Rough Ride (7 page)

The phone rang six weeks later. It was Mollet. He was sending me a professional contract with a new French team, RMO. I would be paid £700 a month and the contract was for two years. I put the phone down and danced a jig of joy. The struggling was over. All the sacrifices had paid off. I had made it.

The first team meeting took place at a ski station at Grand Bornand, on the slopes of the Col de Colombier. RMO, a firm specialising in temporary employment, gathered together the eighteen cyclists who would wear their colours in the professional peloton for 1986. It was a mixed bunch of old-timers, established names and new pros, four of whom had been taken on. Two, Jean-Louis Peillon and Bruno Huger, were French. Per Pedersen was Danish and I was Irish. It was hard for Pedersen and me to integrate. He spoke no French, and shyness prevented me from using the bit that I knew. I spoke only when I was spoken to and tried to smile as much as possible. I wanted desperately to be accepted. I felt so awkward, so out of place, just like my first day in school.

In the mornings we would ski cross-country. I had never skied before and spent the whole week slipping on my arse. This helped my integration as I was a source of constant amusement to the suave French, who had learned to ski in childhood. I tried to fall as little as possible, not because I was afraid of getting laughed at but because it was excruciatingly painful. The vertebra I had broken while riding my last amateur race three months earlier had not quite healed. No one knew I had cracked a vertebra, and I wasn't telling them. I had fought all my life for this pro contract and I feared that the revelation of a back problem might discourage my new sponsor from employing me. So I said nothing and secretly skied with a steel corset strapped to my back for support. In the afternoons we were free to do what we pleased. The French lads invited me for football, but fearing for my back I hired a mountain bike and cycled to the top of the Colombier alone. I had never seen such an enormous climb and was so overawed by the view that I wandered off the road, plunged down a sharp incline and went over the bars, landing on the steel corset. I went numb with pain. Picking myself up, I quickly descended the Col and took refuge in a small tearoom in the village.

I was half-way through a
brioche chaude
when one of the French guys came in. I tried to hide, as I was enjoying my solitude and was in no humour for making small talk; but he saw me and sat at my table. He ordered a cake and coffee and we chatted amiably. He liked the ambience in the team and said the absence of real stars would mean we would get on so much better. He paid for both of us, and as he walked out the door I tried to put a name to his face. It was Chappuis – Andre Chappuis. I immediately took a shine to him.

The evenings were taken up with team talks. Bernard Thevenet our team manager, or
directeur sportif,
gathered us round after dinner and explained the early season programme of racing, ironing out any problems we might have. I never had any. As far as I was concerned, it was all a game of survival. Two years spent as an amateur in France had taught me to keep my mouth closed and my ears open and to pedal as quickly as I could. I decided to adopt the same tactics as a professional, at least until I understood what it was all about.

After the meetings we were free to do as we pleased. The French played cards among themselves, I chatted with Pedersen and, without realising it, two clans were formed. I returned to Dublin on 23 December with a jersey, a bag and a red anorak, all adorned with my sponsors' logo, RMO. I didn't dare ask them for the travelling expenses for the trip. I was afraid they might change their mind about hiring me – I was so naive. But I was a pro. The bag, the jersey and the red anorak said so. I wore them whenever the occasion presented itself, it was my way of saying: 'Look at me, I'm a pro, I've made it.'

This was my first mistake.

January was spent in Ireland, preparing. The broken wrist and vertebra had left me immobile for most of the winter and as a result my physical condition suffered. I trained most weekends with my brothers, Raphael and Kevin, and I was a little concerned as both of them were riding more strongly than I was. I trained twice with Martin Earley and Stephen Roche. Stephen had ridden with five of my team-mates, Gauthier, Claveyrolat, Le Bigaut, Simon and Vermote, the year before on the La Redoute team. He recommended Jean-Louis Gauthier as the most dependable, and praised him as being one of the best
domestiques
he had ever had. I made a mental note of this; for Stephen, a perfectionist who demanded perfection from everyone around him, did not distribute praise for others easily. This Gauthier must really be good.

