Every Second Counts (19 page)

For Kik, it was the worst possible time to see a stranger at the door. She was full of protective feelings for the babies and it was the last straw. There was just something about having them in our living room that felt wrong that day.

After I did the usual drug-test routine and paperwork, Kik walked them to the front door. As they reached the threshold, Kik threw her arm out and blocked the way, so they couldn’t leave. Kik leaned into the woman’s face and said, through clenched teeth, “I don’t want you coming over here early in the morning like this and disrupting this family
ever
again.” But we both knew they’d be back.

We closed the door and went back inside and tried to resume our peaceful morning. But the moment was gone, and what no one could know was just how few of those moments there were. We didn’t get very many of them.

L
ooking back on
it now, the episode was telling. Life was a constant series of large and small disturbances, interruptions, breaks in the connection.

I was trying to oversee the renovating of our new apartment in Girona and the move from
France
to
Spain
, run a cancer foundation, and maintain a world-class cycling career all at the same time. But most important, we were parents to newborn twins, and to a two-year-old boy.

We lived in a rush—a focused rush, but a rush nonetheless—and sometimes we forgot the most basic things, with hilarious consequences. For instance, once I got Kik some real cycling gear, including a pair of high-performance shoes that clipped into the pedals. She trooped off to the gym and signed up for a spin class. She clipped herself into the bike, and worked out. When she got done, she popped off the bike—and couldn’t figure out how to get the shoes off. She stared at the straps and buckles, baffled. I’d forgotten to show her how

In front of the entire gym, Kik had to clod-hop out the front door, down the stairs, and into the parking lot. She got into her car and drove home in the cycling shoes. I was sitting in the kitchen eating cereal when I heard, “clunk-clunk-clunk,” coming down the hall.

“Why do you have your cycling shoes on?” I said.

“You have to help me take them off.”

I burst out laughing.

The next day, Kik went back to the gym, and there was College, working out. Kik put on her cycling gear and got on a spin bike. College finished his own workout, and then wandered over to Kik.

“I just need to know if I have to hang around for another thirty minutes to help you out of those shoes,” he said.

But we forgot some important things, too. For instance, we forgot to go to a quiet dinner, just the two of us. We breezed through the house, gave each other a kiss, a quick tackle, and then there was always something else to do, a baby that needed something or an important call.

Even in the off-season, I had to travel more than I liked, usually for the cancer foundation or to honor my endorsement contracts. I always tried to make it back home for dinner, but there were times when it was impossible. A typical week: I went to
Europe
for 48 hours for an appearance, and took the Concorde from
Paris
back to
New York
, changed planes, landed in
Austin
, and drove straight to a photo shoot. From there I went to sign books, jerseys, and posters for cancer survivors. Then I drove home, changed, and took a 35-minute bike ride. I showered, changed again, and spent some time with Kik and the kids. Then I changed yet again, and we went to a gala-fundraiser for the cancer foundation.

Meanwhile, Kik was bringing a similar energy to motherhood—and
a perfectionism
, too. She didn’t take the easy road. For instance, she didn’t buy baby food; she wanted to give the kids real vegetables instead of processed stuff, so she cooked fresh ones and mashed them up.

We had help, in the form of a nine-to-five nanny and a housekeeper, but we still struggled to stay ahead of the game. I bought hours on a private plane, in order to get home at night and not miss too many of the struggles or highlights.

I’d walk in the door after being away, and Luke would launch himself at my stomach, and I’d feel a renewed surge of energy. I’d peer at Grace and Isabelle with a deep curiosity: each of them was changing daily. Soon Grace had outgrown Isabelle, and I wondered with a pang what else had happened without me.

Luke got a new two-wheeler from Trek, and he was so excited when he first saw it, he screamed “NEW BIKE, NEW BIKE!” He leaped on it and took off, ripping around the house and skillfully angling around furniture. I looked at Kik and said, “This is scary.”

When he rode it outside for the first time, he crashed just like his father. Kik took him to a neighborhood with no traffic and smoothly paved streets. Luke was so excited that he wore his helmet the whole way over in the car. He jumped right on the bike and took off at top speed—with Kik chasing him. He took a sharp left and headed downhill, and onto a cobblestoned driveway. He hit the bumps, and went flying headfirst from the bike and landed on his face. He got up bruised, scratched, and crying . . . but he just wiped his nose on Kik’s shoulder and got right back on his bike. Just like his father.

I was deeply curious about parenting, and wanted to be a hands-on father. I didn’t shy away from the responsibility. I respected and admired good fathers, most especially my father-in-law, Dave. I expected myself to be good at it, and felt devoted to the job—even when I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I loved doing the small fatherly things—doting on the girls, taking Luke to school, talking to his teachers. The smallest act of fatherhood was very symbolic to me, and vital.

But I was discovering what a hard job it could be. Juggling three children all at once, plus meeting other responsibilities, was alternately joyful, chaotic, and overwhelming. There were so many small bodies and needs to attend to that I couldn’t even find time to go to the bathroom.

One morning when the girls were still brand new, Kik was exhausted from handling three children with just two hands. I was out riding, and she was by herself. The twins went on dueling crying jags, and Luke was racing around being rambunctious.

