Mountain Fun at the Dauphine (StS and News Crossover Event)
The Dauphine is back to its best. As well as including a time-trial again (removed for the first time ever in 2020 due to shortening the race for the Covid calendar), the 2021 edition reads like a checklist of iconic climbs for French cycling nerds.
The final weekend alone includes Col de Porte, Cormet de Roseland, La Plagne (penultimate stage finish and a truly, truly magnificent climb for cycling history buffs), Col des Aravis, Col de la Colombière, Col de Joux Plane, and a stage-and-race-summit-finish at Les Gets.
Are we breaking our icy cool exteriors to express a tiny bit of excitement for cycling? Well, maybe.
HEY. Les Gets. Let’s read Dominic’s account of finishing second there in 2011, just to get us excited.
We were on the climb to Les Gets. I was tied down with strict orders to keep control of the peloton, to keep the pace even up the climb, just fast enough to make it difficult for anyone’s attacks to stick.
Like the other Tour contenders, Liam wasn’t here to carve out opportunities, but to test his legs. If an opportunity arose, though, he was to take it. Winning by attrition would be a statement of intent, but winning in style would see him entering the Tour de France as a favourite.
A kilometre and a half up the climb, things started to get jumpy. Two early attacks stretched out off the front, hovered there, and then snapped back. Liam was watching Bernard Larcque, and leaned over to whisper at me.
“Larcque’s going to go, mate. When he does, go with him.”
We were breaking with the plan, but it could be an effective tactic. I was high in the overall standings after the time trial, which would make it easy for me and Larcque to divide the spoils: he could take the stage victory and I could take the overall lead. With that arrangement, we’d work together effectively all the way to the finish. Behind, the race for the stage win would settle down once it was clear our lead was unassailable. The pressure would be off our team because we weren’t going to chase each other down, meaning the other overall riders would have to do all the work if they wanted to contain my lead, dragging Liam to the finish line if they succeeded in catching me.
On the other hand, we were taking a big risk by isolating Liam. This wasn’t the catenaccio, dead-bolt racing Ton had asked of us. Hudson wouldn’t like it, though if it worked he’d probably be happy to take the credit.
Bernard Larcque was proclaimed as France’s next Tour winner because he had a little talent, but he’d be 27 next month and hadn’t done a thing yet. The peloton knew he never would do much, Larcque included, but he understood being France’s star rider is enough to pay the bills. If he could win the French national championships at the end of the month, he’d be dining out on it for the rest of his career.
It was a good time to attack. The pace had settled down, everybody had tested their legs. We were all just starting to hurt.
Larcque went. I watched for a moment, and knew Liam was already boring a hole into the back of my head waiting for me to follow. I bridged the few meters to Larcque in no time, and when I passed I gestured for him to come with me. The plan this morning was for me to keep the pace even and fast, but for Liam and not this nobody. Larcque was an astute rider, and understood what was going on. He must have been thankful it was me and not a serious climber who was with him.
The road up to Les Gets is 10.7km long. 10,700 metres. Larcque had about 8km of that left when he attacked, but when the adrenaline wore off we were on the steepest section and not exactly eating up the mountain. We had maybe 800 or 850 metres until the slopes evened out, dropped down to 1.3%, practically nothing, and finally settled at something more manageable. The overall gradient is just 3.8%. On such a shallow slope there’s no real way for anybody to make a significant amount of time on their rivals, so the peloton would mostly finish together. If we could reach the shallower slopes first, we’d be in a strong position to finish ahead of them.
I turned the pedals and didn’t look back. I was making big, round circles with my feet, slightly larger than my cranks would allow so that I’d be putting full pressure the whole way round. Looking up the mountain made me dizzy, like a reverse vertigo, as though I’d fall and slide up and into the sky, so I looked down at the road a few metres in front of me. Once the gear got almost too hard to turn, I stood up out of the saddle and pushed the pedals and defied them to resist.
The crowd’s cheers drowned out, like I’d dipped my head underwater. Behind there was a ticking noise from Larcque’s bike. The ticking, it must have been Larcque’s chainset, maybe his bottom gear, rubbing somewhere. My breathing synchronised with the click, like we were counting together. In this state, lost in oxygen-debt, I tried to remember my gearing, and how that related to gear inches, and how many metres each pedal stroke would be propelling me, and how many pedal strokes it would take to reach the summit.
Larcque’s breathing grew heavier. Knowing the crowd were cheering it seems unlikely, but I remember being able to hear, quite clearly, those deep, laboured inhalations he was taking. The noise from his gears was louder now too and I tried to make it tick faster.
It felt like an eternity, but the slope subsided and gravity stopped forcing so much pain on me. I looked back at Larcque and he was still there but looking pretty terrible. There was spit on his chin and his mouth was gaping.
Another kilometre of racing under our belts and he was recovering. He came to the front, realised he couldn’t contribute, and offered me his water bottle as a symbol he was trying to help. I let him keep it.
We were past the halfway point now and at the last steep section. I flicked my elbow to make Larcque come through to the front, and told him he could win the stage as he came past. I wanted him to set his own pace so I didn’t accidentally leave him behind through this tough segment, but there was a danger of us losing the lead altogether. A motorbike relayed to us that the time gap was 1:12 to the chasing group, 1:26 to the peloton. I didn’t have time to think about the fact there was a chasing group and what it meant for Liam, all I knew was our lead at the front was going to be big enough, provided I could squeeze enough out of Larcque.
Once he was in front, I tried to encourage him, shouting “Allez Bernard,” and “Tu es betes comme tes pieds” which I thought was about turning your feet, but actually meant something else altogether.
The next time the motorbike came through we were 1.7km from the summit. The gap back to the chasing group was 56 seconds, 1:01 to the peloton. I was going to take the race lead. Larcque gave a smile and a pat on the back.
Bernard Larcque’s burst of encouragement came too early. Under the 1km banner he was already flagging and I ended up in front again. At 300 metres I eased up, but Larcque still couldn’t come past me. I looked back, trying to make it seem like we were doing some posturing for the best position coming into the finish, and his legs were barely moving. With 150 metres to go we turned a corner and I took the long, outside line hoping the extra distance would push me behind Larcque. His legs were coming back now he could see the finish and hear the crowds. I gently tapped on my back brake and he finally edged in front. I tried to make like I was sprinting, but Larcque sat up, sat back, and basked in his glory. I freewheeled behind him, looked down at my front wheel like I was beat, and let him cross the line.
Another group without Liam Greene consumed the chasing group and finished 39 seconds behind us. I took the race lead.
The next was a blur: a podium, a lot of handshakes, a jersey. There was so much to do. Interviews I couldn’t avoid, where words just fell out of me without much help from my brain. Hudson Ivory hugged me close. Over dinner my teammates were delighted.
It was a lot like being drunk, in a lot of ways. And just like being dead drunk, I had a sudden moment of clarity, where my brain broke free of whatever chains bound it. I rejoined with reality, caught the end of dinner. Lorenzo was talking about the car he’d just bought. The eyes were off me by now.
We parted for bed. There’s so little time for anything on the road, especially in the race lead.