We talked of other things, of drugs. I was worried about the job I was going into. I had heard so many stories of professional cyclists taking drugs and was frightened that they might all be true. Now that I was a professional I felt I had the right to ask Stephen to enlighten me on the subject. He talked first of our two
soigneurs.
The verb
soigner
means 'to treat' or 'to take care of. A
soigneur
takes care of his riders by massaging their legs, listening to their problems, dressing wounds and giving vitamins and minerals. Stephen had worked with Claude Wery and Emile Thiery at La Redoute. He said that Claude was a bit lazy, he preferred Emile and told me he would ask him to take me under his wing. He said that professional cycling was not like amateur cycling – one had to take care of oneself. The racing was so hard and frequent that it was important to keep up the vitamin and mineral level in the body, and to do this vitamin B
₆
and B
₁₂
injections during the season were a necessity. I said nothing and just nodded my head, but inside I was horrified. In my mind a syringe was drugs, and to have to take injections meant having to take drugs. I returned home and talked to my father about my fears. He told me just to do the best that I could without getting caught up in it and I put it out of my mind.

On Tuesday 4 February I made my professional debut at the Etoile de Bessèges stage race in the south of France. I arrived late the night before and was handed a new bike and all my equipment on the morning of the race. I was also handed my wages for January, a cheque for £700. I was shitting bricks before the start. The bike was all wrong, but there was no time to change and I raced the 100 kilometres feeling like an alien. It was strange to be riding alongside Fignon and Zootemelk. The previous five years I had been a star, a top amateur, recognised and admired. Now I was just another one in the bunch. Everything I had ever done now meant nothing and I was starting all over again at the bottom of the ladder. My two worries were crashing and bringing a star off, and getting dropped, and I managed to avoid both.

Later in the evening I bumped into my team-mate Regis Simon while taking a leak in the bathroom. He was bent over the bathroom sink scrubbing the jersey and shorts made filthy by the wet roads earlier in the day. I almost laughed and asked him why he was washing his clothes by hand. 'Why, who else will wash them for me?' was his reply. I had always thought the gear would be washed for us – but no, we had to scrub it and dry it ourselves, so I borrowed his washing powder and set to work. It was the hardest part of the day.

Bessèges, being the first stage race of the year, was not too hard and I managed to finish in the bunch most days. It felt great to be encouraged in the time trial by Thevenet, a double Tour de France winner, whose photograph had adorned my bedroom wall when I was a child. The only real problem was the bitterly cold weather. The team rode well; Per was riding really strongly, and he took the race lead with one day to go. It would have been great publicity for a new team, RMO, to win the first race of the season; but his advance was slim and that night Thevenet was forced to telephone the other
directeurs sportifs
to try to do a deal. The idea was to offer money to a rival team, who did not have a man well placed overall, in return for help to defend a jersey. If the team accepted, then for the following stage RMO would defend the lead alone until they could no longer control it, and then it was time for the others to earn their money. This was no surprise to me, for as an amateur I had ridden stage races and seen leaders in trouble with no team-mates to control things, only for a rival team suddenly to intervene and restore order. I suppose it was just good business sense, for if there was one thing I was learning it was that pro cycling was a business. Before each race we were told how much of a bonus we would receive from the sponsor for winning, and how much of this bonus we could use to negotiate with other riders if we got into a winning position near the end of a race.

All of our rival French teams had men well placed for overall victory and none were interested in doing a deal. The next option was to approach a Belgian or Dutch team, but this was dismissed. The Belgians, and especially the Dutch, were really mercenary bastards. They would do the job, but the price was always very high and for a small race like Bessèges it was not worth it. So the pressure was on us to defend Per's lead alone. I did what I could, but it was bitterly cold and I couldn't feel my legs at all. My drinking bottle froze solid and I abandoned the race when I was dropped, with forty kilometres to go. Per lost the lead but wasn't too disappointed, for it was a great debut for a new pro.

