Some Interesting Reading

These pages of interviews and comments by cyclists and journalists are not the opinions or are they in any way supported by Ballymoney Cycling Club. They are for your enjoyment and should given the same credibility as most magazine and newspaper reports!

These first few pages will feature 3 times Tour de France winner Greg Lemond and his comments and ideas!

Watching the Tour on TV can be interesting. To hear the commentators talk about Contador's form and how weak or strong he appears to be is great, but it is purely speculation. It is impossible to know how he will be riding next week based on just two mountain stages. Winning the Tour seems simple: ride faster than your competitor every day for three weeks. This is not always possible and does not necessarily translate into victory. Sometimes a rider can just be on an "off" day and seem to be struggling.

In the 1989 Tour De France, I traded the yellow jersey several times with Laurent Fignon. The day before the Alpe D'Huez stage, I was in yellow and made up another 13 seconds on Fignon with a small attack on the Izoard. I was trying to get any time I could on Fignon and took every opportunity to grasp a few more seconds. It seemed like my competitors were more concerned with the next day’s mountain stage than with monitoring the run-in to Briancon as closely as they should have done and I was able to capitalize on that.

The following day was the most critical stage in the Tour. July 19th, the biggest mountain stage of the 1989 Tour de France. I was feeling great over the Galibier, Glandon and Croix de Fer. At the bottom of the final climb of the day, Alpe d’Huez, I was still feeling really good, so good that I attacked the lead group. I was quickly reeled in but gave it another try. Again, they reeled me back only this time the pace continued to increase. All of a sudden, the sensation of power started to fade. I really started to suffer and then began to worry that Fignon would see it in my face. I was hoping I could bluff my way to the finish. Fortunately, Laurent never looked back at that point. If he had done I might well have lost the Tour.

Fignon’s directeur sportif at Systeme U, Cyrille Guimard, had managed me earlier in my career, so he knew me and my riding style better than anyone. He could see that my shoulders had started to drop with each stroke of the pedal. He knew that meant that I was tired. He tried to get up to the lead group to let Laurent know that I was in trouble.

Jose De Cauwer, my ADR coach, saw what was happening too. The ADR car was at the front of the line-up of team cars just ahead of Systeme U’s. Guimard needed to pass De Cauwer to tell Fignon what he was seeing, but De Cauwer did not make that task easy. He and Guimard battled it out, with Guimard eventually passing by. The best description of that day would have been, "Demolition Derby on L'Alpe D'Huez”, with thousands of dollars of damage done to the team cars.

When Guimard finally did get around De Cauwer, he pulled up to Fignon and ordered him to attack. The first time around Fignon could not respond to Guimard's request.

Several kilometres, later Guimard was back. This time he really let Fignon have it. Yelling at the top of his lungs, he again told Fignon to attack. This time Fignon responded and I attempted to follow. Within several metres I was in the red and shortly after I blew up. I am happy that radios were not legal in those days because it probably would have ended differently for me. By the top of Alpe D’Huez I had lost more than a minute and a half and, with it, the overall lead.

If my form had been judged solely on the basis of the climb of the Alpe that day, I would have been counted out for the final run in to Paris. Instead, I was able to recover from that effort and ended up winning two of the next four stages and the Tour itself. After Fignon congratulated me on my second place finish the day before the final time trial, I thought to myself, “holy s**t Laurent, you just lost the Tour”. He had forgotten Guimard’s most important advice: “the race is never over until you cross the finish line”.

Fignon had taken his success in the Alps as an indication of how the race would finish. My performance in the time trial was in keeping with the time trials we had already done against each other at the Giro and earlier in the Tour the same year.

I see similarities in the Schleck/Contador battle to come. Neither one can possibly know what will come their way in the next week but it looks to be an exciting battle ahead. Two tough competitors giving their all until the finish line is crossed in Paris.

By Greg Lemond

the Art of PEAKING for the Tour de France,

and his disastrous 1992 build up

A close friend of mine recently asked me what was going through my mind during the month leading up to the Tour de France. My thoughts varied from year to year. In my best years (1984, 1985 and 1986), I was in such good shape that my only concerns were to maintain my health, stay out of crashes and get plenty of rest and sleep.

