Cat

There’s padding and there’s padding – and I estimate that only a fraction of what Stefano has down there is padding. Blimey!

Zucca’s six domestiques, staring earnestly into the middle distance, same height, same build, same haircut, now the same peroxide blond, looked utterly interchangeable and Cat cussed herself for confusing Gianni with Pietro or Paolo and Marco and Mario or Franscesco.

They’re the cogs that keep Zucca’s wheels turning. If these boys weren’t domestiques, they’d most probably be working in their fathers’ restaurants. Not as head chefs or maître d’s, but as waiters, scurrying back and forth, keeping everybody happy. And they would indeed be happy – working for others is what they do. And they do it brilliantly and with pleasure. Their sense of family is strong. A family is a team. A team is a family. Put any obstacle in front of a line of soldier ants and they will not look for a way around it, they will climb up and over it and so it is with the Zucca MV domestiques. Their selflessness is legendary within the peloton. I’d like to write a piece about them.

Cat was making a mental note to phone the publishers of Maillot on Monday morning to propose such an article, when Megapac replaced Zucca MV on stage, the nine riders fresh-faced grinning virgins in comparison to the suave comportment of the Italian team who had a long-standing relationship with the Tour de France. She had to physically stop herself from leaping to her feet and waving at Hunter and Luca whom she now thought of as personal friends.

We meet again. You all look so lovely. Please take care. Have a good race. See you tomorrow. Adieu.

Catriona McCabe. Journaliste.

Cat McCabe is exhausted. She is back at the hotel, in her room, praying that neither Alex nor Josh will call for her. In fact, tonight she wouldn’t even open the door to Stefano Sassetta or Jose Maria Jimenez, no matter how insistently they knocked. The team presentation has been a reality check; she is truly here, on the eve of the Tour de France. She really is a journalist and a journaliste. She’s written her piece which Taverner rather liked, allowing her to keep the extra forty-four words which exceeded his word limit, and it will be published tomorrow morning.

Will He read it, I wonder?

He? Taverner? He has already – he liked it.

No – Him.

Why are you thinking about him, Cat? Aren’t your three weeks in France meant to be putting that all-important distance, in time and space, between you and all that?

I’m just wondering. I still miss Him, all right?

Who, Cat, or what? Do you miss the status of what he was – a long-term boyfriend – or do you miss the person he is? If it’s the former, that’s understandable; if it’s the latter, it’s unacceptable.

I know. It’s just the world seems a very spacious place without Him.

And your world was an unhappy one with him. Let him go. Let go. Here you are – just look where you are. You’re going to be fine.

Am I?

See her sitting up in bed. She is wearing a Tour de France T-shirt and a Team Saeco-Cannondale baseball cap. All the journalists are bribed with branded clothing and yet none are wearing them in public. Cat is disappointed. How can so many seem blasé when she herself is brimming with excitement? Cat has noted how it appears to be cool to wear branded items from previous Tours, but no one wears the current gifts as if somehow that would be too obsequious. Next year, though, no doubt they’ll be an enviable commodity and worn with pride and panache.

Cat, anyway, is wearing hers in bed, scanning L’Equipe and pleased that she can understand most of what she reads. She hauls her laptop from chair to bed and reads through her article. She pulls the neck of the T-shirt up and over her nose, inhaling deeply and knowing that, whenever she smells this T-shirt again, it will say to her ‘Tour de France, eve of the Prologue, Hôtel Splendide, Delaunay Le Beau. Room 50. Jimenez above, Lipari below. Alex Fletcher and Josh Piper in the bar. I was there.’ Cat pulls her cap down over her brow and reads.

COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CA TRIONA McCABE IN DELA UNA Y LE BEAU

The Tour de France is the most prestigious bike race in the world. It is also the most extravagantly staged event, not just in cycling but in sport in general.

La Grande Boucle does indeed trace a vast if misshapen 3,800 km loop across France. An entourage of 3,500 people, the Garde Républicaine motorcycle squad, 13,000 gendarmes, 1,500 vehicles and a fleet of helicopters escort the peloton whilst 15 million roadside spectators salute its progress as it snakes its way through France with speed, skill and tenacity in a gloriously garish rainbow splash of lycra.

The Tour de France is the race that every young European boy fantasizes about riding just as soon as the stabilizers are removed from his first bicycle. It is the race that is the inspiration for an amateur to turn professional, that every professional road-race cyclist desires to ride. It is the pursuit of a holy grail: to wear the yellow jersey, to win a Stage, to ride in a breakaway, or just to finish last in Paris albeit having lost three and a half hours to the yellow jersey over the three weeks.

