Just Another Bike Rider

“Darling, my face is my passport.”

Whether or not Vivien Leigh so replied to a jaded customs officer’s demand for documentation, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could have failed to recognize the visage of one of the stage and screen’s brightest stars.

A cyclist out for a trining ride last week could’ve identified with her. Authorities stopped him from proceeding along a road near Saint Raphael, along the French Mediterranean coast.

Millions of people witnessed the incident during a live news broadcast on France 2. The road had just been closed due to the risk of forest fires that have engulfed other Mediterranean locales.

"Ce randonneur à vélo"
Euh c'est juste Chris Froome qui a gagné 4 fois le Tour de France sur la même chaîne. @France2tv

Poke @DansLaMusette pic.twitter.com/SVZS0mGEhv

— Johan Rouquet (@JohanRouquet) August 11, 2021

What the presenter, veteran journalist Johan Rouquet, didn’t realize  was that “ce randonneur à velo” wasn’t just any old bike tripper.  Rather, the fellow who’d just been turned back was none other than four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome.

Sometimes you just can’t be famous enough!

Braking His Enthusiasm

Sometimes the old questions become new again.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about Specialized's decision to have two of its teams ride nothing but clincher tires with tubes on all except one-day "classics" races. They were, ironically, answering a question in the way many of us did two or three decades ago, when high-performance clincher tires and rims became available.  What made Specialized's action all the more interesting is that Roval, the wheel supplier to those teams, decided to offer two of their lightest wheelsets only for tubed clincher tires, thus bucking a trend--fueled at least in part by Specialized itself--toward tubeless tires.  All the more intriguing is that Roval's parent company is--wait for it--Specialized.

Now a four-time Tour de France winner is speaking against, if not bucking, another industry trend that Specialized has helped to foster. 

For this season, Chris Froome has switched teams--and bikes.  For the past ten years, he rode a Pinarello with rim brakes (what most of us ride) for Team Sky/Ineos. That run includes all of his Tour, as well as other, victories.  Now he is riding for Israel Start Up Nation and, as is customary when changing teams, he's also changing bikes.  His new main bike Factor Ostro VAM, and it's equipped with disc brakes.

Froome likes everything about the bike except the brakes.  While he admits that "they do what they're meant to do," he says he's "not 100 percent sold on them yet."  

Chris Froome.  Image by Noa Arnon.

Now, elite racers like Froome are hardly "retrogrouches."  As Eddy Mercx once famously observed, the function of a racer's bikes is to "win and make money."  So they normally welcome whatever will give them an advantage, and many old-timers imagine what they could have done if they'd had the kind of equipment today's pros use.

But Froome makes some of the same complaints about discs we've heard from other riders:  "constant rubbing, the potential for mechanicals, the overheating, the discs becoming warped on descents longer than five or 10 minutes of constant braking."

We've heard those complaints from Froome, other folks riding at all levels today--and from riders back in the 1970s, when I first became a dedicated cyclist.

In those days, discs weren't offered by as many companies--or as widely-used--as they are now. Then, almost all bicycle disc brakes in use were found on tandems, which of course require more stopping power than single bikes.  There were legitimate reasons, other than "retrogrouchiness," why other cyclists didn't use them:  They were even heavier, more cumbersome and complicated than they are now--and even more prone to failures.  In fact, Phil Wood's disc brakes may have been the company's only unsuccessful offering.

What tells us a lot about the state of disc brakes in those days was that they weren't adopted by the early mountain bikers, who retrofitted their old balloon-tired bombers--or built new frames--with cantilever brakes.  One reason was that Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher and all of those other dudes barreling down northern California and New England fire trails were engaging in what would be branded as "downhill" riding in the '90s.  In other words, they were subjecting their bikes to at least one of the conditions Froome describes.  

In a way, Froome is dealing with an issue that faced cyclists of the 1970s and 1980s, just as those Specialized teams dealt with one that confronted cyclists a decade later.  And, while Froome hints that, for the moment, the new answer may be the old answer, those teams are answering it in the way many of us did all of those years ago.

