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The Nearly Performance

Which, in any given season, is the race that sticks in the memory? If you win one, it might be that. But often those are a blur, the sharpness of your recall somehow smudged and swamped by the euphoria of crossing the line first. And then you will be haunted by the faint but unavoidable suspicion that if you managed to win it, then it must have been just ever so slightly too easy: you got lucky, perhaps, or the field was underpowered.

There are many races in between, edited into a nondescript mental showreel of long suffering and short highlights. Ultimately forgettable stuff you wouldn’t trouble your best friend with the telling of. No, there’s just one kind of race that sticks and stays in the mind, inscribing itself with a lasting significance like acid eating out the marks on an etching plate. And that is the race of disappointment, the nearly performance that ended in failure, the great effort ventured in vain.

You know the scenario from the first week of the Tour: the day-long break swept up by the sprinters within sight of the line. The way that the escapists, almost always pros you’ve never heard of or hear of again, disappear into the swarming peloton expresses it perfectly: they dared to aspire; their return to anonymity is complete. These journeymen worked all day, toiling under the sun, sweating and hurting, feeling their strength ebb, but knowing there was no option but utter commitment and a prayer that the sprinters’ teams might have miscalculated the gap on the run-in. When you feel sorry for them, you feel sorry for yourself — and every other dreamer-loser there’s ever been. So, my memory. An undulating circuit in Essex, two hours up the A12 out of London. A field full of first cats chasing late-season points; everyone with the same agenda, everyone fit enough to follow wheels all day. Only a fool would think that the winning break would go on the first lap. That left five more laps, of 11 miles each.

But it’s not when, but who, I tell myself. This is a promising group: two strong juniors, three solid seniors. Five, a good number to work together. The rhythm is steady, through and off: you get into that zone where you’re working just below the threshold of real pain. It’s constant labour, but not impossible. Often you feel better when you’re on the front, riding at your own tempo. I try to resist the temptation to do long turns. Roll through, turn a few revs, swing off. There’s plenty to concentrate on, following wheels tidily, staying out of the wind.

After two more laps, though, the momentum is imperceptibly but surely slackening. The chase behind is in full cry. Two more, now three, riders join us. The peloton is just seconds behind. Up the one short, sharp rise in the circuit a couple of kilometres from the finish, our group is almost caught. It’s touch and go — whether to sit up and accept the inevitable, or to press on and hope the gap goes out again on the descent.

It does. And looking around the new group, I begin to take heart. There are enough teams here to encourage the hope that the chase behind will be disorganised. Half a lap later, a time check from the motorbike gives us 30 seconds. We toil on. I make myself eat and drink. I know my body needs it, even if the starchy-sweet sports drink and fruit bars seem scarcely edible. We roll through, but now and again people are missing turns. All of us are hurting; some of us are struggling. The road starts to seem lumpier and rougher. The morning mist is clearing, but in its place comes a breeze which always seems a cross-headwind wherever we are on the circuit.

Up the climb again, and the break is losing coherence. When we turn a corner into the headwind soon after, the Heronsport guy in pale blue jersey launches an attack. My first thought is: this is still too far out, almost three laps to go. My second thought is: the break’s not working anyway; better to be in the better half of it. I counter quickly to get his wheel before the gap gets too great. Behind us, not much reaction. I rest for a few seconds on Heronsport’s wheel, then pull through. The die is cast: this is the new move.

Just one other rider bridges, the lanky Glendene junior. Heronsport has a team mate behind, and now so does Glendene. That leaves only three riders who will chase.

The calculation is correct. Glendene comes up to us and rides straight through to take a long turn. An ominous sign. Within two or three miles, the split is consolidated; the rest of the original break is not coming back. We are it, the head of affairs.

But now, the truth. This pace is killing me. I know I have to do my turn, but with just two partners, it is hard even to grab a wheel. You have just seconds in the slipstream desperately trying to recover before you have to pull again. We’ve already been out in front for nearly 40 miles, and I’m bouncing off the redline. At this moment, the effort is so intense that everything else starts to shut down; you don’t see or hear things you normally would. It’s a dangerous time because your handling skills and concentration fail. It’s the moment in the race when people touch wheels or even ride right off the road into the gutter, seeing stars.

Heronsport is suffering too, but Glendene just seems to get stronger, as if he is sucking up our pain and thriving on it. Whereas I’m now constantly fishing for a ratio that won’t break my legs, he doesn’t touch his gears. He just sits there, rock solid, grinding away relentlessly in the 12 sprocket, regardless of the road’s shifting gradients.

Penultimate time up the climb, Heronsport lets go. Glendene and I look round: should we let him get back on, give him a chance to recover and start working again? No. He’s toast. He can hardly keep his bike rolling. No time for sentiment: press on. Hesitate and it’s over.

Glendene makes the pace again. I try to come through, but the road seems horribly pitted and heavy. Every tiny rise murders me. I become all too aware that when I’m on the front, we are going more slowly. Too slowly. Another time check: 25 seconds, and still more than half a lap to go. While Heronsport was still there, I could bluff that I wasn’t the strongest but I wasn’t the weakest either. Now there’s no one to fool, least of all myself. All I can achieve is to try to hold Glendene’s wheel and get to the finish in one piece. I ask his permission; he assents. Once resolved, I take heart. How hard can that be, to sit behind someone and follow their wheel home?

I have my answer within a mile or two. Soon, nothing is working. Glendene is still churning that 12 cog, and the only thing keeping me on his wheel is willpower. I know that if I lose it by a yard, I’m finished: on my own, I wouldn’t be able to ride at more than 16mph now. The bunch is closing at 25.

We reach the point where the break first went, 50 miles and 5 laps earlier: a series of innocuous bends in a country road, just occasionally creeping upwards in a false flat. Suddenly, I’ve lost Glendene’s wheel. For a few seconds, he hovers tantalisingly within seeming reach. I try to get out of the saddle to jump across, but nothing happens. My legs have gone. Three miles to go, and all I had to do was stay on his wheel to collect a solid second place. Now nothing. Before, on the start sheet, I was somebody; here, I’m no one.

I sit up and recover for a few seconds. Then, round the last bend behind me, comes the front of the bunch. I’m so blown, I’m not sure if I can even get back in the main group. Glendene has perhaps 15 seconds; he’s within sight of the bunch when the road straightens. For me, it’s over. I don’t even remember how I got up the final climb, but somehow I clung to the remnants. The main group is now stretched out on the descent, the front of the pack scenting blood, jockeying for position in the sprint, hunting down each new attack. How can Glendene possibly stay away from this hungry, roiling mass?

At three hundred yards, I am far enough behind to have some elevation and see the finish, almost dispassionately. I can make out Glendene’s arms flying up in victory as he crosses the line — just two, maybe three, seconds ahead of the flailing sprinters.

What a ride, to force his breakaway partners off his wheel without even attacking them, and then stay clear of the final charge. A win in the grand style.

I wonder if he’ll remember it always.