Hell on two wheels, the Tour de France breaks bodies and spirits as much as it does records. It is also a beautiful and frequently moving event to watch, to witness. It is an adventure, a pilgrimage, a piece of history, of theatre, a soap opera unfolding against a stunning backdrop of France. For riders and spectators and organizers alike, it is a journey.

The Tour de France is a national institution raced by a multinational peloton, accompanied by an international entourage and broadcast to the world. It defines the calendar in France in much the same way as Bastille Day or Christmas. Similarly in Spain. And Italy. Belgium. Switzerland. Just not in Britain.

Ask any child anywhere European and hilly for their great idols and they will always name a cyclist. Ask any European sports star to name a hero, they will always hail a cyclist. Ask anyone, in fact, about their country’s key national figures, and they will invariably list a cyclist among them.

Why? Cyclists are heroes because of the bicycle itself; the ultimate working-class vehicle. Many cyclists come from modest beginnings and then achieve something great with their lives. Anyone can ride a bike. Anyone who rides a bike knows the effort it takes and will at some time experience pain – if it’s hot, cold, wet, hilly. The knowledge of that pain and that it is but a whisper of the pain and suffering which will be confronted and vanquished by a Tour de France rider, is why the peloton is considered to be made up of superhumans. They cross the Pyrenees and then head straight on to the Alps. Triumph over adversity. Man against mountain. May the play begin. Let the battle commence. May the best man win. Vive le Tour.

<ENDS>

PROLOGUE TIME TRIAL

Delaunay Le Beau, Saturday 3 July

Zucca MV’s Vasily Jawlensky, last year’s yellow jersey and riding now with Number 1 on his back, had been awake, steeling himself for the day ahead, for hours before Cat arrived at the salle de pressé as soon as it opened. He had reviewed the Prologue Time Trial course again and again before retiring last night; had ridden it in his sleep and awoke with his legs twitching. Lying awake, yearning for dawn, he pelted the course in his mind’s eye, waiting for it to be light enough, for the roads to be closed to traffic, so that he could be on his bike analysing the route and his form for real. Resting his long limbs on top of the bedcovers, his hands clasped behind his head, he contemplated the day ahead. He knew well how all eyes would be on him and yet his sole focus would be on the tarmac unfurling ahead of his front wheel. Vasily is one of the sport’s great heroes. However, unlike Massimo or Stefano, the fair, blue-eyed Russian projects no secondary image as pop star or superhunk. Nobody really knows Vasily. His fame comes solely from the genius of his riding. Everybody wants to know him because he is such an enigma. A courteous yet non-committal character. Statuesque. As silent as a sculpture. As beautiful as one too. It’s a challenge that journalists and groupies, even his team-mates, relish; to get blood from a stone. That scar slicing his cheek – how did he come by it? No one has been able to find out. Did the sculptor’s chisel slip? Is it the only scar he carries? Are there any inside? His heart is huge, twice the size of a normal man of his build. It can pump at almost 200 bpm. It rests at an awesomely relaxed pace. Is that all it does? Is that all he commands it to do? Does it carry anything other than oxygenated blood? Memories? Hurt? Passion? Who knows? Who can find out?

As Cat begins planning her article, Vasily’s Zucca MV equipeur Stefano Sassetta is yawning leisurely, deciding to rise in a short while and ride the course once or twice. He shaved last night and is somewhat appalled that razor rash on his right leg sullies the sculptural beauty of his famous thighs. Massimo Lipari is singing in the shower. Their soigneur Rachel has already mixed the energy drinks, thrown out a box of energy bars a day off their sell-by date and prepared the panini – scooping out the centres of sweet rolls and packing in honey and jam.

The Megapac guys are breakfasting as a team, squashed around a long table, interrupting mouthfuls of pasta with the occasional ‘yo!’ and high five. Luca is positively hyper, Hunter is focused, Travis contemplative.

At the Système Vipère hotel, Jules Le Grand is having to recharge his mobile phone already. Jesper Lomers has phoned home but found no answer. Anya must be on her way to Delaunay Le Beau. He hopes. Fabian Ducasse is staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, giving himself a pep talk concluding with a quiet, prolonged chant proclaiming himself invincible. His brow is dark, his excessively fit heart is thumping its extraordinary resting pace of 30 bpm. To Fabian, it is like a portentous, growing drum roll. In the depth of his soul and absolutely out of earshot of the salle de pressé, he ranks Chris Boardman’s chances more than his own but he knows that public consensus fancies his adversary Vasily Jawlensky over Boardman. What can he do about it? He does not want the man who wore yellow in Paris last year to begin the race in yellow again tomorrow, but what can he do about it?

