The Race of Truth

Just watch them burn
by Nick van der Leek

The world’s most brutal sporting event starts again this July: The Tour de France. While the Tour is tough, the toughest individual stage is the time trial. When Lance rode (and won) his last ever time trial, he was asked how he felt about his victory. His reply (and remember, because he has won this event 7 times, he’s got to be the toughest of the lot): “I’m relieved it’s over.” That’s how tough it is.

The Tour makes a 3000km circuit of France, averaging around 120km per day, climbing through the Alps and Pyrenees, to reach Paris 3 weeks later in a total of about 83 hours, and an average speed of over 40km/h. If you’re a cyclist, you’ll know how hard it is to average 40km/h for just half an hour. And to do a week’s training adding up to more than 28 hours is no piece of cake, especially, 3 weeks in a row. The most I have ever averaged is 20 hours, and that was in training for the Ironman triathlon, so hats off to these guys.

The Tour de France, while it may be a race for champions, for the fittest and toughest athletes (who happen to be cyclists) in the world, the Tour is not the race of truth. The race of truth is the time trial. The Tour has 3 (including the short prologue and team time trial).

Recently I went to PE to ride against the best South African cyclists in the SA Champs time trial. I’ve time trialed before, in triathlons (from 20km – 180km). But this was only my 2nd pure cycling time trial ever. I learned the hard way that it’s not called the race of truth for nothing.

First of all, the electricity, the intensity, the paralyzing sense of nerves starts to tug at the muscle fibres for at least half an hour leading up to the start. Before you’re due to start, people around you warm up by placing their bikes on stationery trainers. They work up a sweat; get their hearts ready for pain. I did none of that, since all my time trials had been in triathlons where you can’t warm up inside the event.

‘Now I can tell you
About success, about fame
About the rise and the fall
Of all the stars in the sky’*

How it starts is you are perched on your bike, with a ramp leading down onto the road. Someone stands behind you and locks your back wheel between his or her legs. Then there is a countdown, and as the seconds count down, the heart rate starts to skyrocket.

I was worried, getting increasingly nervous, greasy palmed and fluttery, that when I was released I’d just fall down the ramp, but I got away quite safely. In the first kilometer my average speed was 39km/h, and my heart rate shot up to 176 beats per minute. What makes this race so tough is that you know you can always go faster, and harder, and so you do.

‘Now I can tell you
About the place I belong
You know it won’t last long…”*

Unlucky for me, about 5 of the riders before me didn’t turn up, so I had no riders to chase, no carrots dangling at 1 minute intervals up the road to pursue. Irritably I watched my average drop from 39 to 38…37…36…while I battled against a strong crosswind. I had a bunch of excellent riders pursuing me so I was fighting to stay ahead of them. At least 3 caught me, and one of them, Raynard Tissink (2004 SA Ironman Champion), shot by me…his Heart Rate Monitor chirruping as he went by, just after the turnaround at about 16km. It’s humbling to be the tortoise on the road, and watch the rabbits shoot by you, leaving you in their wakes, that that was me that day.

People on the side of rode clap and urge you on, but when you’re doing a time trial, the spectators are least important. It is really about you and yourself, gritting your teeth, getting a fraction more speed out of your legs, urging your muscles to push harder even when they are sapped of power. It’s about you versus yourself, and the other riders. Here, now, you see exactly how hard you can push yourself, how fast you can go, and by how far you’re going to win, or lose. In short, the time trial very simple shows who is the fastest, who is the best.

I rode hard, and I can’t say I could have ridden any harder. I pushed my heart rate to an average of 171 for 50 minutes. But I only averaged 35km/h. I’ve averaged 37km/h for triple the distance. I know I can ride faster, but the truth is, that day I couldn’t, and didn’t.

On that windy day in PE I rode one of my worst rides ever. It was disappointing. Yes, I looked for excuses – pre –race exhaustion, puncture in the last kilometer, lack of fitness etc. But in the end, the race speaks for itself, and you have to let it be, and live with it.

In Lance’s last ever time trial, stage 20 of the 2005 Tour, a 47km monster, full of climbs, technical turns and winding descents, he managed to beat his great rival, Jan Ullrich, who has won the Tour once, been runner up to Lance more than once, and never ended worse than third, by only a few seconds. But Lance won, and it is no coincidence that the winners of this great race are often the fastest in the time trials. This is because the time trial shows who is really not just the strongest rider, but the best overall. In cycling, strength alone is not enough. To win the Tour, and the race of Truth, you have to be balanced, wily, you have to ride strategically and with terrible discipline, you have to pace yourself and plot your battles carefully.

In the 2003 Tour, arguably the most exciting and closest combat between Armstrong and Ullrich, Jan Ullrich beat Lance, who was suffering from serious dehydration, by about a minute and a half in the time trial. Armstrong went on to win, but only just. This year, all eyes will be on Ullrich. Will he take over as champion of the Tour? The race of truth will provide us with the best clues. I will provide daily coverage of each stage in July, so watch this space.

* – lyrics from a Madonna song.