AURILLAC, France — The unintelligible words crackle over the car radio like a frantic call to a police department. “It’s (David) Millar!” says Matt White, Team Garmin-Chipotle’s lead driver and strategist in the Tour de France.
White slams his foot halfway through the floorboard and hits 50 mph within moments. The only problem is the rural road is about 10 feet wide and covered by about 170 cyclists, Tour motorcycles and other team cars. The sides of the road are lined with women and children.
He leans on the horn and weaves between riders packed in the peloton. Gravel spits into the brush as he tears around the narrow shoulder. White has to reach Millar, one of Garmin-Chipotle’s stars, who is off on a break up front but has a problem with his bike.
Other team cars are trying to reach their cyclists in distress, and White slams on his brakes to avoid a pileup that could stretch to Paris.
“It gets a bit tricky when it’s wet,” White says as calmly as a man going house-hunting.
This is life in the teeth of the peloton. If you think cycling in the Tour de France sounds difficult and looks worse, watch it from a team car for an entire mountain stage. It’s like being a fly on a windshield during the Indy 500, except the participants are protected by Lycra instead of carbon fiber and the fans seem one missed turn away from getting hurled into a ravine.
On Friday, I received the rare opportunity of riding in a team car. Garmin-Chipotle director Jonathan Vaughters, the Cherry Creek High School grad, suggested I give readers an idea of life inside cycling’s most demanding race.
The question was, what was I going to see? At dinner the night before, I asked Vaughters about the strategy. He wouldn’t go into specifics but said, “It will be like a Hail Mary.”
In other words, Millar was going long. He was going to try to win the stage and the yellow jersey. The next morning, as we gather in Brioude, I ask Vaughters again about the plan.
He slaps me on the back and says with a smile, “You picked a good day to be in the car.”
White, 33, retired from cycling last year after being a domestique for about a half dozen teams, including Discovery Channel with Lance Armstrong. White is a two-time Olympian for Australia and rode on teams that won the Tours of France, Spain and Italy. He’s an accomplished cyclist but an even better driver.
With wavy blond hair, a thick build and mod shades, he looks like he just left his surfboard on Surfer’s Paradise and is headed somewhere for a beer. But the laid-back approach translates into steel nerves on the roads of France.
The lead car, with spare bikes atop the roof, is a control center inside. A contour map of the stage is clipped to his dashboard next to a roster of every team. Four spare wheels are in the back seat with mechanic Inaki Goiburu, along with a cooler full of water bottles.
As we slowly snake through the cheering crowds of Brioude, in the heart of France’s Massif Central, I ask White about his strategy. Like a head coach, Vaughters has the final say but White is the offensive coordinator. He maps it out.
“Try to get guys on the move,” he says. “We’re the leading team so we’re going to try and defend it. And it’s a good stage for a lot of guys as well. It’s not a superhard mountain stage. It’s quite lumpy and it’s a good Tour for breaks.”
Uphill battle
Every cyclist is equipped with a radio, and White makes contact through a speaker hanging from the mirror as they approach the start.
“Copy, mate?” White says in a thick Aussie accent. All the cyclists are accounted for. This stage will be hairy. It’s short — only 95 miles and four hours — but it goes uphill for the first 6.6 and is up and down to the end, with the 5,200-foot Pas de Peyrol near the finish.
White gives his first instructions since the team meeting in the bus: “Look after each other. Don’t relax until (the break) goes. If something big does go and we’re not in it, David, Christian (Vande Velde), report back to me.”
The peloton begins flying up the foothills of the Pyrenees. There are few more beautiful sights in sports than the tight peloton of a big bike race. From a distance the multicolored uniforms look like a parade in front of a French background of a green ravine, craggy cliffs or mountain lakes.
Up close and personal, however, it’s not nearly as serene. Riders start to grimace early on mountains. Stress of waiting for a break — or a crash — is constant. The race announcer in a car up front announces that eight riders have broken from the peloton.
“Anyone in the lead?” White asks.
“Millar,” says Vande Velde in a tired voice. Millar missed a shot at the yellow jersey Thursday and the other goal of this rookie team from Boulder is to win at least one stage. Today is the day.
It’s not the day for Francesco Chicchi of Italy and Liquigas (Italy). He has fallen off the back of the pack and has the facial expression of a man who bit into a rotten onion.
“He’s in for a long day,” White says as we pass him. “He’ll have a short Tour.”
We pass another trailer but Frenchman Christophe Le Mevel of Credit Agricole (France) only has a flat. A mechanic jumps out and changes the wheel in 13 seconds. He doesn’t miss much time but the peloton is beginning to break up. After one week on the Tour and the mountain stages beginning, riders are tiring.
Racing to help
Everyone’s wondering how long Kim Kirchen of Luxembourg and Team Columbia (U.S.) will hold onto the yellow jersey. At this point, Millar still looks strong.
“Put a lot of pressure on Team Columbia, boys,” White says. “They’re going to be very tired. They will crack eventually.”
Near the village of Tejenac, about halfway through the race, White hears Millar’s distress call. White shows the driving skills he obviously learned in Italy. The speedometer hits 120 kilometers per hour (72 mph) on a road with a recommended speed limit of 40. He swerves to avoid a rider who nearly crashes into the back of the Team Columbia car.
“Dave!” White says. “I can’t get there yet. We’re in the back of the peloton.”
White weaves through cars and riders at 50-60 mph, somehow avoiding bloodshed and finding Millar in the back of the lead group.
“I hahve ah pahnk-chuh,” Millar says in the same calm British accent an early James Bond used when tied to a boat while being circled by sharks. Millar hops off, claps his hands once and smiles as Goiburu hands him a new bike.
With Millar off, White tends to the rest of the team in the peloton. He catches up to Danny Pate, the Colorado Springs native, and hands him a water.
“How’s it goin’, mate?” White asks him. “Hard one, huh?”
“No, not at all,” says Pate, munching an energy bar.
Tour cliffhanger
It’s assumed he means it. The strength and skill of cyclists can’t be appreciated on TV. Up close, going up mountains, they fly by cars with the look of men who want to kill the people or things torturing them. And they’re all fascinating bike handlers. At one point Aleksandr Kuschynski, a little-known Belarussian for Liquigas, flies in and out between four speeding cars while stuffing energy bars in the back of his jersey and opening a water bottle with his teeth.
The finish in Aurillac is approaching and fog is covering the surrounding Pyrenees. I can’t see the bottom of the ravines we’re sailing past. Millar has expended too much energy to chase down Spaniard Luis-Leon Sanchez of Caisse d’Epargne (Spain), who breaks from the pack. White races ahead to catch up with Millar, at one point reaching 72 mph going around turns.
“And people ask me if I miss racing,” he says with a laugh. “I never drive to the hotel. Ever.”
Sanchez wins easily and Millar finishes 33 seconds back. Trent Lowe, however, doesn’t climb well and Garmin-Chipotle loses its lead in the team classification.
“We were going to be really aggressive today,” Vaughters says. “We did everything we could. We basically disassembled Columbia piece by piece. They still had one guy in the lead group: the wrong guy.”
Garmin-Chipotle’s riders file into the bus and aren’t even breathing hard. In the peloton, it’s just another day in France.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