The Tour of the Mediterranean was next. This was limited to eight riders per team and I was surprised when Thevenet announced the selection as I did not think I was worth my place on my Bessèges form. I wasn't; it was just the fact that Pedersen was riding so well. He spoke no French and Thevenet little English, so I was brought along as interpreter. It was during the Med that my problems really started. I was four kilos overweight and, as a result, suffering like a dog on the climbs. But I still managed to hang on, only to be left behind on the descents. The memory of my crash at Isbergues was still fresh in my mind and it scared me. I had lost my bottle. I wasn't too bad in the dry, but in the wet I was a complete disaster and I had to endure the insults from other riders as I let huge gaps open up and they were forced to come around me and close them. This depressed me, and my morale was really bad after two stages of being left behind. On the night after the second stage Thevenet came into my room and asked me what my problem was. I explained to him about the crash, expecting to receive a bit of a bollocking. But no, he was kind and understanding. He too had had the same problem during his career, and he told me to relax more and it would sort itself out. He demanded more participation from me in helping the team. 'In professional races, the individual does not matter, it is the team that counts. This is now your job, so each time you race you must try and make some sort of contribution to the team. The best way is to win races but this is not always possible so you must contribute in other ways. It may be only a small thing like fetching a bottle or waiting for a colleague who has punctured; but it's important, for at the end of the day you can get off your bike and say, "Yes I did my work today."' His talk worked wonders on me and from the next day I was riding much better.

It was strange, therefore, to get told off on a day when I felt I had made my biggest contribution. It was on the fourth stage, to Marseille. I was prominent in two early breakaway attempts and then, as we were caught, another group got away with two of our riders Regis Simon and Pierre Le Bigaut. I sat back in the bunch, delighted to have men in the front and the pressure off, but suddenly Thevenet came up in the team car and shouted that he was tired of seeing me at the back and that I was to move to the front to hinder the chasing attempts immediately. Our lads were eventually caught and that night I was given my first official bollocking. I was a bit pissed off, but had to accept it. I was made aware of the need not only to be at the front but to be seen to be at the front. It was another lesson learnt.

Two days after the Med we raced a single day-race, Nice-Alassio. I was knackered after the Med, and asked Thevenet for a day off, but he told me to start and to abandon if I felt too tired. I met Jean de Gribaldy before the start and he told me again that I was overweight and explained what a terrible handicap this was. I nodded in acceptance, but inwardly I was puzzled. These pros were so skinny and bony, almost sick-looking, yet they managed to pedal at unbelievable speeds. I was confused. The race was a disaster for us and the whole team abandoned. Thevenet was angry, but accepted the excuses given to him from the experienced campaigners Gauthier and Le Bigaut that the Med had been especially hard and we were all a little tired. But next day, some smart-arse journalist from
L'Equipe
wrote that not a single rider from the RMO team had made it to Alassio, and that Bernard Thevenet was still out looking for us. This brought an angry response from the team sponsors, who sent a telegram from head office: 'We are not in this business to be laughed at.' Monsieur Braillon, 'Mr RMO', expressed his displeasure at his team's performance to date, and suggested an immediate improvement was imperative and that the next race, the Tour of Haut Var, was a good place to start. This annoyed us greatly, for the opening races were viewed by all as preparation races, and to be criticised by the sponsor after not even three weeks' competition was unfair.

I rode well in the Haut Var, finishing about twenty-fifth, but was really tired after it. That night Emile called me for massage, and as I entered he was giving an injection to the Brazilian rider Ribeiro. He said it was just vitamins and suggested I take one to help me recover. I declined, explaining that I never took injections. He seemed surprised but did not insist. The following day we raced the Grand Prix of Cannes and I was totally shagged. I stopped after a hundred kilometres and climbed into the
soigneurs'
car at the feed. They did not say anything, but had 'I told you so' written all over their faces. I sat in the back and thought about it. My principle was that if the body was tired you gave it rest, not vitamins, and I was sure I'd be fine after a day's rest. That night the team split up, with the riders allowed home for the first time in a month. I had no fixed address in France, but Guy Mollet had offered to let me use a house in Wasquehal where he was going to lodge the foreign amateurs in his team. I felt quite ill before getting on the plane, and the assistant
directeur sportif
Jean-Claude Vallaeys, who lived in Lille, gave me two Alka-Seltzers. Emile, who was travelling on the same flight, suggested it was a problem with my liver – that I had not looked after myself and that this was the result. He produced two small pills to help my liver, and I pretended to take them. Half an hour later I told him I was feeling better, which seemed to please him. I did not want to hurt his feelings, for I knew he was only trying to help; but I just didn't trust him and was suspicious of anything he gave me.

