The Start Line
The start line of a stage on a Grand Tour can be a nerve-jangling time for the riders. Even on the last day of the Tour de France, which is a rather processional affair until the peloton reach Paris, the sprinters will be on edge because this is the most prestigious stage for them to win. The unofficial Sprint World Championships, even. But each day has something worth fighting for: a breakers’ day, a climbers’ day and so on. Any start line is time to go to work. Don’t forget that professional racing is, at its core, a form of combat. Sure, everyone will have emptied their bladders before the off, but the actual racing won’t start until the so-called départ fictif has been completed – and that can take some time. Everyone is fully hydrated before the start of this processional roll-out. This gives the riders a chance to warm up on the move and the fans at the departure venue a look at the riders. It also gives all competitors and teams a chance to check that the bikes are set correctly before racing begins proper at the départ réel, aka Kilometre Zero. This parade can be rather long if there’s a big city to be negotiated before they get out on more open roads. Sometimes there are promotional reasons for a delay before the true start: the riders may be guided through an industrial park passing a major sponsor’s factory or such like. If this happens to be a full commentary day from start to finish, this false start can be purgatory: ‘And there is the Wash-Easy complex . . . the largest producer of industrial launderette machines in Turkey . . . it says here.’
Once they’re up to speed and the director is happy with the way everything is going, he’ll stick his head out of the sunroof of the leading car, wave his flag and finally they’ll be off. But often not for long.
If it’s a sprinter’s stage, a breakaway will quickly be allowed to form – and this is the perfect time for the peloton to take a pee. It allows the breakaway to build up a decent buffer and the rest of the pack to do their business at the side of the road. It’s not shown on TV very often, except by accident. It’s not a pretty sight. Sometimes the race leader or the patron of the peloton (a senior and well respected rider) will flamboyantly come to the front and drift to the side of the road. It’s a cue to everyone who needs to go to stop at the side of the road, pull aside their bibs and try to avoid the spray from anyone else. Difficult on a breezy day. All this is supposed to be away from the gaze of the public. Indeed, there are rules about this. And fines. Basically, don’t do it in town or at a place where the crowd is dense. If you do, carefully worded edicts will be issued along with a fine. These contraventions vary in terms of their official description (often euphemistic), depending on the race. They are detailed in the course road book and can be quite hilarious.
‘Not respecting the sobriety and conduct expected of a rider.’
‘Bringing the race into disrepute.’
Or even once: ‘Public display of intimate body parts.’
Take your pick, but basically they all mean a fine for getting your knob out in public. Or, indeed, your lady bits. Fines will follow and are documented in a list of shame the following day as part of the results dossier. We always flip to the back page for a giggle at the Naughty List.
Sean Kelly’s An Post team was once racing the Tour of Britain while we were commentating on the Vuelta out in Spain, and Sean was sent an email from his Directeur Sportif back home saying that they’d been ‘unfairly fined’ by the organisers. Apparently an angry resident had complained about a couple of the guys peeing over his hedge. Later, it turned out not to have been any of the team’s riders at all but those in the team car itself. This was, of course, hilarious to us as Kelly shouted down the phone, ‘What’s wrong with a sales rep’s toilet?’ Otherwise known as using a regular drink bottle, this is the sort of thing you encounter in lay-bys all over the world. I used to wonder why the bright orange soft drink Irn-Bru was often dumped half-finished by the road. Well, it’s not Irn-Bru.
Of course, the subject of toilet breaks came sharply into focus at the 2017 Giro, when Tom Dumoulin got his feeding all wrong and found that he needed to evacuate his system. The fact that this happened to be while he was wearing the leader’s jersey in a Grand Tour in front of millions of viewers, just as the peloton was about to tackle an iconic climb, was rather unfortunate. The cameras could not ignore the race leader at such a crucial and potentially decisive moment, no matter what the reason. It was the story, however scatological. Tom Poomoulin was a briefly popular nickname.
To avoid this sort of thing happening, cyclists have, over the last century, tried to refine a feeding system that avoids such embarrassing and potentially race-losing situations. There are many things to eat that are carb specific and, not to put too fine a point on it, don’t produce stools.
A favoured snack is a ball of rice, often dipped in honey. Rice is amazing: it is almost entirely metabolised by the human body, being so finely broken down that it generates the maximum amount of energy while leaving very little waste.
