Read Online How I Won the Yellow Jumper by Ned Boulting - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ned Boulting
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all the other nuts and bolts. They are signifiers of a perplexing naivety taken on the trip in a spirit of wild optimism, and then neglected the whole way round. This can be a sketchbook or a pair of swimming trunks, but most years it takes the form of a thick and impenetrable novel. Two years ago, it was
Crime and Punishment
. I read as far as the crime, but by the time weâd reached Limoges, Iâd given up on the punishment.
It is a trip of three and a half weeks, if you include the days spent filming before the start of the race. It can feel like months. A rider once told me that he too sits in his hotel room of an evening after yet another gruelling stage, opens the route book at the relevant page, and measures with the pad of his thumbthe thickness of pages passed, against that of those remaining. Reaching the halfway mark is like the first glimmer of dawn after a long and sleepless night. You suddenly become aware that it is possible that this whole thing might, at some distant point in the future, end. You know, actually end.
There are daily irritants. For me, the most challenging of these is the need to appear passably turned out in front of the camera. Some people are born presentable, others have presentability thrust upon them. Thatâs me. The effort to appear even remotely tidy â smooth of chin, slick of hair and sporting a pressed shirt â leaves me weak. And, routinely, I fail.
Letâs leave aside the problem area of my face for a moment, which tends to sport an angrily burnt nose, and eyes that permanently bear the wrinkles of another dreadful nightâs sleep. No, the thing I struggle most of all with is my inability to iron.
The battle starts even before I leave for France. I stalk the big clothes shops of Oxford Street, picking up polo shirts andwrinkling them to see how quickly and smoothly they unfurl. I know what I am looking for, even as the security guard eyes me with suspicion. Never mind the cut and the colour, are they easy-iron? But Iâve never cracked it. I might buy half a dozen new shirts each summer, only to find that at least four of them wonât be fit for purpose and will end up at home, adding another layer to my polo-shirt mountain.
I crave polyester. My dreams are woven in simple nylon.
How I envy Gary Imlach. He has amassed, during his twenty-odd years of Tour experience, a collection of shirts that are as unchanging and timelessly uncrumpled as Phil Liggettâs smiling face. The trick he has refined is to wear his ânon-broadcastâ shirt in the air-conditioned gloom of the TV truck while he is scripting, thinking and generally preparing. His âbroadcast-qualityâ shirt, that is to say the favoured shirt singled out for the purposes of the day in question, hangs patiently on a hook behind him. Late on in the day comes the moment when the scripts are printing off and heâs ready to leave the truck, find a scenic backdrop and record the closing to the show. Then, and only then, does he slip on the unwrinkled shirt, and stroll out into the sun. Perfect.
The only time this really couldnât work was on the Tourmalet in 2010, when a deluge meant that the only sensible clothing was a bin bag. Still, heâd managed to iron his hair.
I quizzed him about his regime once. He told me that his first decade covering the Tour had been spent in much the same despair as mine with regard to ironing. Until that is, he discovered âsteamingâ. It seems he used to hang the shirt on the shower rail in his hotel room, carefully adjust the angle of the head and the trajectory of the hot water stream, and then, after setting it to âUnbelievably Hotâ, allow it to run until his accommodation resembled an Istanbul hammam. Seemingly unconcerned by the 92 per cent humidity that built up in his bedroom, Gary was able to leave for work in the morningbuoyed by the knowledge that he would not be plagued by crumpledness, confident that
Crime and Punishment
. I read as far as the crime, but by the time weâd reached Limoges, Iâd given up on the punishment.
It is a trip of three and a half weeks, if you include the days spent filming before the start of the race. It can feel like months. A rider once told me that he too sits in his hotel room of an evening after yet another gruelling stage, opens the route book at the relevant page, and measures with the pad of his thumbthe thickness of pages passed, against that of those remaining. Reaching the halfway mark is like the first glimmer of dawn after a long and sleepless night. You suddenly become aware that it is possible that this whole thing might, at some distant point in the future, end. You know, actually end.
There are daily irritants. For me, the most challenging of these is the need to appear passably turned out in front of the camera. Some people are born presentable, others have presentability thrust upon them. Thatâs me. The effort to appear even remotely tidy â smooth of chin, slick of hair and sporting a pressed shirt â leaves me weak. And, routinely, I fail.
Letâs leave aside the problem area of my face for a moment, which tends to sport an angrily burnt nose, and eyes that permanently bear the wrinkles of another dreadful nightâs sleep. No, the thing I struggle most of all with is my inability to iron.
The battle starts even before I leave for France. I stalk the big clothes shops of Oxford Street, picking up polo shirts andwrinkling them to see how quickly and smoothly they unfurl. I know what I am looking for, even as the security guard eyes me with suspicion. Never mind the cut and the colour, are they easy-iron? But Iâve never cracked it. I might buy half a dozen new shirts each summer, only to find that at least four of them wonât be fit for purpose and will end up at home, adding another layer to my polo-shirt mountain.
I crave polyester. My dreams are woven in simple nylon.
How I envy Gary Imlach. He has amassed, during his twenty-odd years of Tour experience, a collection of shirts that are as unchanging and timelessly uncrumpled as Phil Liggettâs smiling face. The trick he has refined is to wear his ânon-broadcastâ shirt in the air-conditioned gloom of the TV truck while he is scripting, thinking and generally preparing. His âbroadcast-qualityâ shirt, that is to say the favoured shirt singled out for the purposes of the day in question, hangs patiently on a hook behind him. Late on in the day comes the moment when the scripts are printing off and heâs ready to leave the truck, find a scenic backdrop and record the closing to the show. Then, and only then, does he slip on the unwrinkled shirt, and stroll out into the sun. Perfect.
The only time this really couldnât work was on the Tourmalet in 2010, when a deluge meant that the only sensible clothing was a bin bag. Still, heâd managed to iron his hair.
I quizzed him about his regime once. He told me that his first decade covering the Tour had been spent in much the same despair as mine with regard to ironing. Until that is, he discovered âsteamingâ. It seems he used to hang the shirt on the shower rail in his hotel room, carefully adjust the angle of the head and the trajectory of the hot water stream, and then, after setting it to âUnbelievably Hotâ, allow it to run until his accommodation resembled an Istanbul hammam. Seemingly unconcerned by the 92 per cent humidity that built up in his bedroom, Gary was able to leave for work in the morningbuoyed by the knowledge that he would not be plagued by crumpledness, confident that
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