Raw Deal

I read Paul Kimmage’s Rough Ride in the spring of 1991. Why? I’m not sure to this day. I didn’t believe there was a drug problem in professional cycling and am not by nature a suspicious sort. Yet, for some reason, I decided to pick it up.

The picture Kimmage painted was so alien to what I thought I knew of professional cycling as to be practically science fiction. His was a dystopian world where the dreams of hard working innocents are dashed in a daily regimen. Worse than the tribulations mortals suffered at the hands of the gods in Greek Mythology, to race a Grand Tour among the PROs was clearly preferable to having your liver pecked out by an eagle on a nightly basis. Especially if you raced clean.

I hadn’t thought much of the book for some seventeen years. Then one day in a blaze of discretionary spending, I went nuts on Amazon and picked up a half dozen volumes without which my life seemed incomplete.

As I read the revised introduction I began to see all that I had missed in my first reading. In 1991, I knew the players, but not in the way I do now. The intervening years have given me time to read more about each of the protagonists and to become familiar with others whose names were little more than a footnote to me then. A line from the James Tate poem “The Lost Pilot” came to me as I read: He was more wronged than Job.

The stunner in this isn’t how Kimmage suffered as a pro trying to race clean. No, he was really just incidental damage in a system gone awry. There was nothing particularly malicious in his treatment as he got chewed up racing on bread and water. No, the outrage is how he was treated for, as the French call it, craché dans la soupe—spitting in the soup.

Rider after rider disputed the truth he told, and his hero and team leader Stephen Roche betrayed him and insulted him in a way that might make Roger Clemens smile. And while what was done to Kimmage was unfair and tragic, his personal tragedy was nothing compared to what the sport itself suffered as a result of hanging him out to dry.

Shakespeare himself would appreciate the cruel turn of events that occurred in 1990. As Kimmage was working on Rough Ride, the peloton was familiarizing itself with EPO. And by familiarizing itself, I mean the first Dutch cyclists were having heart attacks in their sleep.

Kimmage showed how the lack of testing allowed the cancer of doping to grow unchecked from the beginning of cycling through to the 1980s. The late 1980s ushered in a new age thanks to few tests, lax testing protocols, a culture that actively encouraged doping as a coping mechanism and three Italian doctors who saw EPO as something of a real-time eugenics program—a way to help the athlete to reach his full potential. It’s fair to wonder if Greg LeMond’s 1990 win at the Tour de France was the last clean win at the Tour.

In reading about Kimmage’s relationship with Irish journalist David Walsh—yes, that David Walsh—a different portrait of Walsh appears. Rather than the single-minded writer known for pursuing any rumor about Lance Armstrong, one sees a knowledgeable sports journalist mentoring a cyclist disillusioned with his sport because of his inability to get on board with doping. One can see how Walsh might have adopted Kimmage’s disillusionment as his own and how he may have grown outraged at those who victimized Kimmage for speaking the truth.

The cautionary tale here isn’t that in pro cycling you will face drug use. No, the cautionary tale is that by ignoring the doping problem when it was relatively simple and unsophisticated, the UCI missed the opportunity to get on top of the problem before it entered the realm of systematic practice. No longer was it the game of the farm boys.

Once doping became the province of doctors who introduced the athletes to the new drugs and team managers who instructed the doctors who peaked when, pro cyclists lost their dream. Kimmage’s story is not uncommon; on the contrary, his is the story of most cyclists of the modern era. It is the destruction of one cyclist's dignity after another.

Tim Krabbé's The Rider

Great books on cycling generally fall under the category of racing history. Whether the race was last year or the last century, recounting the exploits of the greats is usually a requisite ingredient to give a writer something interesting enough to write about with some style. The point behind this assertion is that great cycling books are of a kind; they do not come from the categories of fix-it manuals (as well done as some are), guidebooks or training manuals.

Novels almost never figure in the category of cycling books, good or bad. The Rider, by Tim Krabbé is therefore special for two reasons. The first reason is that it is a novel on cycling. That alone makes it noteworthy, if not automatically worth reading. The second reason The Rider is interesting is the simplest reason why any book is worth reading: It is extraordinarily well written.

