Thomas - The Tour according to G: my journey to the yellow jersey

The Tour According to G

Also By

Also by Geraint Thomas

The World of Cycling According to G

Title

Copyright

This ebook edition first published in 2018 by Quercus.

Quercus Editions Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK company

Copyright Geraint Thomas 2018

The moral right of Geraint Thomas to

be identified as the author of this work has been

asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication

may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopy, recording, or any

information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

HB ISBN 978 1 78747 903 6

TPB ISBN 978 1 78747 902 9

Ebook ISBN 978 1 78747 904 3

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders.

However, the publishers will be glad to rectify in future

editions any inadvertent omissions brought to their attention.

Quercus Editions Ltd hereby exclude all liability to the extent permitted

by law for any errors or omissions in this book and for any loss,

damage or expense (whether direct or indirect) suffered by a

third party relying on any information contained in this book.

Ebook by CC Book Production

Cover design 2018 Patrick Carpenter

www.quercusbooks.co.uk

Dedication

For all the dreamers young and old.

Dream big. Keep going. With hard work,

anything is possible.

Contents

Map

Chapter One

The Crash and the Fall

W hen you crash the road comes up at you fast. When you crash there is no good way to fall. When you crash your body takes the first impact but your mind suffers for much longer.

The 2017 Tour de France. I am in second place in the general classification, only my Sky teammate Chris Froome ahead of me. I have been in the yellow jersey, winning the prologue in the rain of Dsseldorf and holding on to it for four more days, and I am within touching distance of it still. The podium in Paris is no longer a teenage dream. I have never finished in the top ten at a Tour, my role repeatedly to work for my leader Froome and protect him from the races cruel tests rather than spend my energies on my own ambitions. One year, I hope, it might be different. One year, by shepherding Froome, I might find myself with him all the way to the Champs-lyses.

Already there have been crashes. Alejandro Valverde, the consistently competitive Spaniard, broke his kneecap after going down on a slippery corner on that Saturday afternoon prologue. I have hit the deck three times in the first eight stages, but all of the crashes were minor ones, all of them ones I could stand back up from and remount my bike.

Stage 9, from Nantua in the Jura mountains to Chambery, 181 twisting, climbing kilometres away. Seven cols to be summited, more than 4,500 vertical metres to suck from the legs. We are on the Col de la Biche, the first hors catgorie climb of the race, meaning that it is too steep and too tough for all but the insane and elite to attempt. 10.5km in length, an average gradient of 9%. You click into your smallest gear and you begin to work and you feel your legs burn and your heart jumping against your skin.

It starts to rain. A road already lumpy in places and slippery slick in others becomes more treacherous with every cold, wet minute. We are riding at the front of the peloton, a thin white line of Sky jerseys, trying to control the pace, trying to keep attacks at bay and keep tight our hold on the race. Luke Rowe, my old friend and fellow graduate of the Maindy Flyers cycling club in Cardiff, is pacing us at the front. Towards the summit, Im in fifth or sixth place, uncomfortable but in control, wanting the climb to end but relishing its tests too.

An acceleration coming round outside us. The brown, white and pale blue jerseys of the French team AG2R, working for their team leader Romain Bardet, boyish face but a constant danger in these high mountains. A sprint for the top, for the points the summit brings for those chasing the King of the Mountains classification, but there are no points left, the breakaway has mopped all those up. I stand on the pedals and get out of the saddle, but by the time we crest the top and see the road dropping away in front of us I am back in ninth. Everyone wants to be as far forward as possible to limit the chance of crashing, but there is no real need for this stress. We create it ourselves. If a team attacks down this descent, with so far still to race, are they going to keep going all day and hold that advantage? Not a chance. Youd give them 200/1 odds. So why dont we all just stay where we are and ride down the descent like we would in training? Oh, its the Tour, you have to stress, right? It only takes one team to start kicking it off, and that leaves you a cruel choice: stay relaxed and drift back, or join in. You have to join in.

110km left; so far my position is not a major issue for the final standings, but on this twisty, narrow descent, you never know what could change. The further back you are, the more you are forced to react to the desires and flaws of others rather than cutting your own lines. The rider in front of you brakes, you have to brake. The guy three riders up goes wide on one corner and then cuts across the next one, you have to scrub off speed to keep from touching wheels, and when you scrub off speed you have to work hard to get it back, accelerating out of the corner to stop the invisible length of elastic that holds this line of riders from snapping rather than stretching.

All of us know this. So a race within a stage within the race begins each rider fighting for each additional position, taking outlandish risks, brushing elbows and shouting insults and angry instructions. You want to take it easier but you understand that as soon as you do then others will come past you. You have to fight just to stay where you are. You have to match those risks or else you will go backwards while going forwards at an eye-watering speed. Sixty miles from the finish, almost two weeks to Paris, and we are racing flat out and wild-eyed.

In this situation I like to give myself a bit of space, a couple of bike lengths. At 50kph and faster, it could make the difference between crashing or staying up. The only problem is that the guys behind you will see this as weakness. Hes losing the wheel. Shit, I need to get past him. Boys, chill.

Glimpses of a dark jersey with white flash in the corner of my vision. A rider behind me, trying to get past when there is no room. Overlapping his front wheel with my back wheel, thats where danger lies a slight twitch either way from one of us and the tyres will touch and the bikes will buck and one of us, probably both, will be down.

I glance back. Rafa Majka, the Polish climber, Bora-Hansgrohe. Aquamarine helmet, white-framed mirrored sunglasses. Another corner, Majka still all over the back of me. It triggers memories of the Tour in 2015, sixteenth stage, on another technical descent, when Warren Barguil came into a right-hander way too hot and clattered into my torso. I saved him, kept him upright. But he sent me sideways, Mario Kart-style, first into a telegraph pole with my head and then down into a ravine.