It might be mid-summer but there’s a real shortage of racing for the next two weeks. There’s Belgian one day race Halle-Ingooigem on Wednesday and the European nations have their national championships at the weekend. But that’s about it until Saturday 2 July when the Tour de France starts.
“It became clear that I still had a fairly adolescent mentality, relied heavily on father figures and had created behavioural patterns that were destructive and self-perpetuating… …most of the decisions I’d made were unavoidable, considering the personality and upbringing I’d had”.
That’s the book in one reductive sentence. Soon after emerging from police custody, a washed-up David Millar meets Dr Steve Peters, a consultant psychiatrist for the British cycling team and they talk for hours. It becomes apparent that Millar’s upbringing and past experiences have led him to the edge of self-destruction. His is a career of high and lows, of sporting greatness and alcoholic benders. At times he discusses the split personality, the monastic pro contrasting with the “social butterfly”.
I’ll touch on the content of the book a bit below but a lot of his story is public knowledge so I won’t ruin things if you’re planning to read it. But for the sake of caution, don’t read on if you’re worried about me spoiling the read.
A note of thanks to NeilPryde bikes for backing the Inner Ring. The name has long been famous amongst windsurfers and they’re bringing their expertise in carbon fibre and aerodynamics to the world of cycling with a new pair of carbon fibre frames, the Alize and Diablo. Click on the advert on the right to read more about them.
A quick hello to all the new readers. Word seems to be spreading and there are more and more of you these days. I’m not really into chasing hits for the blog, instead the best thing is all the comment and emails from readers. I read each and every comment and try to reply and chip into the debates as much as I can. Note that if you want to leave a comment, it asks for your name and email but you can just put “anon” or whatever you like in these fields, you don’t have to supply personal details to take part.
Feel free to email as well, I’ll always reply to your messages; if you haven’t got a reply it’s 99% probable that I never got the message, it got flicked by the anti-spam filter. I’ve got a “to do” list of topics to cover that’s getting very long already so if you’ve sent in a suggestion and I’d said “yes, that’d be good”, it’s probably on the list.
A tiny detail for today but sometimes that’s what the Inner Ring is all about. French teams take longer to change wheels in the event of a front wheel puncture than other teams.
Chances are you don’t know of Jean-Paul Brouchon. Most readers here are English speaking and JPB was a French journalist who died today, aged 72. But his departure is a loss to cycling because he was a sort of the guardian for cycling’s history.
The Sword of Damocles is an ancient Greek fable that tells of a sword suspended by a horse’s hair above the head of Damocles, a courtier in Athens. At any moment the hair could break and the sword will plunge towards poor Damocles. It’s a tale that says the threat of something looming over us can be as disturbing as the act itself, that we would be unable to live normally with this threat to our life literally hanging over us.
That’s exactly where Alberto Contador is today. With the positive tests for last July still unresolved, there is a giant question mark over him and it could land on his head sometime soon. Faced with this the UCI has issued a communiqué asking that everyone treats him normally… but the very fact that Contador is the sole subject of a press release proves things are not normal.
When you look at the Tour de France route you often tend to skip the first week and look up the mountain stages. For good reason, often the opening days are a parade around the more northerly parts of France where sprint finishes are almost inevitable and nothing of great tactical consequence happens, apart from maybe some crosswinds or every few years, the use of some pavé.
But this time it’s different. The opening stage features an uphill finish with 2.2km at 4.7% and Thomas Voeckler lives just down the road. Stage 4 has 2km at 6.9% to the Mûr-de-Bretagne finish and it’s Philippe Gilbert’s birthday. Stage 6 has a 4% gradient just before the flamme rouge. Stage 8 finishes in a small ski station in central France.
The news this morning, scooped by Richard Moore, is that Mark Cavendish will ride for Team Sky for 2012. I believe the deal was agreed on the first rest day of the Giro d’Italia, that he will be accompanied others from HTC-Highroad and that Sky will also announce other significant signings in due course too.
It marks a long journey for Cavendish, once spurned by the British track system, he made his own way into the pro ranks via the lowly Team Sparkasse, whilst contemporaries were shepherded by the state-funded system. But this gave him the focus on the road and the rest is history.
It’s not a surprise but still, some were discounting the idea given the frosty relationships between Cavendish, team boss Dave Brailsford and – until now – team leader Bradley Wiggins. But personal problems can be fixed. Especially when millions of pounds change hands.
Team Sky pro Michael Barry’s written an open call for improved rider safety. I’m inclined to agree, especially as there are some easy steps and because dialogue with race organisers can improve a riders understanding too.