Gaining Traction A Pyrenean route recce in May gave the FDJ.fr team, and in particular their climber Thibaut Pinot, time to assess their strengths and weaknesses before the Tour de France Writer: Daniel Friebe Photography: Tom Simpson 76 PROCYCLING AUGUST 2014 PCY193.fdj.indd 76 6/27/14 4:52 PM idday has only just passed of the 2014 Tour, the potential race decider, when seven tiny silhouettes, Hautacam, now awaits. back-lit by lingering snow, The whoosh of their carbon-rimmed wheels begin dropping down the west draws our gaze down the mountain with them. side of the Col du Tourmalet Each bike makes a subtly different sound effect aboveM our heads. Like bluebirds, they swoop and draws a subtly different trajectory. We gracefully past the bar at Le Bastan, 1,750 notice that Arthur Vichot, the French national metres above sea level, and around a left-hand road race champion, has a descending technique bend where the land begins to fall in thick green that mirrors his personality – bullish, bordering pleats down towards Barèges. on cocky. Around 200 metres behind Vichot, It’s late May. Across the Med, Nacer Bouhanni his best friend and training companion of 10 is winning stages and celebrating his grand tour years, Thibaut Pinot seems stiff, upright by breakthrough at the Giro d’Italia. Meanwhile, comparison. Vichot slices through the inside here in the Pyrenees, a group of his FDJ of bends. Pinot arcs around the outside. team-mates prepare for the Tour de France. That, at least, is the impression. But then Yesterday, they rode stage 17 from Saint- sometimes the eye sees what it wants to see. Gaudens to Pla d’Adet, today they have defied a Pinot, of course, became pro cycling’s most road block and snow drifts to crest the summit infamously poor descender in the matter of of the Tourmalet. The final climb of stage 18 and minutes, a mere knuckle of hairpins, on the PROCYCLING AUGUST 2014 77 PCY193.fdj.indd 77 6/27/14 4:52 PM FDJ.fr | Gaining Traction road off the Port de Pailhères in the first Pyrenean stage of last year’s Tour de France. The revelation of the previous year’s Grande Boucle, the prodigy touted as a future Tour winner in L’Équipe on the morning after that 2012 race, Pinot felt his body suddenly knot into panic when tarmac began unravelling under his tyres. He lost over two minutes in 18 downhill kilometres, all hope of contending for even a top-10 finish overall, and all heart. So as he skitters down the Tourmalet 10 months later, we’re not quite sure whether we’re imagining things. All we know is that the memory of the Port de Pailhères has been difficult for the 24-year-old to outrun – harder than the psychological and technical issues which had been causing him problems on descents for several years. If he can ever block it out, fans and media are invariably ready with their reminders. In Pinot’s case, Grappe believes, the backlog Today is no different: when the team The accumulation and escalation of of mental strain, a couple of steep downhill vehicles pull into a car-park in Luz-Saint- stress over several months had frayed ramps, a sense of slipping control and his Sauveur and the riders dismount for a drink Thibaut’s nerves before they snapped panic at seeing Froome et al disappear and directions to the foot of Hautacam, over the horizon were enough to cause Nicolas Geay of France Télévision beckons on the Port de Pailhères a catastrophic malfunction. Pinot over for an interview. As journalists Grappe, incidentally, has some interesting usually do, Geay leaves his most important Julien, has already told us much the same Above FDJ’s core of theories about cumulative mental fatigue young riders like to joke – and most loaded – question until last: how thing. His opinion and Grappe’s have around with each other, in cyclists. As soon as he arrived at FDJ in did you find the descent? altered slightly over the past few months: occasionally to the 2000, he began asking riders to score their You can almost see Pinot’s features tense, at the 2013 Tour, Julien blamed lingering annoyance of their DS mood and sensations on a scale of 1 to 10 his muscles constrict like they did on the mental trauma from a crash when his on a daily basis; negative trends in these Port de Pailhères last year. But he feigns brother was 15, whereas now he is more numbers, he says, were the earliest and best nonchalance: “Ah, it’s not too bad,” he says. inclined to talk about a build-up of pressure indicators of fatigue that would eventually over