Fabian joins the rest of Système Vipère, along with many other teams, to ride the Prologue course, to learn the corners, the cobbles, the drag in the middle off by heart. He is focused and tense and his team know to give him a wide berth. He has sworn at the domestiques and he has snapped at his soigneur. He has said not a word to Jules Le Grand, even ignoring his directeur’s morning salutation.

Tour personnel are checking the barriers, hanging banners and liaising via walkie-talkies. They hardly notice the riders warming up. Spectators have already started to mill about, gazing almost in disbelief as riders zip by. The circus has come to town. This year’s Tour de France will soon be under way.

Jules Le Grand’s mobile phone lives again. He is wearing new shoes today, exquisite Hermes loafers. He has opened a new bottle of aftershave even though he has a bottle three-quarters full.

‘Everything starts again. Today is the first day of this year’s Tour de France and our lives begin anew. There is no continuation with last year’s race. No link. We start afresh. Jawlensky taking yellow last year is now history, I see it as a gauntlet he threw to us last year. We accept. We take it. Jawlensky can only defend what he took last year. It is us who attack. We are the aggressors. We are ready to duel. He should be afraid. En garde.’

Jules regrets the fact that it is only to himself, to his reflection in the team car’s rear-view mirror, that he has just spoken.

‘L’Equipe would have loved that. Never mind, I can regurgitate it at will for the salle de pressé and I shall be sure to do so later on.’

COPY FOR P. TAVERNER @ GUARDIAN SPORTS DESK FROM CATRIONA McCABE IN DELAUNAY LE BEAU

The Prologue Time Trial, the inauguration, the thrilling fly-past, of this year’s Tour de France will take each of the 189 riders in turn 7.3 km around the pretty town of Delaunay Le Beau, hosting the race for the first time (check with Alex or Josh how much tourist blurb is the norm). Today’s distance, from the total of over 3,500 km, might seem insignificant but with no great time gaps achievable, a rider’s placing today can have a psychological bearing on himself and his competitors. Prologues are won and lost in fractions of seconds so the riders must race on the rivet. They are set to race at an average of 51 kph to complete the challenge in around 8½ minutes (check with Josh), confronting a couple of taxing corners (two or three – check), dealing with a drag quite soon after the start, a stretch of cobbles half-way and then a 400 m straight run to the end. Whether Vasily Jawlensky wins today or not, the pressure will be firmly on his back regardless of the colour of jersey he will wear tomorrow for Le Grand Départ.

‘I really can’t do any more,’ Cat decides, after reading her paragraph, ‘not until it’s all over.’ She lays her hand on her diaphragm. She is brimming with adrenalin. How on earth must the boys feel?

Her Tour de France is about to start, her sense of anticipation is as much for her own race as for the riders for whom she feels so much.

None of us can do more just now – it’s a waiting game. First rider on the course in just under four hours’ time. Vasily goes last at 18.33. How on earth can they be feeling?

‘Coming to the village?’ says Josh.

‘Sure,’ says Cat.

Josh had to contend with Cat stopping still every now and then to focus on riders warming up along the circuit.

‘You’ve got three weeks of them,’ he said, over his shoulder as Cat focused on Bobby Julich until he was round a corner and out of sight, ‘you’ll be sick of the sight by the end of it.’ He laughed, knowing that she wouldn’t, nor would he, or any of the entourage of the Tour de France. ‘In truth, Cat,’ he said surreptitiously, ‘we’re a bunch of frauds. First and foremost, we’re fans. This isn’t a job, it’s pleasure for which we’re paid.’

‘Jalabert!’ Cat, giving immediate flesh to Josh’s theory, gasped and clapped as the legendary French cyclist zipped past them. ‘Allez, JaJa!’

If Cat had been surprised by the lavish buffet provided for her and the other journalists at the ice rink, the village had her positively gobsmacked. The large courtyard at the Hôtel de Ville, through which she had walked last night to the team presentation, was now plotted and pieced by a vast array of marquees, canopies and awnings, each commandeered by a sponsor and bedecked with an array of refreshments, brochures and promotional merchandise. The air was perfumed with the smell of coffee, of meat, of wine and cheese. There was an entire suckling pig gracing a table on which cold cuts from surely a whole herd of suckling pigs were laid artistically amidst a tapestry of fruit. Further on, an enormous omelette pan was being put to great use by three moustachioed chefs. Tables heaved under huge cartwheels of soft cheese amidst forests of baguette, counters groaned under the weight of local wines and liqueurs and all the Coca-Cola in the world seemed to be available right there. Everywhere Cat looked, people were eating and drinking.