Can You Hold It?

Do you really need to blow your nose right now?

Chris Froome probably wishes he'd asked himself that question--and, more important, answered it with a firm "No!"

For unexplained reasons, he blew his nose during the time trial of the Criterium du Daphine last week.  He may have breathed (That's the first time I've ever used that verb in the conditional present perfect tense) easier, but only for a brief moment.  A very brief moment.

He crashed.  That left him with a fractured femur, elbow, neck and ribs and with two liters less blood than he had before he blew his nose.



The result:  Not only was he out of commission after the fourth stage of the race; he has also forefitted much of the remaining season.  At any rate, he won't get to ride in the Tour de France, which he's won four times.

That, of course, has led to more than a few conspiracy theories.  After all, the record for TdF victories is five.  And the four cyclists who share the record are Continentals: Eddy Mercx is Belgian, Miguel Indurain is Basque/Spanish and Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil are French.

I mean, how would that look if a Brit entered that lofty company--just as his country was pulling out of the European Union.

Hmm...Could some anti-Brexiteer have dusted the air in front of him?

(I confess! ;-)

Farce And Tragedy On Bastille Day

Yesterday, I complained about the lack of drama in this year's Tour de France.

Well, I guess I should have known better than to write such a post on the day before Bastille Day.  It's the French national holiday and, let me tell you, it's not boring. At least, the Bastille Days I've spent in France weren't.

Today, though, provided the sort of drama that I think almost nobody wanted.  For one thing, defending TdF champion Chris Froome--along with Richie Porte and and Bauke Mollema--crashed into a motorbike on Mont Ventoux, just a kilometer from the Stage 12 finish.

Chris Froome runs up Mont Ventoux

His own bike was wrecked, and his team's support car was five minutes behind.  So he ran until he could grab a neutral service bike; about 200 meters later, he switched to a bike from the Team Sky car, on which he finished the stage.

I have great respect for Froome's determination and conditioning.  But let's just say that when he's riding, he's no Stephen Roche.  Few elite cyclists ever looked more fluid and graceful while pedaling than the Irishman who won the Tour, Giro d'Italia and World road championship in 1987.  On the other hand, Froome's limbs seem to move at every angle except the one in which he's pedaling.  While running, he looked even more ungainly, if that were possible.

But the crash and Froome's run seemed rational and orderly compared to some of the roadside spectators.  Now, I have to make a confession:  On Chamrousse in 2001, I leaned within a tire's breadth of Lance Armstrong to take a photo of him riding to victory in the time trial.  Still, I am going to chide all of those spectators who simply had to get their .15 seconds of fame; one or more of them may have caused that motorbike to lose control.

Now, I've been in France enough to know that French people like spectacle as much as anyone, and they are not averse  to farce.  But I suspect today's events at the Tour de France might have been a bit much even for them--especially since it's their national holiday and they were hoping for a victory from one of their countrymen on a stage that ended with one of the Tour's most iconic climbs.

Then again, the French I know have perspective. (Wars, occupations and such will give you that!)  Anything that happened, or could have happened on today's Tour stage pales in significance with the tragic event in Nice.  Whoever drove that truck into the crowd, and whatever his or her motives, it was an act of terror:  It seemed to come out of nowhere and struck a place and people who were celebrating a holiday in one of the loveliest seaside cities I've ever seen.

Going In Circles From Ovals To Rectangles

When I heard that Chris Froome won this year's Tour de France with an elliptical chainring, I thought of the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "It's deja vu all over again!"

There was something of a minor fad for them when I first became a dedicated cyclist, in the mid-1970s.  At that point, I think there were so few experienced cyclists (at least here in the US) that people were willing to try just about anything.  Sometimes that worked for the better, as with the case of SunTour derailleurs.  (I don't know anyone who went back to Simplex or Huret derailleurs after trying SunTour.)  In other cases, the new product didn't work well or, as in the case of elliptical chainrings, most riders didn't notice any difference.



