Proffsesongen 2017

Veier han 52 kilo?

Jeg kjenner ikke saken annet enn fra omtalen på procycling.no, men en kort refleksjon:

Har laget nulltolleranse på alkohol under ritt (antar dette) så hjelper det ikke om det var en, to eller ti øl og om du har paven som vitne. "Alle" andre gjorde det samme funker bare ikke.

52,2 kg vel?

Eiking sier jo at det er vin på middagsbordet hver dag i det franske laget, så nulltoleranse er det nok ikke.

Om franske lag serverer vin til maten hver dag så skjønner jeg prestasjonen til franske lag ikke har vært så god. Alkohol er jo vanndrivende og de aller fleste er vel ganske dehydrerte når de triller over målinjen...

Om franske lag serverer vin til maten hver dag så skjønner jeg prestasjonen til franske lag ikke har vært så god. Alkohol er jo vanndrivende og de aller fleste er vel ganske dehydrerte når de triller over målinjen...

Sa ikke Kaggis en gang at han anbefalte junior å ta en øl etter en knallhard TdF-etappe?

At det er vin tilgjengelig trenger ikke bety at man drikker mengder av den. Og det kan jo være at det er sportsdirektøren og serviceapparatet som er de eneste som faktisk drikker.

Riktignok Belgisk lag, men jeg tilbrakte et par timer med Team Farm Frites i en hotelbar i Gent i begynnelsen av dette århundret (kvelden etter Gent-Wevelgem da Gert van Bondt vant rittet).
Peter van Petegem (den gang mitt idol, en sabla hyggelig badass) bekreftet da at et par glass hvitvin (som jo er mindre alkohol enn et par halvlitere) var helt innafor selv om det var hardkjør dagen etter. Rødvin og øl styrte de stort sett unna.

Dere må gjerne komme med dokumentasjon som bekrefter at "ett glass vin om dagen" bra for syklister og prestasjonen. Spesielt i ett treukers ritt

Body shape: I can recognise the proportions are ridiculous. Skinny upper body, massive thighs — I do feel a bit ridiculous looking in the mirror. That’s what it takes, but I am looking forward to getting in the gym when I retire and doing some bicep curls, getting some shoulders to balance things out a little.

When I did physiological testing in 2015, my body fat was 9.8 per cent. That surprised me a bit, that it wasn’t lower. I am sure I could reduce it but it becomes risky. What happens to your immune system?

Power to weight is key in what we do but I think a lot of people get too obsessed with weight. It’s important but not everything. The number of times I’ve done badly from under-fuelling, trying to stay light. I’ve done a lot more harm that way than being heavier but full of fuel.

A lot of people were shocked to hear I was almost a kilo heavier at the Vuelta than in the Tour de France, about 68.5kg to 69kg, but I was climbing a lot stronger, my numbers were better.

In the off-season I will put on six or seven kilos once I start eating normally and I’m not training five or six hours a day. I have an extremely sweet tooth so I do find dieting tough. Days without carbohydrates, we call it “low-carb head”. You might have a two-egg omelette, protein for the muscles, but no carbs and, after three, four hours of riding, you can be seriously grumpy. You can’t talk, almost zombified.

Mental strength: I think you can be born with an ability to suffer and push hard. I’ve always had that. For me, the drive comes from wanting something so badly that everything else becomes irrelevant.

It is never fear of failure. That’s a very negative energy. I think a lot about riding away from everyone else, dropping them on a climb. I do a lot of visualisation and it’s a very positive mindset. The bottom of Angliru [in La Vuelta] I’m already visualising those last few ks, hoping others are on the limit, seeing it as an opportunity not, “Bloody hell, this is going to be tough”.

Speed and crashes: A broken collarbone, fractured scaphoid, broken navicular in my foot — compared with many in the peloton, I’ve been very fortunate.

Is it luck? When there’s a crash straight in front of you and you have a split-second, a lot of guys freak out, slam on the brakes and flip over the front. I do think I have an ability to think very clearly, almost to see it in slow motion. I find that I can recognise the threat and steer myself around it. I don’t panic.

But there are always risks. TV missed it but, at this year’s Vuelta, chasing after the leaders, I went down on one slippery corner, we came way too hot into a roundabout. Wout [Poels] slammed on his brakes and made the corner. I went straight over the roundabout, jumping up a big kerb, over the grass, which left this road rash on my hip and knee. Wout was looking over his shoulder, wondering where I’d gone.

A crash knocks you. For the next few days I was practically going round corners with my feet out. You lose trust in your grip with the road. It tests your nerve.