Each time I read this book (don’t ask how many times I’ve been through it) I marvel because it captures perfectly the mindset of the racing cyclist. It also captures the otherness of the introspective cyclist, which is, in my estimation, a harder, more ephemeral mindset to communicate, yet he does it crisply from the book’s opening:

"Meyrueis, Lozere, 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 cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

His Spartan writing style recalls the simple journalism of Hemingway and yet his alienation from such an ordinary pursuit—sitting at a café—is Kafka-esque. It’s an alienation that any dedicated roadie has felt at some point.

The Rider was published in 1978 but wasn't translated into English until 2002 by Sam Garrett. That we had to wait so long to enjoy Krabbé's work of art is tragic.

If you forget for a moment that the story is a novel and just read it as a memoir of a single day—yes, it recounts a single race—and read it as an exploration of the racer’s psyche, it stands up as one of the finest meditations on what it means to race a bicycle ever written—if not the absolute finest. Written as only a true insider could do, the details are as familiar as they are humorous, such as the racer nicknamed le douze in honor of the fact that he rides with a 12-tooth cog just because Eddy Merckx had one.

Krabbé’s insight into the racer’s mentality as evidenced by his ability to gather quotes by the greats and use their words to demonstrate the truth of the belief. He writes: “Bicycle racing is a sport of patience.” True enough. But then he backs it up with my favorite quote on what it is to wait for the right moment to attack: “’Racing is licking your opponent’s plate clean before starting on your own.’ Hennie Kuiper said that. Lebusque will stay out front for kilometers. Where would we be without Lebusque? Lebusque doesn’t know what racing is.”

What Krabbé knows is what only a dedicated racer knows. “If anyone really attacked now, I wouldn’t be able to follow. Can they tell that by looking at me? I’m too exhausted to hide my exhaustion.”

There is a reason why the crew at Rapha have lionized Krabbé’s exploits in the Cevennes. The Tour of Mont Aigoual is the very stuff of myths—a place few cyclists know, Category 1 and 2 climbs, teeth-gritting descents, epic weather, suicidal competitors and of course the eternal calculus of competition.

For the person who has never raced, The Rider will likely scare them the way the dark scares children. For the roadie who never lost the taste for the attack and the drag to the finish, The Rider may be the truest statement you ever read about your life.

The Green Line

Michelin is best known for its tires. After that, its reputation as the arbiter of the greatest achievements in gastronomy is only mildly in dispute. For the veteran traveler, the guides to hotels and tourist destinations—le guide rouge et le guide vert—are two inarguable sources of helpful information. What most people can’t reconcile is how a company known for making tires for cars (and motorcycles and bicycles, of course) could also be the consummate reviewer of restaurants. The connection is as tenuous as, say, an action film star becoming Governor of California.

But there is a connection and when you see it, suddenly Michelin’s magnanimity takes on such mythic proportions as to seem like a new take on philanthropy. The connection between Michelin’s pneumatic products, its restaurant guides, hotel guides and tourist guides are maps. You see, Michelin is in the travel business. Rather than offering package tours, cruises or cheap airfare, they supply those items a traveler of roads might need: Directions, food, lodging and a good time. What could be more obvious?

Its three-tiered ranking system awards stars based on criteria that have been called incontrovertible, objective, idiotic, old-fashioned, ingenious and arcane. Even if not everyone agrees to the judgments, the system is easy to understand and offers travelers a reasonable starting point for trip itineraries.

But perhaps Michelin’s greatest achievement aren’t the tires or the primers on Gothic architecture or the surveys of French wines, but that most necessary of travel aids, the map. Due to a map's essentially objective nature there isn’t much to make it likable or revolting in measures small or large. Yet Michelin has found a way to distinguish itself by offering maps that are easy to read. And because it is the Michelin staff’s very nature to evaluate and review whatever it encounters, its cartographers have determined that not all roads are created equal. Some roads, to paraphrase, are more equal than others.

The green line is Michelin’s way of saying, ‘You’ll remember this drive for the rest of your life.’ Now, depending on just where you are, that might mean beautiful or breathtakingly precarious, but that’s your call. The larger point is that every road that offers an exemplary view gets a green stripe hugging the road itself.

