Another Tour, another doping scandal, but its magic continues to enchant; hundreds of thousands drawn each day to catch a 10-second glimpse at the side of the road; millions abandoning lakesides and beaches to watch the final hour on television. What’s the attraction? How do you explain it? The Tour has entered its second day in the Pyrenees, and as the riders edge towards the summit of the giant Col du Tourmalet, a journalist travelling an hour ahead of the race decides to make a brief stop at a small hotel in the town of Borderes-Louron.

He orders coffee, takes a seat in the deserted restaurant and is drawn by the hum of a TV playing in another room. Curious, he edges down a short corridor to the kitchen, where the chef/proprietor, Gill Marsalle, and his elderly neighbour, Robert Correge, are watching the Tour on a small TV set perched on a cupboard.

Monsieur Correge has been a fan of the Tour since childhood and has watched many of its great champions — Robic, Coppi, Bobet, Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault, LeMond — race by his door. Even in his 80th year his enthusiasm hasn’t dimmed. He lights a cigarette and explains to the journalist what’s been happening.

Four riders have crested the summit of the Tourmalet and are being chased on the descent to the valley by the former French champion, Thomas Voeckler. Monsieur Correge checks the names of the breakaways on a small cardboard list. “Voeckler is going better today,” he observes. “Yesterday he really suffered.”

“What about all of the scandals and the doping?” I ask. “Hasn’t it diminished your enthusiasm for the race?” “It’s everywhere,” he says with a shrug. “Before, they used to race for the love of it, but now it’s this.” He rubs his right thumb against his index finger.

“But you still watch?” “Yes.”

“Why?” “It’s the Tour,” he says.





Saturday, July 8: Technical difficulties

This morning, at a small hotel near Rennes, I’m bashing my brains against the laptop when my mobile buzzes with an interview request from a radio station. The timing, to be fair, isn’t great, but they keep telling me the big bucks are in broadcasting, so I decide to oblige.

“Okay,” I announce to the cheery, young producer. “What would you like to talk about?” “Well, I don’t know much about cycling,” he confesses, “but it would be great to have you on for 10 minutes, talking about the Tour and the favourites and how you see the race unfolding.”

I hold my breath and start to count. I think I reach three before spontaneously combusting.

“Listen,” I say, “let’s not waste each other’s time here. Why don’t you find a copy of what I wrote last week and decide if you want to call me back? I am not going to glorify any of these (unfortunate use of expletive here) dopers and cheats.”

A pregnant pause ensues. After a brief discussion the interview is agreed. “We’ll call you back in an hour,” the producer insists.

Twenty minutes later he phones to cancel. “We’ve had a disaster in the studio . . . technical difficulties,” he explains. I laugh and tell him not to worry about it.

What does a guy have to do to earn big bucks these days? Today’s stage, a 52km individual time trial, was the first major rendezvous of the race. There were some very odd performances, and as I scanned the results, I was reminded of a conversation with Bradley Wiggins during the week. “The racing hasn’t been as crazy as I expected,” he said. “There have been all sorts of rumours flying around the bunch that there’s another (doping) list about to come out.”

Interesting.





Sunday, July 9: When God created bike riders

One of my abiding memories from my former life as a professional cyclist is a conversation I had with my manager, Bernard Thevenet — twice a winner of the Tour — on the morning after the stage to L’Alpe D’Huez in 1987. We were descending the 21 hairpins by car to the start at Bourg D’Oisans when we noticed hordes of cyclists — from aspiring pros to pot-bellied 40-year-olds — sweating and panting their way up the mountain.

“They’re timing themselves,” Thevenet explained. “They know exactly how long it took the leaders to climb it yesterday, and tonight they will compare times and work out how many pros they’d have beaten on the stage.”

A few minutes later we rounded the final hairpin. There was a whole line of them, queuing with their stopwatches at the bottom of the ramp, to race up the mountain. “What a bunch of sad bastards,” I thought.