Durham "Camel" chainring, circa 1975. Photo by Chuck Kichline.

Interestingly, oval-shaped rings enjoyed something of a renaissance a decade later, when Shimano resurrected the idea in its Biopace chainrings. It shape wasn't as exaggerated as that of the "Camel" ring in the above photo, but it looked noticeably different from round rings. It seemed that most people who rode them were in the then-emerging field of mountain or off-road riding.  Shimano offered Biopace road rings, but they weren't nearly as popular as the mountain versions.  The reason for that is, I believe, that mountain riding, being a relatively new sport, had younger riders who weren't as fixed in their habits as the older road cyclists and cyclotourists--who seemed to be a dying breed, at least here in the US, by the late 1980s.   Also, as someone explained to me at one of the trade shows, mountain riders tended to rely more on raw power than road cyclists, who prized a smooth, symmetrical stroke more. 

Shimano Biopace --loved and hated by more cyclists (who may or may not have used them)  than, possibly, any other chainring-- on 1985 Ritchey Annapurna.  From Mombat.org

Whether that person's theory holds any water, I'll never know.  I have never used any chainring that wasn't round--except for a couple of times when I fell or crashed and turned my chainring into a taco or a crepe, depending on whether I was on my Dakota or my Motobecane.  Let me tell you, neither of those shapes does much for your pedaling efficiency!

Given this history, I was skeptical when I heard that Froome rode an oval chainring.  I didn't doubt that he rode it:  Riders on professional teams usually ride whatever their sponsors give them, and I suspected that whoever made the ring kicked some money into Team SKY.  That suspicion turned out to be correct, though the identity of the sponsor--and his product--were not quite what I expected.

Turns out, Jean-Louis Talo invented the Osymetric rings Froome and some of his teammates were riding.  The mechanical engineer, who hails from Menton (right next to the Italian border), developed his design in 1993 and has been trying to convince riders and teams to use it ever since.  Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour with an Osymetric ring, and Froome won the following year's Tour with an "O".  After that, orders flooded into Talo's Nice-based Biosquat S.R.L., especially from the UK (no surprise, as Wiggins and Froome are British) and China. 

Chris Froome's bike. 

Now, some of those orders surely came from folks who had more money than cycling skill and want to ride whatever Tour winners ride. But others no doubt came from racers who are looking for an edge.  According to some riders, Talo isn't blowing smoke when he says that his rings are actually very different from other non-round chainrings like the Rotor rings--as well as Shimano's BioPace and earlier elliptical chainrings.

Whether or not Talo's creation actually imparts an advantage, it does seem different in at least one way.  Although much of the press has called it "oval" or "elliptical", it actually looks--to me, anyway--more like a rectangle with rounded corners.  Perhaps that is helpful to certain kinds of cyclists--like Froome, who pedals at a faster pace uphill than most people can maintain on flats or downhills.

Osymetric chainring on Dura-Ace crank.  No, it's not Froome's bike--or Sir Wiggo's.

Whatever its advantages, I can't help but to think of one disadvantage Osymetrics share with other non-round rings:  compromised front shifting.  Although I never rode BioPace or other elliptical rings myself, I set up and adjusted bikes with them.  With round chainrings, you set up the front derailleur so that the outer cage is a couple of millimeters above the teeth on the largest chainring.  But doing so on the ellipsis or "corner" of a chainring means that the gap between the cage and other parts of the ring is wider, which can cause mis-shifts as well as other problems.

Then again, most riders don't shift as frequently on the front as on the rear, and usually make front shifts while pedaling at lower RPMs than when making rear shifts. Plus, mechanics for SKY and other teams have probably worked out compromises of one kind or another.

If there is to be a vogue for Osymetric or other non-round rings, it will be interesting to see how long it lasts.  While it seems that Froome and other SKY team cyclists will continue riding them, Sir Bradley Wiggins has gone back to riding round chainrings.