Those green lines are a cyclist’s best friend after the bike itself. An interesting road is like news: To keep one’s attention, there must be changes, undulations, unexpected twists and turns. No one ever called the driving in Nebraska beautiful. And yet everyone talks of a drive through the Alps as being beautiful, but also a little scary.

For the cyclist who uses maps as a way to fantasize about the vacation not yet taken, Michelin maps are the HDTV of the cartographic experience. Arguably one of the finest spiral-bound documents ever assembled is Michelin’s atlas of France. Compiled in 1:200,000 detail, the atlas leaves no asphalt ignored in its corralling of each and every road in France. And as great as that atlas is, Michelin offers other treasures you may not know about unless you visit France. Little known are the 300-series maps in 1:150,000 scale. The green line threads its way up and down mountain passes like ribbon through a young girl’s braid. Each switchback and chevron spell a cyclist’s playground, an epic day just waiting to happen, a family album to the Tour de France, monuments to the greatest battles on French soil.

Paris Roubaix: A Journey Through Hell

Both victories began the same way. With a monster bridge up to a small group of leaders: Tete de La Course.

The suffering is unlike any I have felt before. The pain in my legs is overshadowed by the pain in my lower back. My teeth split small granules of the farmer's field as I close my mouth in search of relief from the dryness. My fingers are stiff like twigs and my eyes are searing from the swirling dust. I have the strength and the constitution to close the deal, to ride into the velodrome alone, with enough time on my rivals to adjust my jersey and to savor the moment. I ride the last 100 meters and my eyes well up, the tears begin to flow, I release the pain and suffering that has built up over the course of the day in a flood of emotions. I've received the ultimate gift from the Queen: the opportunity to call her my own for one year. My reward? A place in cycling history realized in the form of a plaque hung in the famous concrete showers.

As an adult, I don't dream the same way I used to. The dreams of flying replaced by dreams of losing my teeth and punching underwater. The stresses of adult life have squashed the youth right out of my slumber. However, over the month of December, I have on two occasions drifted off to sleep and awoke in the morning a winner of Paris Roubaix.

I attribute the victories to my time spent reading Paris Roubaix: A Journey Through Hell, the new book published by VeloPress. Paris Roubaix (PR) is a comprehensive collection of past and present race images and detailed accounts of its history, having more depth than most PR accounts.

The essence of the book can be felt as you lay it on your lap and begin to page through it. The cover image shows a lone rider, Johann Museeuw, in his prime and entrenched in the mud. You can just hear the cacophony of sounds screaming from the rabid fans. A yellow Lion of Flanders flag stands out as one of the only splashes of color on the cover (the mud muting all others). To a bookstore passerby, the cover image alone would pique the curiosity of the un-indoctrinated: The cover shot is an ode to the material contained inside, a photo capturing all the things that draws one to this race.

Inside, the history of the race is laid out in simple form making it easy to devour large portions of the book in single sittings. As a fanatic, I've spent far too much time studying the images of the world's greatest one day race, where many of the images have become icons: Tchmil's muddy 1994 victory, the view down "The Trench," and the crown of the cobbled farmers' paths that reveal cavernous gaps between the stones (those wide enough to swallow up an unsuspecting tourist!). The images in Paris Roubaix captures a humanistic perspective that draws in the reader and annotates the surrounding text.

Something about this book has grabbed me in a way no other cycling book ever has. Mind you, Philippe Brunel's 1996 An Intimate Portrait of the Tour De France spoke to me, but this book punched me so hard it knocked a tooth loose. The book is a refreshing look at the world's greatest one day race, a race that over the past years has been distilled to fit neatly in a series of thumbnails on a Web page. Images lacking depth and truth. A Journey Through Hell brings the race back to life, capturing the faces of the people who make the race what it is. From the PROs themselves to the police to the spectators, this book packs your lunch and drags you and your family out for a day at the races.

Immerse yourself in this great race and at the very least, sip an espresso at your local bookstore while thumbing through the pages.

Then, try walking out without purchasing a copy of your own.

Paris Roubaix: A Journey Through Hell
VeloPress 2007