Of course it didn’t take a Bill Gates to figure that there was some serious lucre to be made from accommodating these freaks, and in 1993 the Etape du Tour was formed, offering the cycling besotted an opportunity to race one stage of the Tour de France each year on closed roads. This year the 187km stage from Gap to L’Alpe D’Huez was selected.

Tomorrow at 7am a gigantic peloton of 7,548 riders will take to the start. They’ve been training like demons and shaving their legs for months. Don’t ask me to explain what I’m doing here.

After a mammoth drive through the night from Rennes, I arrive at the tented village to sign on and start to have serious reservations.

In every corner of the merchandise stores there are guys sniffing the shorts that Tom Boonen wears, loading up on Power bars and spending thousands on carbon-fibre wheels. Tonight most will forfeit the World Cup final and go to bed early. Apparently, that’s what Ullrich does.

Not me. I’ve trained minimally and refused to shave my legs. You see, there’s one thing these anoraks will never understand: when God created bike riders, he created thoroughbreds and donkeys.







Monday, July 10: Eeee-awww

Christ! Where to begin? Alarm call at four; fall out of bed; shovel disgusting bowl of raspberry-jam-sweetened-porridge down neck; remove racing kit from bag and apply axle grease to shorts; spend 15 minutes on loo trying to shift last night’s foie gras. Unsuccessful. Not a good start.

05:30 Arrive in Gap after one-hour drive from hotel; bedlam; coachloads of bike riders everywhere queuing to get into the town; abandon car, strip by the side of the road and ride to the start; hand rucksack with spare clothes to baggage truck; sip small cup of coffee; find shaded bush to urinate (yellow, reasonable flow); follow the pink arrows (race numbers 1-350) to my starting corral; I’m No 67, up front with the thoroughbreds.

06:40 Alain Prost is escorted to the front row of the grid; I don’t recall losing to him in qualifying, but decide not to object; he’s riding a Colnago, the Ferrari of racing bikes, and looks as fit as Floyd Landis. A few rows further back I spot the former Dutch professional Steven Rooks, who won the stage to L’Alpe D’Huez in 1988. He looks as fit now as he did back then. Don’t any of these guys work for a living?

06:50 Ten minutes to the start. Tension is starting to build. A few guys have edged past me to steal a couple of lengths. Others are dancing and stretching limbs. The roof of my mouth is like a parched field. My bowel is starting to shift. I haven’t felt this many nerves since the world amateur championships in 1983. And I’m the only guy at the front who hasn’t shaved his legs!

07:00 Bang! We’re off. Two idiots collide and crash after 500 yards.

Somebody else attacks and there’s an immediate split at the front. I notice Prost’s blue jersey ahead and sprint to close the gap. My legs are filling with toxins; my lungs are screaming for air; my inner voice is pounding me with abuse: “You idiot! You haven’t covered two kilometres, and already you’re in oxygen debt!”

07:55 Of course, you never really lose it, do you? The skill of moving your bike around a bunch packed like sardines, that is; the ability to put yourself in a position to avoid all the crashes. We’ve reached Embrun and I’m starting to enjoy myself. The competitive juices are flowing and I am holding my place at the front with the big boys.

As we climb up through the town, I place a friendly arm around Prost and introduce myself. He looks worried. The crashes are obviously getting to him. He seems to be breathing more heavily than me and is visibly under pressure.

“Don’t be afraid, my petit,” I assure him. “You’re in good company here.”

08:25 What you do lose is the horsepower, the ability to shift gears when the going gets tough. I’m almost two stone heavier than I was when I first raced these roads in 1986, and I am starting to feel it as we leave the village of Guillestre and enter the foothills of the Col d’Izoard. At the foot of the climb, a 14.5km brute that rises more than 6,000ft, I calculate that there are about 300 riders in front of me.