Now, which do you prefer:  Equipment that used by someone who won the Tour de France--or someone who was knighted?  Whose guitar would you rather have: Jimi Hendrix's or Sir Eric Clapton's? 

They've Gotta Start 'Em Young

Yesterday, Chris Froome won the Tour de France two years after he won it for the first time.  He deserves all of the accolades he receives.  Anyone who can finish the Tour is at least a world-class rider; anyone who can win it is among the sport’s greats.  And when a cyclist wins the Tour more than once, it’s hard not to compare him with the sport’s immortals.




He is 30  years old.  When Bradley Wiggins won three years ago, he was 32.  And, even though Lance Armstrong’s wins have been vacated, I will include him in this comparison:  He was a few weeks short of 28 when he wore the maillot jaune in Paris for the first time.

Now, every woman of a certain age has said, “Age is just a number!”  (I’m guilty as charged!)  In some contexts, it’s true.  However, the age at which a cyclist wins his first Tour—or, for that matter, at which he or she achieves his or her first victories or high placements—seems to have a lot to do with whether said cyclists becomes one of the dominant riders of an era—or of the history of the sport.

I couldn’t help but to notice that Bernard Hinault was 23 when he won his first Tour in 1978.  Eddy Mercx’s first victory in the race came at age 24 in 1969.  Other cyclists won major stage races and classics when they were in their early 20’s, and were winning (or at least finishing among the top riders) in professional and amateur races before that.

 

Eddy Mercx in 1969

 

Actually, riders like Mercx, Hinault, Coppi and other greats from the past were competing in lots of races at such early ages.  (As great as they were, they won about one out of every five races they entered during their careers.)  That gave them the opportunity to learn how to ride a variety of different races.  When they won, it helped them to build their reputations, which would lead to contracts with major teams that had the resources to help them elevate their riding.

 

By the time Coppi, Jacques Anquetil Mercx and Hinault won their first major races, they had already entered more races than most, if not any, of today’s riders will participate in during their entire careers.  And, as I’ve said in my earlier post, in riding (and sometimes winning) a variety of races, they developed a range of skills—mental as well as physical—on which they could draw throughout their careers.  As a writer, I liken them to a writer who reads and writes in a variety of different genres when he or she is young and develops a diverse repertoire before entering the apex of his or her career.

Bernard Hinault in 1978

To be fair, cyclists today can’t be blamed for starting later than their counterparts in earlier generations.  When Anquetil and even Hinault were competing, it wasn’t unusual for a young man to leave school at 14 or 16, depending on which country he called home, and start working.  Part of the reason was that jobs and apprenticeships were available; another reason was that those young men were working to help support their families, whether in a factory or on the farm.

Cyclists of the past usually came from the class of young men I’ve just described:  one that is disappearing.  Young people in western European countries, like their counterparts in North America and Asia, are staying in school longer.  Given that few colleges and universities have cycling programs, many would-be racers find it difficult to keep up their training—especially in the absence of support from a team or club—at the same time they’re studying.

That means that cyclists aren’t starting or resuming their careers until they’re just about the age at which Hinault and Mercx won the Tour for the first time.  They therefore have fewer years in which to compete, let alone amass victories, never mind to test their mettle in a variety of different kinds of races.  Mercx retired from the sport at 33, which is actually fairly late for an elite cyclists.  At that time, he’d been racing professionally for 17 years: more than half of his life.  (In contrast, Froome didn't turn professional until he was 22.)Few, if any, of today’s cyclists will have such long careers—and thus less of an opportunity to become the dominant rider Mercx was.  

La Fete, Le Tour

Today is la Fete Nationale.

In France, there are lots of fetes.  But today is "La Fete".  Yes, La Fete.  In much the same way that people in other countries say "The Holidays" for the season of Christmas and New Year's Day, in France the holiday is today, Bastille Day.

