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Home , 2012 UCI Europe Tour, Barry Hoban, Fabian Cancellara, Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan, Points classification

098 099 FEATURE

ry, baking 38°C heat. Painful crystal-blue skies. Not a cloud to be seen. This is D Arabia. I am about to embark on five days of suffering, to try to join the big boys’ club, if only for a week. stands a bike length in front of me. behind, beside. A portly gentleman in a white shirt stands with the start flag held aloft three metres in front of us, the flag waving gently in the desert breeze. The man with the flag is the greatest cyclist that ever lived, . I’m 38 years old and the oldest neo-pro in cycling, riding for a tin-pot Asian Continental team, and I’m on the start line of the 2012 Tour of . Two years ago I was a near 100kg bodybuilder who hadn’t touched a bike in 18 years, and here I am, about to race against the best cyclists on the planet. How the hell did I get here? After the deputy editor of read through my first draft for this article, he reminded me that the first thing a reader expects from a story is a beginning, a middle and an end, and since then, I’ve been struggling to work out exactly where to begin. [sorry! — Ed] Of course, temporally, my season began, had a middle and is now ending, but in every other sense it’s been an experience that I can’t even attempt to put Main: Looking good at into that kind of perspective. Never the Above: raises too late his profile At the age of 39, Lee Rodgers squared up to Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen and at the Tour of Qatar. Never heard of him? Well, that’s because his bike racing career has only just begun. Here’s his extraordinary story, in his own words Words Lee Rodgers Pics Graham Watson and courtesy of author 100 FEATURE Lee Rodgers 101

Over the course of my life I’ve made town in northern that sees the a habit of doing things the wrong way culmination of the greatest one-day bike around, and yet, somehow, it seems to race in the world. Same with the Mur de just about work out. Huy. It’s not even a blip on the map, yet My cycling story appeals to people to us, it’s the Mur! Last I was in as it’s about having a second chance. It I made my non-cycling Dutch follows the cheesy sports films narrative, friend stop the car every time I saw a where the old, beaten-up duffer who’s road sign that pertained to a bike race so been playing in the minors gets his I could take a photo, something he chance and comes good in the end. found deeply entertaining and not a little insane. I have seven photos of various Two jobs and a racing career signs with ‘Liège’ written on them alone. Not that the Continental level, where I race, is the peak of the sport. Nor is it This is my sport particularly lucrative. Like most guys at I revel in it all, the beauty, the pain, the this level, I don’t get paid, apart from a madness, the absurdity, and this is why share of the pot at the end of a race plus the recent doping ‘revelations’ can’t dent free kit and bike, and yet I still have to my love for the sport, because those train like a real pro. I have to try to beat guys are not cycling. This is my sport. guys who do nothing but train and play Their game is a different one entirely, video games all day. I don’t have a job and they are welcome to it. outside racing, I have two. I cram in the Before I get to my year, I should also training alongside being a freelance provide a little background. I started journalist and co-founder of a very cycling in 1987, exactly four days after young wheel brand. Fifty-plus hours a stage 21 of the 1987 . week at work and a training schedule on Those of my generation and older might top is not exactly a blast. know the stage I am talking about. It Why do I do it? Because I love it. “It’s the greatest sport and was to La Plagne, and it changed my life. I love it all. The smell of Deep Heat That sounds dramatic, but it’s true. On on a cold race day, the daft socks, the also the daftest. We dress that day an embattled shaving of legs, the ridiculously fought his way back up the last overpriced equipment, the fear, the like poor superheroes” mountain from an impossible deficit to glory, the hunt, the chase, attacking too Below Cycle Sport when they are sure they’re alone, salutes Pedro Delgado, then went on to win the soon, blowing up in a heap, hearing the gets the lowdown that in all likelihood will never see the race. Three days of badgering led my cheers, feeling the wind, the thrum of on Rodgers at the light of day in a race but, what the hell, mother to a near nervous breakdown 120 freewheels during a lull in the 2012 Tour of doesn’t it feel great? and me to a beginner’s action, all for a crazy It’s the greatest sport and the daftest. special which weighed a ton. I pounded sport that demands We dress like poor superheroes. Our the hell out of that bike. I was hooked. In nothing but everything helmets cost more than a weekend in fact, I was more like one of those fish from its adherents. or New York. Our sunglasses they dynamite in Polynesia, belly-up and I love it for the way it are in no way cool, not really, and ready-fried on the first blast. The first makes noble all of us our shoes would get you duffed up time I rode that bike I felt like I’d come every time we whip if you wore them out in any home. I had become a cyclist. round a corner on a respectable town north of Within a year I was skipping A-level descent or struggle for a Leicester. The prize for winning all college to go out and ride. One day I got summit. It allows but the greatest races is a pittance home and my mother dragged me into overweight accountants, when you consider what other the kitchen. middle managers and sports offer (I once won a “The headmaster called me. You’ve skinny teenage kids to Coca-Cola headband and six been skipping college.” dream of things that Eccles cakes after a 66-mile race). “Ah…” probably will never be, Cycling turns us into geeks too. “Are you smoking drugs?” sees them practising Living the Say the word ‘’ to most “What? No!” their victory salutes on dream in Qatar people and they’ll have no idea “Is it alcohol? Gambling? A girl? deserted country lanes what it means, much less that it’s a Have you got someone pregnant?” 102 FEATURE Lee Rodgers 103