But suddenly my legs are powerless and I’m going backwards. I stop at the side of the road for a pee (orange, poor flow) and my bowel explodes with a fart that almost shakes the valley. Considerably relieved, I remount and try to attack the gradient again, but I’m belching like a trooper (that bloody raspberry-jam-porridge) and still going backwards.

A woman glides past me just before the village of Arvieux. (That may sound terribly sexist, but I’ve been cycling since the age of 11, and that’s never happened before). I haven’t passed a single rider since the bottom of the climb. They say age waits for no man? You’d better believe it. I’ve just been left behind by a 60-year-old.

11:45 I stop to take on supplies at the feeding station in Briancon. A reporter from the local radio station requests an interview. At first (because of my number), I think he’s made the approach because he knows I am an ex-pro, but it’s soon pretty obvious that he thinks I’m a donkey.

“How have you found it so far?” he asks.

“Tres, tres dur,” I reply.

“Is this your first time to ride L’Etape?” “Yes,” I say, laughing. “And it’s definitely my last.”

13:45 I stop to buy a cold can of Coke on the summit of the Col du Lautaret. I have always utterly detested this climb and my tank is almost empty. I chew an energy bar and finish the Coke and decide I’ve had enough.

There is no way I will make it to the summit of L’Alpe D’Huez. The plan is to enjoy the long descent to Bourg D’Oisans and climb off. I’ve got a wife and kids to consider. And it’s not as if I’ve anything to prove. No, I’m climbing off, my race is run. And I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed it.

14:45 I’ve reached the outskirts of Bourg D’Oisans and I’m looking skyward towards the ski resort perched on top of the mountain; L’Alpe D’Huez, the Mecca of cycling. As a boy, on training rides after school to the Hill of Howth, I must have won that stage a million times in my head. As a pro in 1986, it wasn’t quite as much fun struggling to keep pace with Hinault and LeMond, but even when you were on your knees, the sight and sound of that crowd was always a buzz.

I stop at the final watering zone at the bottom of the climb and consider going on. It’s only 13km.

I’m thinking, “It’s only 13km . . . that’s an hour-and-a-half at worst.” I climb back on my bike, glance at my watch and begin the ramp to the first hairpin with one thought in my head: “You sad bastard.”

15:45 I’ve covered the first nine hairpins at a painfully slow crawl. It is 37C. I’m starting to hallucinate.

“Why is toilet roll always white?” “Why are there no black riders in the Tour?” “Have I just been passed by a guy with one leg!” I stop and rest in the shade by the side of the road.

It’s the first time in my life I have ever stopped on a climb. There are bodies scattered everywhere; most sitting on the crash barriers; some lying exhausted by the side of the road.

I resume the climb after a 10-minute break. I’m thirsty. The heat is stifling. I’m wondering how much more I can take before having a heart attack. What a strange irony that would be. The muppets in the press room would piss themselves. I pedal for five more hairpins and decide to rest again. At the village of Huez, with 4km to go, I stop for a third time. I can see the finish now, three hairpins over my head. One more push should do it.

16:45 Did it. I cross the line and a guy removes the timing strap from my ankle. Another hands me a medal and says well done. These are the statistics of my ride. It has taken me 1 hour 57 minutes and 12 seconds to climb L’Alpe D’Huez and 8 hours, 52 minutes and 9 seconds to cover the 187km. I have finished 907th in my category (40-49 years old) and set the 2,635th best time.

Alain Prost and Steven Rooks have beaten me by almost two hours. The winner, 21-year-old Blaise Sonnery, was an hour quicker again. I collect my rucksack from the baggage truck and sit down to change my clothes.

On the opposite side of the road, a guy who has just finished is spewing his guts all over the pavement. There are more, lying in the medical tents on drips. They wanted to ride a mountain stage of the Tour; they wanted to live the dream and experience how it feels. And now they know.







Tuesday, July 11: Is this a clean Tour de France?