Kik couldn’t put a baby down long enough to answer the phone, or to get out of her pajamas. All of a sudden there was a knock on the door. Kik opened it, still in her pajamas and with an infant in each arm. It was her dad, Dave. “Hi, honey,” he said. “I called and then I tried your cell phone, and you didn’t answer either one, so I thought I would just stop in. I thought maybe you could use a hand.”

“Bless you,” Kik said. “Here, take a baby.”

O
ne afternoon I
was out on my bike when my cell phone rang. It was David Millar, the great young British cyclist and my friend, calling from
Paris
. He was out on the town and had had a few drinks and decided to give me a ring.

“Please tell me you’re not on your bike,” he said.

“I’m on my bike.”

“No! You bastard! It’s December bloody first! How long have you been on it?”

“Three and a half hours.”

“You bastard!”

If you asked me when I started preparing for the next Tour, my answer was, “The morning after.” To my way of thinking, the Tour wasn’t won in
July,
it was won by riding when other people weren’t willing to.

That meant there was no such thing as an off-season. I rode year-round. In a way, I preferred training to my other responsibilities. Since I wasn’t in the States very much, there was always too much to do, people to see, requests to fulfill. It was actually a relief when the cycling season resumed each February and we returned to
Europe
.

From then on I trained with a meditative concentration on my job. It was isolating, but it was also an escape, with no distractions and fewer potential problems. It simplified everything.

This year, I looked forward to going back to
Europe
and having some peaceful time with my family, because our new home in Girona was finally ready.

The result was breathtaking. What had been a dank, crumbling old set of rooms was now a large, gracious apartment. The floor-to-ceiling terraced windows were hung with rich magenta drapes, and the ancient columns had been repainted with gilt. In a small cloistered garden, a fountain burbled beneath 12th-century stonework arches and cornices. My friend and architect

Back home, the girls needed passports. Luke already had one, with his tiny baby photo on it. He was screaming at the time it was taken, so his face in the photo was a red “O,” and even the frowning Frenchmen in customs smiled when they saw it.

I wanted to make it as easy as possible for Kik to travel with the children and the cat-and-dog menagerie, so I booked a private charter flight for them. Rather than hassle with changing planes and trying to get through customs with a double stroller, as she usually did, Kik and the kids went to a private terminal and flew direct from
Austin
to Girona in a little over eight hours. It was the best I could do under the circumstances. Still, we’d have both preferred it if I had been there to help.

I was already in love with Girona, a city that was once conquered by Charlemagne and then later reclaimed by the Moors. I never tired of strolling down the elegant arcades, or stopping at the gothic cathedral, behind which were ruins and improbable gardens planted through the different ages.

Kik walked into the apartment to find that all of our things had arrived from
France
and every piece of furniture and dish was in place. Her reaction was what I’d hoped: she looked around the huge, high-ceilinged rooms and pronounced them “palatial.” It was a far cry from her move several years earlier, with a mattress tied to the top of a Renault.

Kik loved the history and elegance of the old town center of Girona, with its arched stone doorways and cobbled streets. She had never lived in an urban setting before, so it was a new experience for her to ride a private elevator one flight down to the ground floor, and to walk a couple of blocks to do her shopping. She wandered through the Ramblas, the main pedestrian square, ducking into the various specialty shops for bread, or tea, or seafood. Or, she could just order groceries over the Internet and have them delivered to the door.

That spring we had a baptism for Grace and Isabelle, now almost six months old, in the Girona cathedral. We stood in the ancient baptismal nave, in the evening, surrounded by Kik’s family and some friends. The priest conducted the ceremony in Spanish, and at one point as he gestured with his hand, Luke thought he wanted to shake. Luke walked right up and took his hand in the middle of the ceremony. We all laughed, the priest included.

The apartment was near the Ramblas, which made it easy for Kik to load up the double stroller and wheel it through the center of town. We bought Luke a little skateboard that attached to the back of a stroller, so he could ride along behind the girls. Luke made himself at home in
Spain
, which was no surprise. He said “
hola
,” and “
gracias
,” and “
hasta luego
” to everyone, charming his way to free cookies and other items. But he was unmistakably American in his Nike duds and a backwards cap that said
UNIVERSITY
OF
TEXAS
.

A typical day: I rose at about
seven
A.M
.
for coffee, and read the paper, and if something interrupted the ritual, I was grumpy. Next, I dealt with the overnight e-mails and fired off business correspondence. Sometimes, Bill Stapleton arrived at the office to find as many as 20 messages from me by nine
A.M
. Breakfast depended on my training and how many calories I would burn that day: sometimes fruit, sometimes muesli, sometimes egg whites and fresh bread. Then I left home on my bike to train for anywhere from three to seven hours.

After I got home, I showered, ate some pasta, and returned more phone calls and e-mails, and then lay down for a nap. While I slept, Kik made dinner, usually fish or chicken and steamed vegetables. When I woke up, I played with the kids and had dinner. In the evening, we read or watched television, and we were all in bed by ten
P.M
. That was it. And we did it every day, for months on end.

Outwardly, Kik seemed content with our lives. When I came home from riding, there was pasta or soup boiling on the stove, the kids would be adorable and happy, and she always said she’d had a good day. She rarely complained or balked at the intensity of my training or the solitude of her own life in
Europe
, away from her parents and friends. I could have said, “I need to eat grass for dinner and go to bed at six,” and she’d have said fine, and help me do it. She was sunny-natured and she kept negative air out of the house. We almost never fought.