After the glory of racing with the team for the month of February, Wasquehal was an unpleasant shock to the system. The house was totally empty. There was just a bed. No cups or saucers or anything, just a bed. I instantly regretted having come here. The Brazilian was lodged by the team at Grenoble. I had never been there, but was told it was a beautiful city that sat at the foot of the Alps. It appealed to me greatly, but I had finally chosen Wasquehal, whose greyness and Coronation Street decor I was familiar with, having spent a year there as an amateur.

I was not picked to ride in the Paris-Nice, but I didn't mind as I knew the pressure for results would be high. Instead I was selected for Het Volk, the one-day Belgian classic. I had hated Belgium as an amateur. Too much wind and rain and too many cobbles and flat roads. I dreaded the thought of Het Volk. We stayed at a hotel at Moeskron on the eve of the race, and as I was going to bed I noticed it had started to snow. I prayed that night that it would lash down and my prayers were answered: for the next day the roads were smothered with it and the race was cancelled. I returned to the emptiness of the flat. I had not trained for two days, and it would probably be another two before I got out. As a result my physical condition would drop, which would make the next race even harder. I realised it would have been better to have raced and regretted the cancellation. Twenty-four hours earlier I had prayed for snow. It had snowed and I was now sorry. This did not make sense.

The house filled up during the week, when some Kas riders arrived. Kas was de Gribaldy's team and he had sent three men to Wasquehal to ride in some Belgian races to be held during Paris-Nice. The weather for the first race was dreadful and I abandoned after being dropped quite early. The second race was a kermesse, or circuit race, at Ostend. It was cold, sunny and windy. Former cycling 'great' Freddy Maertens was riding and I could not help noticing what a pathetic sight he was as he took his place on the start grid. He had had it all, this man. It was rumoured he had lost everything through poor investments and that he was penniless and forced to get back on the bike after years in retirement. The race started and we took off like rockets. The fast start surprised me and I was immediately in trouble. Slipping down through the bunch I had almost reached the end of it, going into this corner, when Maertens came up on my inside and nearly lifted me out of it with his elbow. I lost a length, two lengths and was dropped. This was the final straw: to be dropped after six miles was too much to take, and I abandoned and told myself I was finished. I phoned home to my parents' house to talk about my problems. They did not really understand. How could I be disheartened about something I had dreamed all my life of achieving?

The three Kas boys were kind. One of them, Jacques Decrion, offered to take me to his house in Besançon, where I could train with him in the mountains and get my morale back. We rode one more race in Belgium, which I managed to finish and then we left for Besançon. I stayed with Jacques for five days and then we all left for a race near Nantes at Mauleon, where I was to pick up my team. When we arrived at the hotel I got out of the car with my suitcase, briefcase and bicycle. When they saw me my team-mates started laughing at my briefcase. 'Ah, Paul, the briefcase, you're a real warrior all right.' I hadn't got a clue what they were talking about. On visiting the riders' rooms that night I noticed that many had briefcases, but whereas mine contained my passport, letters and writing materials, theirs contained pills, syringes and little bottles of liquids of every colour and shape. 'So that's what they were laughing at, they thought my briefcase was full of pills. They thought I was a fucking junkie. Jesus, I am guilty without even a trial.' I was shocked, and decided to leave my briefcase open in my room so that any passers by would notice it contained papers and pens and wasn't a medical cabinet. Not all the riders had briefcases. Andre 'Dede' (pronounced 'deaday') Chappuis used to store his gear in an old shoebox he hid in his suitcase.