A Day in the Team Car at the Tour of Colombia
I was kindly invited to spend yesterday in the Super Giros team car, the Cali-based team sitting 17th in the race rankings after the opening Team Time Trial. It was a flat stage, normally the least interesting sort to follow, and we were far back in the caravan, but I was fascinated the entire day none-the-less.
It’s actually astounding to see the WorldTour riders making their way back through the caravan after wheel changes, pee stops and bike changes. Deceuninck-Quikstep’s Jannik Stemele, a big man, was having all sorts of bike trouble, changing machines at least three times so I really got to study him and others as well. The WorldTour men are different beings than the others, that’s plain and simple to see. There’s a smoothness of effort and a manner of seeming to slip through the wind in an almost magical way. Team Ineos’s Sebastian Henao in particular was impressive, appearing out of nowhere, then disappearing up the road with a “whoosh”.
There is a definite dark star aura surrounding the Team Ineos. Everything is so perfect, the team identity so overpowering and intimidating, their massive money so very much on display combined with the unbelievable quality of their racers that it’s all somewhat off-putting. There was a telling moment in the race when Henao – a Colombian it should be noted - was making his way back up to the field for a second time. The race caravan is generally a fairly colloquial place, team directors (not ours, he’s a most serious man) placing bets between one another with $100 bills passing back and forth between windows accompanied by jokes and well-intentioned insults, with all the directors lending a hand to riders making their way back up after incidents by offering some convenient car placements for easy drafting. But when Henao was coming up, in a bad moment when the peloton had decided to motivate and begin to chase the break, our director opened up a big gap in the caravan making the Colombian’s life a misery. That would never happen with Rigoberto Uran, I can assure you, a man with the status of a beloved rock star. Ineos is a hard team to love as was Sky.
It’s not all fun and games in the caravan, however, because when the Radio Tour calls for a mechanical or riders needing liquid, the caravan races begin and the teams in the back spring into action, racing like maniacs to the front to get to their riders. We, at one point, were having a duel with the Deceuninck, our cars side by side, racing at highspeed into a one-car-wide open hole between a moto and a commissaire, separated by less than six inches, neither Director willing to yield. We got there first and handed out the bottles with a sense of triumph.
Things got crazy near the end of the race, as they always do, with a big crash at 15-k to go. I’ve already posted the video of us getting Bryan Gomez back into the game. As he told me post-race: “ I crashed with 15 to go and reached the back of the peloton with 8 to go and kept going. I found the front just as the sprint was starting and could only follow.” He was downcast and we all pumped him up explaining to him that, against teams with such massive budgets – the monthly salary of one Ineos riders is probably more than the yearly budget of his entire team – and with the crash, he’d done a fantastic ride. He seemed to rally after that. His Super Giros team was beaming with joy and delight with their new recruit, an interesting young man who has raced in the USA, Europe and of course Colombia. He credits his time in the Hincapie program, and his exposure to the insanity of the USA criterium circuit, for giving him the superior bike handling skills that allow him to fight in the big sprints as seen yesterday.
I am so very impressed with this race, its extraordinary organization – the racers ride back to the hotels after the stage finishes under police escort for example – and the amazing depth and quality of Colombian cycling. There were seven Colombians in the top 10 in a SPRINT stage…how things have changed from the days of the tiny climbers who would lose massive time on the flats before flying up the mountains and then crawling back down them.
The passion of the public for the race is impossible to describe. This Boyacá region around Paipa is home to so many champions, past and present, and it seemed as though every single person living in the area was out to watch the race. The fact that Juan Sebastian Molano won in his home town of Duitama yesterday only added to what they love to call, “ Cycling Fever”.