8
Carjack
10.45 a.m. We have been cleared as a zone of safety. Kelly has arrived and is asking what the smell is. ‘Spaniels,’ I explain. Then just as he is setting up, his phone goes. It’s security. The conversation at his end goes like this: ‘Hello. . . Yes. Yes, it is. . . Ooooh, right. . . Right ho! Yep. . . Right ho. Sorry. Yep. Oooookay.’
‘Everything OK, Sean?’ I venture.
‘I’ve got to shift the car.’
Then a drawn-out ‘F--k sake!’ for good measure.
Every authorised car has a banner sticker on the front and back screens, which features a unique number. These stickers are naturally highly prized and impossible to rip off; although plenty have been shredded as fans try to pull a fast one, with the idea of pinching a sticker and getting closer to the action than they’re allowed. Cars are badged so that if the vehicle is in a place that it should not be, a warning can be issued. Should this warning go unheeded, the car will be banned for all or part of the race. So all warnings regarding parking are to be heeded immediately. Sean disappears.
More Security than Spectators
Let’s briefly move from the overzealous security to overkill, shall we? Keeping any Grand Tour secure is a tough challenge. The nature of racing on open roads, covering vast distances each day, means it is perhaps the most vulnerable form of sport there is. It is simply impossible to police an active event that on some days spans more than 200km (125 miles). The modern world is a dangerous place and so every effort is made to keep the most vulnerable parts of a race on open roads secure.
There are three types of area requiring stringent security measures: the start, the finish and any pinch points where the race will slow and crowds will naturally gather – usually big mountain tests and populous towns and villages.
So security tends to be selective or, rather, concentrated in the potential danger zones.
The only exception to this I have come across was the Tour of Beijing – remarkable in the depth and breadth of its security operation, but also dead because of it.
The race had clearly been kept secret from the population to avoid what worried the organisers most: crowds.
For mile after mile, all you witnessed was a highly policed urban desert. The riders were the omega men, apparently the last on the planet, save for a very lucky few. Hardly anyone actually saw the race on site . . . eerie!
Even the police at the roadside didn’t see what passed by; they were duty-bound to actively observe an alleyway, for example, to which they had been posted. This meant they stood with their backs to the road where the action was. Thousands of them, it seems, all spaced out at various ‘danger’ points with their backs to the race, guarding every side road, junction and pedestrian crossing you can imagine. They were like statues bolt upright with their overlarge breadboard hats sloping at an hors catégorie angle extending down past the top of their shoulders.
All this prompted an obvious question: Why bother to have the ultimate spectator sport come to your country and not allow spectators? I asked one of the security people. A little nonplussed, he explained it was to keep the race secure. It wasn’t about entertaining the masses; it was about showing the best of the country to a worldwide audience ‘without interference’ – from the general public, obviously. Well, thanks for the view of the magnet factory! Save for that, I can honestly say I can’t remember a single majestic vista, or anything else for that matter, that would tempt a TV viewer into making the trip.
The Beijing Tour no longer exists.
‘My Gran said nothing cools you like a cup of tea. She was nuts.’
9
Comfort Breaks
11.00 a.m. Time to go racing. But first. . .
As the Queen Mother, God bless her soul, reportedly once said, ‘Never walk past a loo and never refuse a cup of tea.’
I would say that’s a pretty good rule for both rider and commentator alike. But what goes in must also come out and there have been numerous occasions when both professional bike riders and commentators have been caught short, either finding themselves low on vital sustenance or indeed rather urgently needing the famous comfort break. Now, if you’re going to spend say five hours of your time riding or commentating on a full stage, you’ll definitely need to relieve yourself at some point. With this always in mind, the first thing I do when I arrive at the TV compound is to look for the pissoir. A rather public but very handy plastic urinal. A very big one. This monstrosity can accommodate five proud male journalists standing in a circle, who, on cool days, regularly chat while doing what they have to do. The women’s cubicle facility is less congenial but apparently better smelling. Anyway, it is rather essential that this upright plastic receptacle is located close at hand if you want to take advantage of an ad break; I would say within 20m (65ft) of the commentary box door would be ideal. If it’s any further away, it can be a devil to find in the maze of trucks and cables that make up any media park. I have known Kelly to go on a walkabout in desperate search of relief and I’ll be left jabbering away on my own for 20 minutes or so. On hot tours – let’s say La Vuelta, where temperatures regularly exceed 35°C (95°F) – these pissoirs can become rank. Conversation around them dries up as the wafts of ammonia gas from the exit fluid produced by numerous beery journalists and engineers billows invisibly around those seeking relief. It makes the eyes water.
‘What’s wrong!?’
‘It’s OK, I’m not crying. I’ve been for a piss.’
‘Ahh.’
Meanwhile, out on course things are a little more freestyle for the riders.
It’s amazing how