Everything in the country is closed.  And, it seems, everyone watches the sporting event most associated with France:  Le Tour.

In much the same way that Bastille Day is La Fete, the Tour de France is Le Tour, or the race.





And, every year on this date, every French (and Francophile) fan hopes to see a Gallic cyclist win the day's stage. This has been especially true in recent years, as even stage victories have become less frequent for riders from the land of the Tricolore.

Helas, there would be no French victory today.  Chris Froome, favored to win the Tour, took Stage 10, the first in the mountains.  Froome certainly has the talent and skills to win; perhaps more important, he has teammates like Richie Porte.

And one of France's best hopes--Warren Barguil--crashed.

Alberto Contador and Vicenzo Nabali lost ground to Froome and Porte.  Still, their finishes were more than respectable, as the Pyrenees, while not as high as the Alps, include some very steep climbs. I know:  I've ridden there! I wouldn't mind being there again for La Fete.

 

An Outsider Wears The Yellow Jersey

The Tour de France ended a few hours ago.  Vincenzo Nabali won.

That result doesn't seem so surprising now.  But, before the race began. I don't think very many people were picking him as anything more than a dark horse to ascend the podium at the end of the Champs-Elysees

He is a talented rider, but he had a bit of luck:  Chris Froome and Alberto Contador, two of the favorites, both pulled out of the race after crashing.    Also, this year's route played to his strenghts:  three of his four stage victories were in the mountains.  In fact, he won a stage in each of the ranges the Tour visited:  the Vosges, Alps and Pyrenees.  

Moreover, his other stage victory came on the Tour's second day, at the end of the 201km from York to Sheffield.  That made Nibali the first Tour winner since Eddy Mercx to win four non-time trial stages.  For the record, there was only one such stage in this year's race, which was a good thing for Nibali, as that is not one of his strenghts.

Although, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I was not rooting for anyone in particular, I am glad to see Nibali win.  He hails from Sicily, as some of my family does.  One of the reasons, I believe, that there haven't been--until recently--many Italian-American competitive cyclists is that most Italians who emigrated to the US came from Sicily or the southern part of the mainland (from places such as Naples).  Most of Italy's racing cmmunity and infrastructure (as well as most of its bicycle industry) is found in the northern part of the country.  There isn't even as much recreational cycling in, say, Palermo or Bari as there is in the Tuscan and Ligurian regions, or in some northern European countries.  

Nibali on the Champs-Elysees

So, congratulations to Vincenzo Nabali.

Jean-Christophe Peraud and Thibaut Pinod took the other two positions on the podium.  This is the best showing for French cyclists in three decades.  Next year will mark 30 years since Bernard Hinault took the most recent overall Tour victory for a French rider.  Could it be the time the French take back their own Tour?  Or will Nibali repeat--or will Froome or Contador return to form?   

The Hope of the Tour

It seems that, barring a mishap, Chris Froome is going to win the Tour de France.  Just as Brits cheered his rival and fellow Engishman Bradley Wiggins last year, they—and cycling fans around the world—want to see Froome take the title this year.

Even more important, I believe, is another hope expressed by his admirers—and one in particular:  a guy named Stephen Roche.
 

He’s the Irish cyclist who won the “Triple Crown”—le Tour, Il Giro d’Italia and La Vuelta d’Espana—in 1987.  I am not the only fan who believes he could have had a career to rival the greats like Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Mercx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain were it not for a chronic knee problem.  Like them, he was a great overall rider who excelled in the mountains and on time trials.  Also, he was as conscientious about his training as any cyclist who ever lived.

The thing that true cycling fans loved about him, though, was his form.  In spite of his chronic injuries, very few cyclists have ever been as graceful and as powerful in the saddle as he was.  Whether he was on a hors categorie climb or riding against the clock, he always exhibited the same fluid, symmetrical pedaling motion.  And the rest of his body seemed to support it, in unison.