By the start of the Tour, I would typically have had 70 to 80 days of racing in that year. My training during the final month before the Tour was planned almost a year in advance. The goal was to do most of the hard training well before the last month. More often than not this ended with the Giro. The goal was almost to over-train and then taper off during the final month. The hardest training is destructive and the body needs time to recover.

Most people think that there is more and more progression can be gained by training intensely for racing right up to the start of the race, but that is not true. Peaking is an art. It is part intuition, part experience and part trial and error.

Luck also plays a very important part. One ill- timed crash could prove disastrous. My worst experience, and one that was truly a nightmare, occurred prior to the 1992 Tour de France that began in San Sebastian, Spain.

Typically, a team gets together three days prior to the start of the Tour, wherever that start will be. In 1992, I lived in Belgium, which was usually just a short flight away from the start. That year, however, the French airlines were on strike. I was also at the end of a three-year contract with Team Z, which was the team that I had won my last Tour with in 1990. It was a team that had paid me handsomely and expected me to perform.

By 1991, however, my performance had begun to wane. I finished seventh and was devastated because I did not believe that I could lose the Tour de France if I arrived at the start in good condition, as I did that year.

But something had changed in cycling. The speeds were faster and riders that I had easily out performed were now dropping me. At the time, the team I was on, Team Z, became more and more demanding, more and more concerned about my training, my diet and my dedication to the sport.

From all outside appearances, one might believe there was some reason for concern. The reality was that my ability and desire had not changed.

Our sponsor was disappointed and the pressure to perform in 1992 was intense. We were at the end of a three year sponsorship run and our Team was looking for a new sponsor. The worse I raced, the more they wanted me to do. The more I did, the more over-trained I became and by June of 1992, I was fried and the team had little confidence in my ability to race well in that year’s Tour.

Five days before the Tour started, a week that is so carefully planned for rest, where no distraction is welcome, someone at Team Z decided that they were not getting their money’s worth. At the last minute, I was told to go to Paris for a television appearance two days before the start of the Tour at San Sebastian.

Because of the airlines strike, my wife and I were forced to take a train to Paris from Belgium, with the hope that the strike would end. When it did not, we had to take a train to Bordeaux. The team did not get us tickets on the TGV, but rather a train that stopped in nearly every village on the route.

I missed a full night’s sleep and when we arrived in Bordeaux, I was picked up by the team car. Then, on the two-hour car ride to San Sebastian we had a flat tyre and discovered there was no spare. There I was, marooned on the side of the autoroute halfway between Bordeaux and San Sebastian. Fortunately, another team’s car stopped and offered to tow us to a gas station where our tyre was fixed.

Imagine suffering from the worst jet lag the day before the Tour began. That's basically how I felt. I started the 1992 Tour de France more tired than I felt at any the end of any of the other Tours that I completed. I am not sure what was worse, the loss of a night’s sleep or the worry over the lost sleep. Not the way to begin a Tour.

My favourite for this year’s Tour is Alberto Contador. Last year, he not only had to beat all of his competitors, but he also had to race against his own team, for which he deserves another yellow jersey.

Who's he???

Johan Bruyneel on Contador, Schleck and Armstrong 

RadioShack team manager judges 2010 Tour

Tour de France runner up Andy Schleck has come in for both praise and criticism from RadioShack team manager Johan Bruyneel in the wake of his narrow overall defeat to Alberto Contador, one of the smallest margins in the race's history.

Writing his final column from this year's Tour for Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Bruyneel put a philosophical spin on the failure of a team managed by him to feature on the individual overall podium for only the third time since 1999.

His former charge (and the man he directed to the 2007 and '09 Tour titles), Alberto Contador, also received a blunt assessment from the Belgian. "The outcome of the Tour was more exciting than I expected. This wasn't because Andy Schleck rode so well but because Alberto Contador was so disappointing in the final time trial," he said.

"In my eyes Andy Schleck lost the Tour in Rotterdam. The 42 seconds that he lost in the 8.9km long prologue turned out to be very expensive. Yet he still had his chances.

"With some dismay I watched his time trial in Paullac. With such strong winds, he was totally wrong on the bike. Just by his position, he lost at least half a minute on Saturday. His position on the bike was a disaster," he added.

There were also words of encouragement for the Luxembourger, who took his third best young rider title: "Andy can learn a lot from this Tour de France. He's only 25 years old and is still a rough diamond that is free. There is much to polishing," said Bruyneel.