Spent the day surfing the web and catching up on the papers on the long drive west to get back to the Tour at Pau.

A Velonews poll drew my attention. For a week now the American magazine has been running a poll on its website: “Is this a clean Tour de France?” Readers were invited to tick one of four boxes.

1. Yes, they’re too scared now.

2. It’s mostly clean.

3. No, they’re just careful.

4. Wait and see.

I never pay much attention to these polls — particularly where the subject of doping is concerned — but this one tickled and I decided to click on the results so far. Five per cent chose (1); 27% chose (2); 50% chose (3) and 18% chose (4). At the moment, after the result of Saturday’s time-trial, I’m undecided between (1) and (3), but if you put a gun to my head I’d definitely pick (4).

The mountains will tell us more.







Wednesday, July 12: The remarkable Bradley Wiggins

Bradley Wiggins is not easy to love. He rarely responds to your text messages. He rarely stops for a chat. Offer him a deal in February to write for your newspaper, and you can be sure that in March he will sign for somebody else. I don’t understand him. I can’t figure him out. But there’s something about him I really admire. I think he’s figured this sport out.

In many ways he reminds me of Chris Eubank. Eubank has a higher profile than Brad and a greater sense of theatre, but they are kindred spirits in their attitude to the jobs.

This game can break you up. Don’t put your health in danger. Do the best you can with your ability and get out while you’re ahead.

Of course, you’re always going to ship some damage . . .

I waited for Brad at the finish in Pau and wondered if he’d hold out to Paris. The first mountain stage of the Tour can hurt like a kick in the crotch, and he sounded pretty battered after the 190km from Cambo-les-Bains. “The first climb was mind-blowing,” he said. “There was one stage when I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ ” But he hasn’t seen anything yet. Tomorrow’s ride over the Tourmalet, the Aspin, the Peyresourde, the Portillon and the finish at Val D’Aran is even tougher. Oh, and next week they enter the Alps. On Monday in L’Etape, as I was climbing the Izoard, I spotted Wiggins’s name painted beside a Union Jack close to the summit. Hope he survives to see it.



Thursday, July 13: Seeing and believing

Want to know what I’ll miss next week about covering The Open? Join me for a moment at the summit of today’s finish in Val D’Aran. The first three riders — Denis Menchov, Levi Leipheimer and Floyd Landis have just crossed the line after a fantastic finish. Menchov has won the stage. Landis is the new race leader.

I’m standing in the press pen, a couple of metres after the finishing line when Landis stops and climbs off his bike. A helper hands him a bottle of water. He pulls off the top, takes a swig and pours the rest over his head. He unzips his jersey to dry his sweat-covered chest, and every fibre of his being is twitching with exhaustion. A friend embraces him with tears in his eyes. He is escorted to the podium to be presented with the maillot jaune.

I’d kill to interview Floyd Landis. He is one of the toughest athletes in sport and his Mennonite background fascinates. I want to tell the world your story, Floyd. I want to believe in you. I have no reason not to, but how can I be sure I won’t be betrayed? That never happens in golf. It’s what I love about The Open.







Friday, July 14: More men behaving badly

A funny thing happened after the Etape on Monday. I was sitting on the terrace of a quaint restaurant near Grenoble, complaining to my wife about the miserable day I’d had, when I noticed these cheery Londoners sitting at an adjoining table. David Lewin and Simon Oliver had just completed the Etape and were reliving the adventure with Simon’s father-in-law, John Baker.

We got chatting. It transpired that we were all the same age, hadn’t shaved our legs and had all climbed the “Alp” in similar states of agony. We also agreed that we would never attempt it again. This morning David sent me an email.

“The agony of the last two hours spent on the Alp has been forgotten, permission from the wife for next year’s Etape has been granted and planning for a new training regime is about to begin. My God our memories are short. I swore to myself a million times struggling up that mountain — never again. What about you? Have you changed your mind yet?” I laughed. Sad bastards.