Bradley Wiggins: My Time Read Online Free
Author: Bradley Wiggins
year was massive. It was Team Sky’s first year in cycling, the stated goal was to win the Tour, I had finished 4th the year before and the natural assumption was that I would perform better than before. The amount of media attention was immense, because no British team had been in this position. It was new to me too, and I didn’t deal with it well.
The prologue was a nightmare – I wouldn’t normally expect to finish 77th, even though I was riding in the rain – and for the whole race I was carrying the effects of a nasty crash on day two. I got through that, moved up to 14th overall after the stage across the cobbles of Northern France to Arenberg, and coming towards the Alps at the end of the first week I was feeling good. I was beginning to think I might be OK, even on the first big Alpine climb, the Col de la Ramaz on the stage to Morzine. I asked the team to ride on the front there, to set a decent pace, but by the time we got to the finish at Avoriaz I simply hadn’t recovered. I was hanging on all the way up the final climb, counting down the kilometres until the point where I simply couldn’t hold the lead group any more. When I look back now I’m amazed I clung on for so long, not accepting what was meant to be, that I was going to get dropped. As I crossed the line a journalist asked me if that was the end of my Tour. I told him where to go.
I had no option but to keep playing the game, keep telling people what they wanted to hear even though inside I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I particularly remember the first rest day in Morzine, the very next day. The team was holding a press conference in the evening and I said to Dave, ‘I am not going, it’s just not on, what am I going to say?’ His answer was, ‘Come on, Brad, just head down there. Say you’re going to continue riding, and just keep up that fighting spirit. The press don’t like people giving up, so just keep going.’
That was what I did. I tried to fight on but it’s hard to fight when you haven’t got any form because ultimately it depends on what strength you have in your legs. Every mountain day became a grind as I wasn’t quite good enough to stay with the first group when the racing got serious. I did start to come round a little bit in the third week and I had a couple of decent days. I was in the break one day in the Pyrenees and I had a good last time trial for 9th place. In fact, I was good enough physically to have a chance of winning it but the wind changed quite a bit so I rode in tougher weather than the guys who filled the top positions in the standings. I was the best of all the guys who rode in the harder conditions, but it didn’t count for anything.
So much had changed from the year before. All of a sudden I was leading a team – or I was supposed to be leading a team – and I didn’t really know how I’d got there. As far as building up to the Tour went, I had repeated the training and race programme that I had followed the year before. I thought it would work but it was all on a wing and a prayer. I finished 23rd in the Tour, which shows I was fit; what I was lacking was the last 10 per cent that it takes to compete with the best guys; for example, when we went over a certain altitude – about 1,600m we later worked out – I was struggling. As a result I was barely hanging on whenever the overall contenders began slugging it out.
Mentally it was tough. I felt I had let a lot of people down. I’m quite good at remaining positive though, and that’s what I was trying to do. But throughout that whole season I felt alone. I felt I had no one to talk to; I didn’t really have a coach to ring up on a daily basis, to give me constant feedback and support. My feelings finally got the better of me in the Pyrenees, at the summit finish at Ax-Trois-Domaines, where I came in 36th, four minutes behind the favourites. Unusually, I was on my own when I got back to our camper van on the mountaintop; there was a
The prologue was a nightmare – I wouldn’t normally expect to finish 77th, even though I was riding in the rain – and for the whole race I was carrying the effects of a nasty crash on day two. I got through that, moved up to 14th overall after the stage across the cobbles of Northern France to Arenberg, and coming towards the Alps at the end of the first week I was feeling good. I was beginning to think I might be OK, even on the first big Alpine climb, the Col de la Ramaz on the stage to Morzine. I asked the team to ride on the front there, to set a decent pace, but by the time we got to the finish at Avoriaz I simply hadn’t recovered. I was hanging on all the way up the final climb, counting down the kilometres until the point where I simply couldn’t hold the lead group any more. When I look back now I’m amazed I clung on for so long, not accepting what was meant to be, that I was going to get dropped. As I crossed the line a journalist asked me if that was the end of my Tour. I told him where to go.
I had no option but to keep playing the game, keep telling people what they wanted to hear even though inside I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I particularly remember the first rest day in Morzine, the very next day. The team was holding a press conference in the evening and I said to Dave, ‘I am not going, it’s just not on, what am I going to say?’ His answer was, ‘Come on, Brad, just head down there. Say you’re going to continue riding, and just keep up that fighting spirit. The press don’t like people giving up, so just keep going.’
That was what I did. I tried to fight on but it’s hard to fight when you haven’t got any form because ultimately it depends on what strength you have in your legs. Every mountain day became a grind as I wasn’t quite good enough to stay with the first group when the racing got serious. I did start to come round a little bit in the third week and I had a couple of decent days. I was in the break one day in the Pyrenees and I had a good last time trial for 9th place. In fact, I was good enough physically to have a chance of winning it but the wind changed quite a bit so I rode in tougher weather than the guys who filled the top positions in the standings. I was the best of all the guys who rode in the harder conditions, but it didn’t count for anything.
So much had changed from the year before. All of a sudden I was leading a team – or I was supposed to be leading a team – and I didn’t really know how I’d got there. As far as building up to the Tour went, I had repeated the training and race programme that I had followed the year before. I thought it would work but it was all on a wing and a prayer. I finished 23rd in the Tour, which shows I was fit; what I was lacking was the last 10 per cent that it takes to compete with the best guys; for example, when we went over a certain altitude – about 1,600m we later worked out – I was struggling. As a result I was barely hanging on whenever the overall contenders began slugging it out.
Mentally it was tough. I felt I had let a lot of people down. I’m quite good at remaining positive though, and that’s what I was trying to do. But throughout that whole season I felt alone. I felt I had no one to talk to; I didn’t really have a coach to ring up on a daily basis, to give me constant feedback and support. My feelings finally got the better of me in the Pyrenees, at the summit finish at Ax-Trois-Domaines, where I came in 36th, four minutes behind the favourites. Unusually, I was on my own when I got back to our camper van on the mountaintop; there was a
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