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Authors: Bradley Wiggins
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for the Sunday’s stage, and I felt dreadful. I was quite close to getting dropped. We did more team time-trial work on the Friday but I’d regained some of my strength by then.
Since the previous Sunday’s win, it had all been a mad rush. By the time the Tour started six days later, I actually felt as if my form was dwindling a little. It’s more in your head than anything physical. I remember getting to the Vendée for the start, and doing the press conference on the Thursday. Everyone around me was saying, ‘Oh, it’s great, things are fantastic, never been this good, it’s a great position we’re in.’ I, on the other hand, couldn’t sit there and say, ‘I’ve had stomach trouble the last couple of days, I don’t feel great on the bike.’ It was all a bit like 2010. I was still talking it up at that stage because I didn’t want to admit to myself, ‘You know what, I’m a little bit worried about this.’ So you put on a front for the press.
There is a lot of speculation about how I would have fared in that Tour, but I never felt great. I felt a bit weak, although I got through the first stage in decent shape. I was strong in the team time trial the day after and then I was poised in 6th overall. I was in a good position for the rest of the week but I never seemed to be in control of it. That was what was going through my head, but Shane was saying, ‘No, don’t worry about how you feel, what the numbers are suggesting is something else.’ I always wonder what would have happened once we hit those mountains: whether I would have been in the front or not.
On the stage to Châteauroux seven days in, I wasn’t well placed in the peloton as we began the final 50km into the finish, which can be a sign in itself. As always, everyone was trying to stay in the front. But I kept slipping to the back. I had no fight in me that day.
On the flat stages, you rely on your teammates to pull you forward; if the peloton is travelling at 50kph, you have to ride at 55–60kph to overtake the other riders; having someone in front of you to cut through the air means you save energy. With the help of the other guys in Sky, I’d get to the first few rows of the peloton, but then we’d drift back a bit, and I would think, ‘I can’t be bothered to go round the outside again and fight my way up to the front one more time.’ And before you knew it we’d be down the back. Eddie would be saying to me, ‘Come on, we need to move up.’ He would take me up back to the front, we’d drift a bit, then there we’d be at the back. Next time it was Juan Antonio Flecha; they were all trying to take me up to the front.
We’re moving up, moving up, moving up, we’re about halfway up the field and then before I know it I’m on the deck, the team doctor, Richard Freeman, is coming over to me , I’m clutching my shoulder; I can feel it isn’t right. I can’t get off the floor for love nor money without it being agony. It’s game over.
But what I’m feeling is bizarre: the minute I hit the tarmac, I feel something that could almost be described as close to relief. Phew, I’m not going to have to see just how good or bad I am.
CHAPTER 5
----
BREAKTHROUGH
WHEN WE BOUGHT our new house at the end of 2010, one of the things I did early on was get myself a shed in the garden. It’s about five metres by five, made of wood, and it’s big enough to take a bike and a turbo trainer plus a couple of heaters and a sound system. I can still see the sweat stains on the carpet from the hours I spent in there in August 2011, sitting on the bike, spinning the turbo and dripping like a wet sponge. There was no alternative if I wanted to perform in the Tour of Spain, the Vuelta, which ran from mid-August into early September. And I had no option other than to ride the Vuelta if I wanted to have any chance at all of getting anywhere near the podium in the 2012 Tour de France.
From the minute I crashed out of the 2011 Tour de France on
Since the previous Sunday’s win, it had all been a mad rush. By the time the Tour started six days later, I actually felt as if my form was dwindling a little. It’s more in your head than anything physical. I remember getting to the Vendée for the start, and doing the press conference on the Thursday. Everyone around me was saying, ‘Oh, it’s great, things are fantastic, never been this good, it’s a great position we’re in.’ I, on the other hand, couldn’t sit there and say, ‘I’ve had stomach trouble the last couple of days, I don’t feel great on the bike.’ It was all a bit like 2010. I was still talking it up at that stage because I didn’t want to admit to myself, ‘You know what, I’m a little bit worried about this.’ So you put on a front for the press.
There is a lot of speculation about how I would have fared in that Tour, but I never felt great. I felt a bit weak, although I got through the first stage in decent shape. I was strong in the team time trial the day after and then I was poised in 6th overall. I was in a good position for the rest of the week but I never seemed to be in control of it. That was what was going through my head, but Shane was saying, ‘No, don’t worry about how you feel, what the numbers are suggesting is something else.’ I always wonder what would have happened once we hit those mountains: whether I would have been in the front or not.
On the stage to Châteauroux seven days in, I wasn’t well placed in the peloton as we began the final 50km into the finish, which can be a sign in itself. As always, everyone was trying to stay in the front. But I kept slipping to the back. I had no fight in me that day.
On the flat stages, you rely on your teammates to pull you forward; if the peloton is travelling at 50kph, you have to ride at 55–60kph to overtake the other riders; having someone in front of you to cut through the air means you save energy. With the help of the other guys in Sky, I’d get to the first few rows of the peloton, but then we’d drift back a bit, and I would think, ‘I can’t be bothered to go round the outside again and fight my way up to the front one more time.’ And before you knew it we’d be down the back. Eddie would be saying to me, ‘Come on, we need to move up.’ He would take me up back to the front, we’d drift a bit, then there we’d be at the back. Next time it was Juan Antonio Flecha; they were all trying to take me up to the front.
We’re moving up, moving up, moving up, we’re about halfway up the field and then before I know it I’m on the deck, the team doctor, Richard Freeman, is coming over to me , I’m clutching my shoulder; I can feel it isn’t right. I can’t get off the floor for love nor money without it being agony. It’s game over.
But what I’m feeling is bizarre: the minute I hit the tarmac, I feel something that could almost be described as close to relief. Phew, I’m not going to have to see just how good or bad I am.
CHAPTER 5
----
BREAKTHROUGH
WHEN WE BOUGHT our new house at the end of 2010, one of the things I did early on was get myself a shed in the garden. It’s about five metres by five, made of wood, and it’s big enough to take a bike and a turbo trainer plus a couple of heaters and a sound system. I can still see the sweat stains on the carpet from the hours I spent in there in August 2011, sitting on the bike, spinning the turbo and dripping like a wet sponge. There was no alternative if I wanted to perform in the Tour of Spain, the Vuelta, which ran from mid-August into early September. And I had no option other than to ride the Vuelta if I wanted to have any chance at all of getting anywhere near the podium in the 2012 Tour de France.
From the minute I crashed out of the 2011 Tour de France on
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