"If you look at the final results and realise that he lost the Tour by 39 seconds, in fact his battle for the yellow jersey seemed over before it all began. Of course he will never be a great time trialist, but this is an area where he can still profit."

Bruyneel added that Schleck needs to learn to act like a captain, citing the occasion he dropped back to the Saxo Bank team car to take food and water despite being the race leader. Calling it a "rookie mistake", Bruyneel explained that despite maturing a lot in his riding, Schleck could focus on more details for future Tours.

The RadioShack challenge

As for his own charges at the Tour, Bruyneel dwelled on Lance Armstrong's legacy in his Tour farewell, explaining that the team will continue but he's unsure of its program.

"This tour was the final farewell to Lance in the Tour de France. I loved seeing Lance on the podium in Paris in his last moments as a Tour rider. It is also symbolic that we did so with the win in the team standings. Next year they are still riding, only we don't know where. In Australia we can [race], even California.

Bruyneel said that Armstrong's crash at the foot of the col de la Ramaz marked an end to the American's Tour challenge, one which was different in approach to those which had been so successful during that golden period of 1999-2005.

"Frankly, we approached the last two years at the Tour very differently for his comeback. From 1999 to 2005, Lance and the team were a machine. Everything went perfectly. Simply because we did not experience a loss," said Bruyneel.

"Since 2009 it was different for him. Both of us have become older, and have followed a similar path. This time it was much easier to accept. With age, you become more of a philosopher. Yet this year we enjoyed the Tour. That we were together on the podium on the Champs-Élysées was different, but for both of us it was beautiful."

RadioShack team manager judges 2010 Tour

Tour de France runner up Andy Schleck has come in for both praise and criticism from RadioShack team manager Johan Bruyneel in the wake of his narrow overall defeat to Alberto Contador, one of the smallest margins in the race's history.

Writing his final column from this year's Tour for Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Bruyneel put a philosophical spin on the failure of a team managed by him to feature on the individual overall podium for only the third time since 1999.

His former charge (and the man he directed to the 2007 and '09 Tour titles), Alberto Contador, also received a blunt assessment from the Belgian. "The outcome of the Tour was more exciting than I expected. This wasn't because Andy Schleck rode so well but because Alberto Contador was so disappointing in the final time trial," he said.

"In my eyes Andy Schleck lost the Tour in Rotterdam. The 42 seconds that he lost in the 8.9km long prologue turned out to be very expensive. Yet he still had his chances.

"With some dismay I watched his time trial in Paullac. With such strong winds, he was totally wrong on the bike. Just by his position, he lost at least half a minute on Saturday. His position on the bike was a disaster," he added.

There were also words of encouragement for the Luxembourger, who took his third best young rider title: "Andy can learn a lot from this Tour de France. He's only 25 years old and is still a rough diamond that is free. There is much to polishing," said Bruyneel.

"If you look at the final results and realise that he lost the Tour by 39 seconds, in fact his battle for the yellow jersey seemed over before it all began. Of course he will never be a great time trialist, but this is an area where he can still profit."

Bruyneel added that Schleck needs to learn to act like a captain, citing the occasion he dropped back to the Saxo Bank team car to take food and water despite being the race leader. Calling it a "rookie mistake", Bruyneel explained that despite maturing a lot in his riding, Schleck could focus on more details for future Tours.

The RadioShack challenge

As for his own charges at the Tour, Bruyneel dwelled on Lance Armstrong's legacy in his Tour farewell, explaining that the team will continue but he's unsure of its program.

"This tour was the final farewell to Lance in the Tour de France. I loved seeing Lance on the podium in Paris in his last moments as a Tour rider. It is also symbolic that we did so with the win in the team standings. Next year they are still riding, only we don't know where. In Australia we can [race], even California.

Bruyneel said that Armstrong's crash at the foot of the col de la Ramaz marked an end to the American's Tour challenge, one which was different in approach to those which had been so successful during that golden period of 1999-2005.

"Frankly, we approached the last two years at the Tour very differently for his comeback. From 1999 to 2005, Lance and the team were a machine. Everything went perfectly. Simply because we did not experience a loss," said Bruyneel.

"Since 2009 it was different for him. Both of us have become older, and have followed a similar path. This time it was much easier to accept. With age, you become more of a philosopher. Yet this year we enjoyed the Tour. That we were together on the podium on the Champs-Élysées was different, but for both of us it was beautiful."

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