Michael Vlismas - Froome: The Ride of his Life

From the day he joined a ramshackle cycling club made up of orphans and street children from Nairobi, Chris Froome had his sights set on greatness.

Froome: The Ride of his Life chronicles Froomes journey from dusty Kenyan mountain tracks to the historic roads of the worlds most famous cycling race and his victory in the 100th Tour de France in 2013.

Its a journey that begins under the mentorship of his friend Kenyan cyclist David Kinjah. Its the story of a boy with an unrelenting drive to follow his dream, which took him first to South Africa and ultimately Europe, where he was recruited into the ranks of the top pro cycling teams.

Despite his challenges early underachievements as a professional, the tragedy of his mothers death, and the inquisitional scrutiny about performance-enhancing drugs dogging the sport Froome emerges as a man apart as he sought relentlessly to capture road cyclings holy grail.

From Africa to the Alps, from the Safari Simbaz club to the Champs lyses, this is the story of Africas greatest cycling achievement.

This is the ride of Chris Froomes life.

Michael Vlismas is a freelance sports writer and broadcaster, contributing to a variety of South African and international publications and radio stations. He is the author of several sports books and autobiographies. He lives in Somerset West with his wife and two boys.

Jonathan Ball Publishers

Johannesburg & Cape Town

Climbing the mountain

It is the silence that is the most frightening.

At the end of a gruelling 221 kilometres during stage 15 of the Tour de France, the peloton is dead quiet. No talking. No shouting of orders. No jokes. Each rider has only one thought in his mind. Its right there, rising up before him: the Beast of Provence, Mont Ventoux, a meeting point of fact, folklore and pure cycling hell.

Chris Froome had ridden Ventoux before during training, but he had never raced on it in the Tour de France. Yet he was fully aware of the mountains fearsome reputation.

Its sheer geology is enough to instil fear. Italian Renaissance poet and scholar Petrarch referred to Mont Ventoux as a steep and almost inaccessible mass of stony soil. In a letter describing his own ascent of Ventoux on foot in 1336, Petrarch wrote: I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.

This legendary mountain in the south of France is by no means a thing of beauty. It has a lunar quality a mass of bare limestone that shines so white in the baking sun it appears as if its permanently covered in snow. Its summit is devoid of vegetation. There is no life here and, to make matters worse, for 240 days of the year it is buffeted by the mistral wind, which has its origin in the Bay of Biscay and gathers speed as it whips down the Rhne Valley, eventually reaching its peak strength in this area of Provence, sometimes gusting to 310 kilometres an hour. It is from this wind that the mountain derives its name Ventoux has its origins in the French venteux , meaning windy.

Mont Ventoux is one of the epic climbs of the Tour de France. The other mountains undeniably have their challenges. Alpe dHuez comes armed with its 21 infamous hairpin bends. The Col du Tourmalet features as the mountain that has made the most appearances since the beginning of the tour over a century ago. Then there is the Col dAubisque, a mountain pass in the Pyrenees, and the Col du Galibier in the Dauphin Alps. All have their special place of honour in the gallery of great climbs in the Tour de France. But, for the tour cyclists, Ventoux is the nemesis. It presents 20.8 kilometres of torturous climbing that demands and takes everything from winners and losers alike.

And there is nothing glamorous or romantic about Ventoux. The average gradient of the climb is 7.43 per cent. The first 5 kilometres are a gradual climb; then, for the next kilometres, the gradient rears up to 9.5 per cent; and for a 2-kilometre stretch, it becomes as severe as 10.5 per cent. Add the pounding mistral and the oppressive heat of over 40 C, and Ventoux becomes the monster it is in the cycling world.

Chris Froome may not be a devout student of cyclings history in the way that sportsmen like Roger Federer and Tiger Woods have combined their dominance of their games with an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the eras that have come before them. Froome admits he does not dwell on the past. Its very likely that by not fully immersing himself in the history of Ventoux or of the Tour de France as a whole Froome guarded against being overwhelmed by such challenging sections of the tour. For if anything is able to instil fear at the mere thought of it, it is Ventoux.

In his book Mountain Kings , cycling writer Giles Belbin refers to Ventoux as the bad-tempered, smouldering older brother of the picture-postcard mountain climbs the tour is famous for. To some extent, Ventoux could be likened to the Eiger in Switzerland not the highest mountain in the world by any means, nor on a scale with Everest in terms of popularity, but a killer in its own right.

And Ventoux has taken lives. It made its debut as a mountain climb in the 1951 tour, but gained its notoriety in 1967. During that tour, the mountain claimed the life of British cyclist Tom Simpson, who was considered one of Britains most successful cyclists when he took to the slopes of Ventoux in July that year. He was the first British rider to wear the yellow jersey, which he gained in the 1962 tour. In 1965 Simpson was crowned world champion. But what happened on Ventoux has divided the cycling world as to its opinion of the smiling son of a coal miner from northern England.

Simpson had appeared to be riding well with the lead group, but one of his teammates observed casually that he seemed to be taking on more fluids than usual. Just over 3 kilometres from the summit of Ventoux, during what was then stage 13 of the tour, eyewitnesses recalled how Simpson began weaving across the road before he eventually fell. The British team car was close at hand, and legend has it that Simpson, rasping and out of breath, ordered them to put me back on my bike. Which they did but the grainy, black-and-white video footage shows him as a forlorn figure, lying slumped over his handlebars. His team tried to push him on. He fell again, and appeared lifeless as they tried to revive him, his eyes staring blankly at the heavens. The official tour medic, Dr Pierre Dumas, immediately had him transferred by police helicopter to the nearest hospital. Simpson died there later that evening. It was only the third death since the tour had begun in 1903 but it was the most controversial at that point. A post-mortem revealed that Simpson had died of heart failure as a result of dehydration, and alcohol and amphetamine consumption. Pills were found in Simpsons pocket.

A biography published in 2003, Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson , by William Fotheringham, reveals how Simpson had been afflicted with diarrhoea during that tour and had slipped to seventh overall. He was under pressure from his team to make it into the top five or lose out financially. The tours rules prohibited Simpsons team car from handing him water during the race, and he was forced to rehydrate with whatever he could get from roadside bars, including Coke and cognac.