The Rider

Do I clap along with them? No. By applauding I would be saying: Hell, Reilhan, it wasn't that important, it was just good fun. I would be saying: You only beat a part of me, and the rest, what does it care, it applauds you. But Reilhan has beaten all of me. He who applauds his victor denies that, and belittles him. Being a good loser is a despicable evasion, an insult to the sporting spirit. All good losers should be barred from practicing a sport.

Because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure.

In interviews with riders that I've read and in conversations that I've had with them, the same thing always comes up: the best part was the suffering. In Amsterdam I once trained with a Canadian rider who was living in Holland. A notorious creampuff: in the sterile art of track racing he was Canadian champion in at least six disciplines, but when it came to toughing it out on the road he didn't have the character. The sky turned black, the water in the ditch rippled, a heavy storm broke loose. The Canadian sat up straight, raised his arms to heaven and shouted: 'Rain! Soak me! Ooh, rain, soak me, make me wet!' How can that be: suffering is suffering, isn't it? In 1910, Milan—San Remo was won by a rider who spent half an hour in a mountain hut, hiding from a snowstorm. Man, did he suffer! In 1919, Brussels—Amiens was won by a rider who rode the last forty kilometers with a flat front tire. Talk about suffering! He arrived at 11.30 at night, with a ninety-minute lead on the only other two riders who finished the race. The day had been like night, trees had whipped back and forth, farmers were blown back into their barns, there were hailstones, bomb craters from the war, crossroads where the gendarmes had run away, and riders had to climb onto one another's shoulders to wipe clean the muddied road signs. Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns into memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature's payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. 'Good for you.' Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lay with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately. That's why there are riders. Suffering you need; literature is baloney.

Road racing imitates life, the way it would be without the corruptive influence of civilization. When you see an enemy lying on the ground, what's your first reaction? To help him to his feet. In road racing, you kick him to death.

Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

On a bike your consciousness is small. The harder you work, the smaller it gets. Every thought that arises is immediately and utterly true, every unexpected event is something you'd known all along but had only forgotten for a moment. A pounding riff from a song, a bit of long division that starts over and over, a magnified anger at someone, is enough to fill your thoughts.

The champions have better bikes, more expensive shoes, many more pairs of cycling shorts than we do, but they have the same roads.

His specialty was the sprint for sixth place; in that he was truly invincible.

Meyrueis, Lozère, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.

Any excuse to throw a rider out of a race is OK by me, but not that kind of inborn lack of athletic skill. That's not what racing is about.

Shifting is a kind of painkiller, and therefore the same as giving up. After all, if I wanted to kill my pain, why not choose the most effective method? Road-racing is all about generating pain.

signs. Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you.’ Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately.

The first climb won't be for another thirty kilometers, at Les Vignes. I'm longing for it, just like when I'm doing it I'll long for it to be over.

When Geldermans told me that Anquetil always moved his water bottle to his back pocket during climbs, so his bike would be lighter, I began paying attention. I noticed that in all the old pictures of Anquetil climbing, his bidon is always in its holder. That’s straining at gnats. Geldermans’ story strikes to the soul of the rider, and is therefore true.

Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately. That’s why there are riders.

Jesus Christ. The nineteen walks over to the glass of forty-three, takes two slugs, wipes its mouth, rubs its chin thoughtfully, stands there like that for a few minutes and then turns to the audience with furrowed brow, arms raised in surrender. Forty-three divided by twenty, that would be a lot easier, wouldn’t it?

A dropped rider loses his strength and his willpower, he stands still.

I take the curves like a wooden puppet, afraid that my center of gravity is going to wind up in the ravine.

My muscles were able to fit themselves to my bike, they actually liked it: muscles are tractable and learn tricks fast. But racing downhill is a matter of nerves, and from the very start my nerves have thought: to hell with you and your bicycle racing.

The facts miss the heart of the matter; to give us a clear picture, the facts need a vehicle, the anecdote

Henri Pélissier once said: 'Always attack as late as you can, but before the others do.