At the car, I swig heartily on a bottle of the Dead Stuff: the worst-tasting of all water provided by the race. It’s like previously boiled kettle water. Far fresher than I and already busy on the back seat, Rob is still in terrier mode, uploading stuff and translating press releases in exotic languages. Referring to his last stop on his run to the car, I venture: ‘Who the hell needs to learn Dutch anyway? They all speak English, FFS.’ ‘Aaah, it’s fun!’ he says without looking up as he furiously types on the web. I bet he’s working on Swahili at the moment. Just for fun, obvs.
If it’s been a hot day – and we get some scorchers on the Tour – we have to wait for the car to cool down before departure. Doors wide open and the engine running with the air con blasting away. Not very eco I know, but needs must. We need to be reasonably comfy ahead of, say, a three-hour drive to the hotel.
So once Sean is able to touch the gear knob we chuck everything into the back and begin negotiating with race security for an exit from the parking zone. Finally the drive begins.
I always pray that Kelly doesn’t have his famous ‘taste for the race’ as he calls it. If it’s been a punchy and quick kind of a day, one that would have suited him as a bike racer, then he’s at his worst – or, in his eyes, his best.
‘Can you slow down, Sean?’
‘Why? What’s wrong with my driving?’
‘Well, to put it bluntly, it’s absolutely shit; you’re taking far too many risks simply to keep up with the Germans. Pack it in!’
All the while, we have been taking blind corners and hill crests in Sean’s mission to keep ‘The Germans’ in sight: former French Champion, and one-time teammate of Sean’s, Jean-Claude Leclercq, who is actually Swiss and speaks German, and his colleague Karsten Migels. The unwritten rule is that the first team to get to the hotel has first dibs on the rooms.
So it’s a race.
This situation is a red rag to one of the most competitive pro-racers there ever was. Sean has a Porsche 911 at home. ‘Worst bloody investment I ever made. I’m too busy to drive the thing.’ Trouble is, he’s now pushing our overladen Skoda to the limits of its grip simply to keep up with Jean-Claude.
Probably the most annoying thing about this whole affair is the running commentary from the back seat. Rob Hatch is a vocal enthusiast given to involuntary outbursts of appreciation regarding things he loves. This applies to cycling greats in particular. Sometimes it gets the better of him, particularly where Sean is concerned, and so the encouragement to go for gaps that do not exist on a public road is both loud and frenzied. His favourite word is ‘Flickage!!!’, derived from the widely used cycling term flick. It’s a very common term in pro ranks and is used by most riders, particularly those who’ve spent any time in the Ardennes. ‘So I flicked him’ is almost a mantra when recounting any story of a win. It can be slightly derogatory as well. A bit like dispatching a bogie. It infers superiority when you do it yourself – or it can add a sense of injustice as you recall an unfair move you’ve suffered, as in: ‘He just flicked me.’ Rob has moved this on and added a little Franglais as polish. So, as Sean is divebombing lines of traffic into blind corners just for fun, and I am busy being terrified in the passenger seat, all that’s audible above squealing tyres and yawing engine is Rob shouting ‘Flickaaage’ in the manner of an extended ‘Olé’ from a crowd at a bullfight. What is particularly galling is that Rob Hatch doesn’t drive, so his knowledge of car handling is approaching zero. His egging-on of the nutter in control, who is now operating under a green mist, simply adds to my real and palpable sense of danger.
‘PACK IT IN, YOU ARE SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME,’ I scream. This admission of weakness, or rather fear, is a convenient get-out for Sean. It allows him to ease off without being seen to back down under orders from a lesser being.
‘Ooooh. Right. Well, if you’re scared, I’ll knock it off a bit.’
Rob Hatch is disappointed in the rear: ‘Come on Sean, don’t listen.’
I rip in: ‘I have got a wife and kids and I would quite like to see them again, if you don’t mind.’
We drive on in silence save for Rob, who is now trying to smooth over the cracks of a parental bust-up with light chit-chat. ‘Look at the colour of those shutters . . . lovely.’ As he witters on about anything and nothing, I sit in silence, staring out of the window. There are still two hours of this trip to go before we reach our hotel. The air that fizzed with adrenaline now settles into a post-row stupor with a series of platitudes breaking the monotony.
‘Mint?’
‘Cheers.’
‘This is the Kanarieberg, and they’re not singing I can tell you.’
Some of the long transfers are enormous – we once had to get from Normandy to Bordeaux, a hell of a drive, I can tell you. It’s
