolation, and yet here I was also yearning to be left in peace.

  At the same time, though, I’d never been so grateful for the support of the people who had stayed close to me throughout, especially Max Sciandri and the “Italian family” that had formed around Max and me in Tuscany.

  At least the Tour of California itself gave me some respite for a few days. On stage 1 to Sacramento, I resumed normal service to win the sprint and take the race leader’s yellow jersey. My victory salute had been more, shall we say, traditional, and consequently my press conference was rather more lighthearted than had been the case in Romandie. As I walked into the room, I was handed a first edition of the U.S. version of my book Boy Racer, which I proceeded to hold up to the journalists and cameramen, grinning cheesily for the entire duration of the conference.

  Losing the jersey on a tougher stage was no real surprise or disappointment. Two days later, though, the curse was back. It was the “queen stage,” the one that the pundits had picked out as the hardest of the race, and after battling in sweltering heat through the mountains of Southern California, I, Mark Renshaw, and nine others chugged in 48 minutes behind the winner, Peter Sagan. We were out of the time limit and out of the race. That was another two days of racing gone.

  It was back to Italy and back to the drawing board. My next race was the Tour of Switzerland, a weeklong tour that might be the single least sprinter-friendly race on the calendar. Yet, in a certain sense, it was also perfect preparation for the Tour de France and its mountains. There might be one, two opportunities at most for me to pick up a stage win in Switzerland, but there would be 2,000-meter peaks galore to crawl over in readiness for the Alps and Pyrenees.

  One time trial and two lumpy road stages in, we were still awaiting the first real bunch sprint. Stage 3 to Wettingen, though, looked destined to be my day, with only a couple of category 3 climbs in the final 50 km potentially complicating matters—that and the fact that we had Tony Martin leading the race and needing protection. After a few skirmishes among the overall contenders on the last hill, it all came back together, and I safely sat on Mark Renshaw’s wheel as we headed into the home straight.

  With 200 meters to go, Mark was still thrashing down the middle of the road, but guys were now launching their sprints on either side of us. The first and fastest to go was my old teammate Gerald Ciolek. I jumped, took his wheel for no more than 10 or 20 meters, then swung to the right to come around him on the outside. Another German sprinter, Heinrich Haussler, had gone around the left of Ciolek, who was fading in the middle of the road, leaving Haussler and me to contest a straight drag race.

  From 150 meters in, I didn’t swerve, I didn’t swing, I didn’t veer—I
simply maintained a trajectory slanting gently from the right to the middle of the road. I’ll admit that on one of my best days, I would have taken a straighter line and beaten Haussler comfortably. But relying solely on my speed, as I usually did, was a luxury; nowhere in the rules did it say that I wasn’t also allowed to use tactics to close off lines. Other sprinters had turned this into an art form and been celebrated for it. Now I was just doing the same.

  The line I took was dangerous for one reason only: Haussler was sprinting up the middle of the road with his head down, not looking where he was going. As I moved across, ahead of Ciolek and toward Haussler, I expected him to see me coming and also start to edge toward the left-hand side of the road.

  Instead, he went straight on, his eyes fixed not on the road ahead of him but on the tarmac under his wheels. With 100 meters to go, when I kicked down with my left leg and my front wheel jagged that way, Haussler seemed to sense that a collision was inevitable, imminent, and he leaned as he braced himself. When it came, the smash was spectacular, with my front wheel snapping under Haussler’s, my bike collapsing under me, and me falling to my side onto the asphalt like someone testing the springiness of a mattress. This bed, I’m afraid to say, was not very comfortable.

  The five riders who plowed into me, including Ciolek, didn’t work too well as pillows, either.

  As is always the case after a crash, shock and total bewilderment set in before the pain. I sat surveying what was left of my bike, totally flummoxed for a second. I then took a quick look at the damage: road rash on my right shoulder, right hip, and right knee. Nothing seemed to be broken except my bike. Haussler was sitting in the middle of another pile of rubble a few meters away.

  I honestly can’t remember what he said, or whether he even spoke, but it was pretty obvious at the time and from his comments later that he was furious and thought I was to blame. A story went around that I’d spat at him as I lifted myself up and wiped myself down; if I did do that—and, again, I swear I don’t remember—it certainly wasn’t deliberate. I’m only mentioning it here to give the truest possible account of what actually happened. What I do definitely recall is Mark Renshaw having to ride me over the finish line on the back of his bike, like a kid on his mate’s BMX, because mine was a write-off. Maybe because that was an image that made a few people chuckle, maybe because I’d got up and on my way while Haussler was still down, but I think that Haussler and others assumed that I didn’t care whether anyone else was hurt.