Fen says, ‘his wife’s just had another baby.’
‘I’m going to do another Vasily,’ says Pip, ‘just with the one “s”.’
‘OK,’ Fen enthuses, ‘I’ll do Svorada – he’s a spunk.’
‘And then we’ll return the paint and ingratiate ourselves to Mr Van Gogh,’ Pip says very earnestly.
‘Absolutely,’ Fen says, finding room for an exclamation mark after A L L E Z M I L L A R. ‘I’m cold, thirsty and hungry already.’
By 11.15 a.m., when the race rolled out of Grenoble, Pip and Fen had painted the names of most of the peloton and made many friends on L’Alpe D’Huez. Consequently, coffee, beer, junk food, transistor radios and expertise had been laid generously at the English girls’ disposal. Mr Van Gogh was called Marc and Pip whispered to Fen that, in daylight, he appeared to be looking more and more like Johnny Depp. Fen decided her sister probably should not have had a beer for breakfast so she told her to pee behind a boulder, which Pip dutifully did.
‘Remarkably like Johnny Depp,’ she said to Fen on her return. ‘I’m covered in whitewash.’
‘What makes a great climber?’ Fen asked Marc, while Pip gave him a fleeting flutter of her eyelashes.
‘Basically, a strong will and a high strength-to-weight ratio,’ Marc explained, ‘though, being light and nimble, they often lose time to the heavier riders when descending.’
‘Have you ever been to England?’ Pip asked Marc.
‘What makes a good descender then?’ Fen interrupted his reply.
‘Confidence,’ Marc said, ‘supreme nerve.’
‘Your English is so good,’ Pip flattered, beer for breakfast increasing her confidence, ‘you must visit London.’
A cheery Belgian called Fritz offered paprika-flavoured potato chips around. ‘Eye reflexes have to be really sharp and honed,’ he told Fen. ‘That’s OK for the first descents but later, when the riders are tired – ppffp!’ He motioned with his hand a rider careering off the road.
‘Also, the change in rhythm,’ a Danish girl called Jette interjected. ‘It’s very pronounced for the riders to go from the big gears and flat roads to small gears and long climbs – they have to spin rather than churn.’
Fen nodded earnestly.
Pip gazed at Marc.
‘Nerves,’ Marc said, gazing at the gradient of the mountain road unfurling in front of them, ‘the belief you can go a step beyond your limit.’
Pip whistled slowly.
‘Massimo Lipari could well take the Stage,’ said Jette, ‘and claim the King of the Mountains jersey.’
‘Today,’ said Marc, thoroughly enjoying the way that Pip hung on his every word and occasionally his arm too, ‘Jawlensky will challenge Ducasse for the maillot jaune.’
Cat did not see her sisters as she drove Alex and Josh to the salle de pressé but, from the look and sound of the clamouring crowd, she was convinced they’d be having a party and she needn’t worry about them. In fact, she did not have time to spare them much thought. Bad weather was forecast. Dramatic action was prophesied. Jersey-switching was predicted. Frantic rewriting of copy was a foregone conclusion. She had driven the route because, as with the Pyrenees, she needed to experience just a snatch of the haul of the mountains the peloton were going to confront. It had been an arduous drive, well over 100 kilometres longer than the itinéraire direct and L’Alpe D’Huez seemed even more severe than it had in the early hours.
The coverage on the salle de pressé TV screens, however, was not good. Driving rain spattered the camera lenses and, combined with the altitude, the transmission was distorted. It was raining in squalls. Wind sucked and blew as if the heavens were hyperventilating. It was cold. Worse, much worse, than the first day in the Pyrenees. But what the journalists were denied in terms of clear pictures, they gained in terms of drama via snatches of grainy footage of riders battling the elements on the Col du Telegraphe. They were drenched. The descent was going to take them straight to the gruesome north face of the Galibier.
The conditions were appalling. A miserable 12 degrees in the valleys dropped to a little above 3 degrees at the summits. Earlier, drizzle on the hors catégorie Col de La Croix de Fer had deepened to driving rain on the Col du Telegraphe. Massimo Lipari had been first over both peaks and if he could win the Stage, Velasquez’s polka dot jersey would be his. Ensconced as they were in the warmth and brightness of the Palais des Sports et Congrès near the finish line, the journalists shuddered for the bunch. But no amount of encouraging vibes and heartfelt hopes could reach the riders, out there, in the Alps, contending with the terrible conditions, the terrifying gradients, and their own personal demons taunting them with fatigue, cramp, cold, breakdown.
‘The Galibier towered above on the race, glowering down on the men who had the audacity to scale its heights by bike,’ wrote Cat. ‘For a mountain whose bleak wastes are inhospitable even in sunshine, in the rain today it was grim and desperately dangerous too.’
She was paragraphs into her article though the race was a long way from the finish. Though she was going to exceed her word limit, she needed to recount the awesome magnitude of the day, to do justice to the men who were out there; just let Taverner dare edit!
Luca and Didier were in a small group with the green jersey of Jesper Lomers, way ahead of the toiling gruppetto, but an insurmountable distance behind a breakaway containing Lipari, Velasquez, Ducasse and Jawlensky.
‘Welcome to hell,’ Didier said to Luca when the descent of the Telegraphe had at once become the climb of the Galibier.
‘This isn’t rain,’ Luca remarked, ‘it’s fucking sleet.’
‘We need our rain capes,’ Didier said.
‘Can’t we just keep going?’ Luca suggested, not wanting to slow down, let alone stop, wanting only to be done with the Galibier.
‘We’ll freeze, we’ll never make it,’ Didier insisted.
‘I can hardly see,’ said Luca, ‘and I’m bursting for a piss.’
‘Just piss yourself,’ said Didier, ‘it’ll keep you warm.’
‘God, this is horrible,’ said Luca, not at all comforted by the hot trickle that seeped its way around his shorts. His group tried to work together to combat the headwind, the flurries of sleet but ultimately it was each man for himself. Luca’s legs felt appallingly heavy, his eyes stung, his feet were numb and his fingers felt welded with ice to the handlebars. He was dropping back but knew that if Didier was to survive the Galibier, he must be allowed to do it at his preferred pace and rhythm. Luca was on his own and he was hurting badly across his forehead and the back of his neck. His arms ached supremely, the fronts of his thighs and inside his knees were scorched with pain and felt on the verge of malfunction. His breathing, laboured and painful, filled his ears.
‘Help me,’ he whimpered, ‘oh God!’
A fan ran beside, chanting encouragement and pushing Luca for a few yards. His team car drew alongside and his directeur yelled hard and heartlessly at Luca to fucking keep going. Somehow, Luca clambered and straggled his way to the Galibier’s summit; thirty-five minutes behind Carlos Jesu Velasquez and Massimo Lipari, thirty minutes behind the group with Fabian and Vasily, eighteen minutes behind Didier’s group and fifty-eight minutes in front of the gruppetto. Luca’s limbs froze on the descent and so did the blood in his veins. It was absolutely terrifying. He was dangerously stiff. Visibility was but a few metres. He felt he had little control over his bike or brakes, with fingers frozen, mind numbing and spirit dying.
I don’t want to be here. What the fuck am I doing? I don’t know how the fuck I am going to carry on. I want to be in Italy. I don’t