Stephen Roche in 1987

Near the end of his career, he faced accusations of doping that were never conclusively proved.  That was quickly forgotten and never seemed to cast a shadow over his reputation.  Plus, if you ever saw him ride, you'd know that he didn't need drugs to win.


 I think cycling fans always respected Roche because he won, or at least placed highly” In the “classics”—races like the Paris-Nice and Tour de Romandy.  In other words, he did not focus his attention entirely on le Tour, il GIro or la Vuelta and disregard the rest of the cycling season.  So, when Roche says that Froome is the "next great hope", or something to that effect, people listen.

He has expressed hope that Froome actually is, and will remain, the “clean” rider he so far seems to be.  Plus, from what I’ve read and heard, just about everybody who’s met Froome respects and likes him.  If he can win clean, he—as Roche points out—will be a great ambassador for the sport.

Le Quatorze Juillet: Victoire Sur Ventoux, Mais Pas Pour Un Cyclist Francais

Aujourd'hui, c'est la fete nationale francaise:  le jour de la prise de la Bastille.

If any Francophones or Francophiles are reading this, I apologize that I don't have diacritical marks on my keyboard!

Anyway, I spent le quatorze juillet in France four times, two of them on my bicycle.

In France, this date is always one of the most important in the Tour de France.  Or, at least, it's one of the dates on which the French pay most attention to the race.  Perhaps the best way I can describe it for Americans is this:  Imagine that, on the Fourth of July (le jour d'independence american), there was one baseball game.  Imagine what it would be like if most of the nation (or what seems to be most people in the nation) watched it before enjoying barbecues with families and friends and fireworks displays in their communities.

On all four of the years in which I was in France for le quatorze juillet, I was also there for le quatre.  On two of those occasions, I was in Paris and there were celebrations of American independence.  (The French--even Parisians--don't hate Americans, contrary to what you've heard.  It's more complicated than that.)  But in the other two years, when I was in les pays, enjoying the festivities of le quatorze made up for The Fourth simply being another day.  Well, almost:  The Fourth also happens to be my birthday!

Anyway, in the glory years of French cycling--when riders like Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Thevenet and Bernard Hinault won the Tour--a win in the stage on the 14th was almost expected.  And, in recent years, when the races has been won by cyclists from Spain, Italy, Colombia, the US (Greg LeMond still has his titles.), Germany and--helas (if you're French, anyway)--Britian, French cycling fans could console themselves with a victory--or the prospect of one--by a French rider on Bastille Day.

However, this year, it was not to be.  However, today's stage had an interesting outcome, in its own way.  Chris Froome--a Briton by way of Kenya and South Africa--won today's stage, which ended on the Tour's most difficult climb, Mont Ventoux.


Froome spoils French party by omnisport-uk

Ventoux is inherently a difficult (rated hors de categorie) climb.  But what makes it even more difficult for Tour riders is the fact that, unlike climbs like Galibier, les deux Alpes and Peyresorde (all of which I've done!), Ventoux is not part of a mountain chain.  It seems to come out of nowhere, so it's a shock to riders who've spent the day on the rolling-to-flat terrain that surrounds it.

One of the reasons why Froome's victory on Ventoux is so interesting is that the mountain claimed another famous British rider.  In 1967, Tom Simpson become the first cyclist from Albion to wear the yellow jersey, signifying the race leader, in the history of the Tour.  Some believed he would win the whole race, as he'd had an enormously successful racing season.

However, in pedalling up Ventoux, he suffered a stroke that killed him.  An autopsy revealed--to the surprise of few--that drugs played a part in his death.

There is a memorial to Simpson, and every Tour cyclist pays tribute--whether by waving his cap or with some other gesture--to the rider whose death, some argued, set back the hopes and dreams of British racers for at least a generation.

Three years after his death, one of Simpson's former teammates (on the French Peugeot team) won the stage that ended on le geant de Provence and paid tribute to him.

He was, arguably (Well, I won't argue, anyway!), the greatest racing cyclist who ever lived:  Eddy Mercx.