At the Tour de Suisse a couple of years ago, it was raining down this incredibly long, straight descent. Vision was terrible, glasses fogged up. At the bottom I saw I had done 108kph [67mph] in the wet, on tyres 2cm wide wearing Lycra. Sometimes you think, “That’s mad”.

At the Vuelta, the Angliru stage was horrendous. One of the team cars aquaplaned off the road, a couple of motorbikes were in the barriers, David de la Cruz was on the floor holding his shoulder screaming and Vincenzo Nibali almost went skidding off the road in front of me. You are flying past all this thinking, “Woah, this is an ice rink, how long before I go?” You try to block it out, but it’s hard.

Saddle sores: They are the bane of a cyclist’s life. They are like toothache, gnawing away at you all day, sapping your concentration. I really struggled in this year’s Tour. It became such a problem I ended up taking down my saddle a centimetre and a half over three weeks, which is a massive chunk for a pro. That compromised my power output because I wasn’t in the best position but I had a pressure point and I had to relieve it. By the time of the Vuelta, I found these blister pads. They are meant for feet but, happily, they worked. I could push without pain.

Diet
I really enjoy a piece or two of nougat towards the end of a stage — egg whites and a lot of sugar. It really picks me up. I don’t know how much is psychological or physical but, on the day at Los Machucos when I lost time, I didn’t get my nougat. I’d given it to someone on the team but it went missing. I wasn’t happy because when you’re on the limit you need that boost.

On the big GC days, an hour or so from the end I’ll also have a double espresso I keep in a mini shampoo-type bottle with a few sugars in. I don’t drink coffee much at all, I’m a green tea man, so on the big race days it helps me feel really dialled.

On a heavy mountain stage like the one over the Télégraphe/Galibier at the Tour, that was 5,500 to 6,000 calories burnt. We’ll probably finish 3kg lighter even after 12 bidons, or five to six litres of fluid.

For food, I start off on plain rice cakes, every 20-30 minutes. It’ll be three gels an hour towards the end. Plenty of riders get teeth problems from constant gels and drinks. I’ve had my fair share of fillings.

Saunas heat: I’ll have saunas before some race days, especially if the weather is rough.

I find, if I don’t sweat before a big effort, I don’t feel as engaged with my muscles. They feel bloated and full of fluid.

In the physiological tests, they put the temperature up from 26C to 40C and I performed better in the heat. In the cold I feel blocked up. I can do it, I just have to prepare differently.

Before the Tour prologue in Düsseldorf, a rainy start, I went to sweat early morning in the sauna for the best part of an hour. I did it on the morning of the Angliru stage too. If there is no sauna I can ride a turbo in the hotel room so I feel more in tune.

Medications: TUEs [therapeutic use exemptions] have a place in sport if done the right way. You shouldn’t deny someone a medication they need. What if you are stung by a wasp and it causes an extreme reaction? We should never say never — that would be bonkers — but I can’t see when I would take one now.

At the 2015 Tour it became very difficult. I’m asthmatic and had a chest infection. We did the peak flow [breathing] test every morning and it was crashing, more than 10 per cent decrease in the biggest race of the year.

I think it would have been understandable, and justifiable from a medical standpoint, to apply for a TUE to alleviate that bronchial constriction but a lot of people morally would have been asking, “This is performance enhancing, how can you do it?” So I didn’t because I didn’t want that Tour tainted by those questions.

I have tried to be forthcoming about TUEs, missed tests. I feel like I can’t do much more. People will forever be suspicious because of cycling’s history. I completely get it. They have a right to be. If they have to wait ten years for my samples to be re-tested to finally say “OK”, then so be it. It can’t change how I go about my racing.

Bilharzia: We discovered I had it in 2010 but we don’t know how long I had been living with it — probably years. It’s very common in eastern and southern Africa in stagnant water under 1,000m. You can get it just from touching the water. It eats away at your immune system. I felt tired but I was training so I thought that was normal. I’d get fit then catch colds and have to back off. The levels were pretty high so it had obviously been there for a while.

Recovery: I crashed in bed all day on Tuesday, only moving to get breakfast. After three weeks of a grand tour, my body needed a rest but it’s as much about the mental pressure. It was nice just to lie in my own bed, just my wife and son at home. Then it was back to the bike to prepare for the worlds in Norway. I wasn’t sure I’d do the individual time-trial but, after a couple of days’ recovery and Tim Kerrison [coach] twisting my arm, I felt I had to give it a go.

We’ve got the team time-trial tomorrow, then the individual next week. One more big push.

● Chris Froome was talking to Matt Dickinson, The Times’s chief sports writer