several months before last year’s race. impair a rider’s performances. “Blood tests This engrenage – the accumulation and will give you good feedback but much too escalation of stress over several months – late. By the time you see anything, the rider THAT EVENING, OVER dinner, one of the had frayed Thibaut’s nerves before they is fatigued and you’re in trouble.” He now team coaches, Fred Grappe, advises us not snapped on the Port de Pailhères. Grappe looks around at other teams and sees to broach the ‘D’ word in the interview we agrees: he likens top sportsmen to finely recurring patterns of riders enjoying have scheduled with Pinot the following tuned instruments which can suddenly, fantastically full and successful seasons, afternoon. “He’ll shut down if you start spectacularly break down at the merest then seeming to wilt the following year. The talking about descending,” Grappe warns. interference – “the equivalent of a grain reason in a lot of cases, he suspects, could Grappe’s colleague and Pinot’s brother, of sand finding its way into a car engine”. be undiagnosed and untreated fatigue. 78 PROCYCLING AUGUST 2014 PCY193.fdj.indd 78 6/27/14 4:52 PM Left Team coach Fred Grappe attributes Pinot’s problems at the 2013 Tour to a build-up of mental stress It followed that Pinot’s mental and physical freshness would be of paramount importance ahead of the 2014 Tour. The rider himself now acknowledges that, in the spring and early summer of 2013, invisible stresses were devouring his energy reserves. “I really felt under a lot of pressure,” he tells us after lunch in the team’s hotel in Argelès-Gazost the next afternoon. “Now I’m a lot calmer because I know there will be a sprinter in the team and not everything rests on my shoulders. Last year I really felt that the team’s whole Tour depended on me. Then there was the press and their expectations, although I wasn’t too aware Arthur Vichot of that at the time. But the time I spent answering journalists’ questions before Cobbles? You must be joking! and after stages was definitely costing me mental energy. I’d never felt anything like For all his pedigree as a directeur sportif that level of pressure before. It’s no wonder – having won Tours de France with three really that I found it hard to cope.” different riders in the 1970s and 1980s – Cyrille Guimard does occasionally get Ironically, his troubles a year ago have things wrong. At the beginning of David helped to remove that burden. “The media Millar’s career, for example, the then aren’t as interested in me now, so that Cofidis boss predicted that Millar might one day win the Tour. Guimard also later helps,” he says. A gutsy seventh place tipped Andy Schleck to be the dominant overall at the Vuelta last September went stage-racer of his generation. largely unheralded in France, despite The doyen of French directeurs’ latest gaffe, it seems, was suggesting that the reassuring Pinot. But there are still certain 2013 French national champion, Arthur fragilities: sometimes fickle sleep patterns Vichot, might one day shine in the (one reason why Pinot has never trained for cobbled Classics. The thought had crossed our minds, too, but couldn’t an extended period at altitude), and a fear of have got shorter shrift from Vichot when getting ill before races that has occasionally we put it to him in the Pyrenees in May. turned into a self-fulfilling prophesy. In fact, he almost laughed us out of the room. “The cobbled Classics? Me?! Equally, though, there are also clear signs You must be joking.” of growing maturity. As of a few months We noted that, like Guimard, we ago he has two phones – one for friends frankly didn’t see any reason why a rider and family, the other for business, which with his attributes – a rouleur’s physique plus the power of a puncheur-finisseur he is at liberty to ignore when “off duty”. – couldn’t excel in those races. His brother says that Thibaut unwinds as But again, Vichot’s expression was he always has – in the fresh air of his native one of pure bemusement. “Ah, no,” he said. “They’re crazy up there. I’ve never Vosges mountains, often with a fishing rod done those races but I know that if in hand. He has also learned to read and you’re not in the top 20 at certain times, you’ve lost. I see myself as a puncheur, the kind of guy who will go well in the Ardennes, the Tour of the Basque “Blood tests will give Country, circuit races like Quebec and you good feedback but Montreal and national championships.