“No, no, nothing like that. I’ve ah… sport. At a time when there was no I’ve been riding my bike, training with internet, I went to the library and sought this guy from the club.” out all I could read on the greats, on the An expression of complete and utter Tour, the Monuments, all of it, yet very relief swept across my mother’s face. soon I realised that drugs within the “What do you want to do then?” sport had always been a feature and “I want to ride be a professional and that most of the greats and several of the ride in the Tour de France,” I told her. current generation of riders, my heroes, At this point, most parents would had doped or were doping. have reached across the Formica and clattered their starry-eyed offspring with Getting the call a good clout about the chops, but my About three months before my 18th mother, having been denied the chance birthday I received a call asking if I to become a Russian ballerina and an wanted to race in the junior Tour of American astronaut (‘Aim for the Ireland, representing Lancashire. I’d inevitably impossible’ was the family come second in the County Junior motto) said, “Oh… OK. If that’s really Champs and had won the KOM prize, what you want to do, get a part-time job catching the eye of the selectors. I and do it,” as though it was as simple as should have been thrilled, but something That third place came in that, and left the room, thrilled that her had changed for me. I was tired of the a three-man breakaway (I only son wasn’t addicted to correction training and starting to doubt if I had Above An escape on believe in the Olympian ideal (however a little fat. It was 2008 and I was 36. On I got eighth in the prologue and have no whatsoever), fluid and whiteboard markers. what it took to even manage that aspect stage six of the 2012 historically inaccurate that might be), my way to work one day I veered on was sitting in fifth all week after but I was thrilled all the And that’s what I did, I got a job in a of the sport. Yet the realisation that to that you do it for the love of it, for the chafing thighs into a bike shop and stage two, with the rest of my same. I’d made the break, factory from five to 11 at night, have even a half-decent career in Bottom left Philippe (non-monetary) benefits it brings to your bought a Trek 1000. Within a fortnight team out after the second day, until the powered it away and had the hugest eventually becoming a licensed fork-lift cycling had required just about all the Gilbert poses with life. I believe that it’s the means that I’d a training plan on the wall. Within six last 20 kilometres on the last stage, smile on my face all through the 40km truck driver, and trained in the day. I riders who’d made it to dope, was Rodgers for a photo justify the end, not the other way weeks I’d entered a local 50km race and when a puncture scuppered my escape. Seamlessly chain-ganging it raced and, quite often, I won, or came daunting. I believed (and still do) in the Bottom Rodgers on around, and that was a big factor in my won. And on it went, until I was down to chances. I finished 12th though, very with a Hong Kong kid and a Kazakh second, or third, or fourth. At the same Chariots of Fire version of sport, the attack again decision to walk away from bike racing. 74kg and racing with the Japanese pros much to the amazement of my manager, with a full-strength peloton chasing us time, I was voracious in my study of the complete with music and slow-mo. I I have the utmost respect for those guys around the country, within the year. A who thought he’d signed an old was mesmerising. I’d gone from hanging who rode clean and hard during the 20th place at the UCI 2.2 Tour de journeyman — as had I, to be honest. on in these races to animating them, to 1990s and beyond, especially knowing I Kumano a few months later earned me A few months later I won the almost winning a stage. I felt a little like couldn’t have done it myself. a call from a Taiwanese-based UCI Singapore national road race champs, I’d won. In accordance with my team, and after securing a job as editor and the following year I managed first in philosophy of racing, I kind of had. I’d “I’d gone from hanging Jack of all trades of a cycling website in Taiwan, I was the Singapore national time trials, a fifth given my all that day. I’d been a part of I went back to college at 21, got into a ready to start anew. place in the Tour of Thailand prologue this beautiful little break, this micro on in these races to good university, played football, ran, By this time I was 37. My first race and bagged third place on stage four of bio-organism, three guys who couldn’t barely even thought about my cycling was in the 2010 Tour of Thailand, where the same race. communicate by any spoken language almost winning them” past and never watched the Tour on TV. but who were fluent inbike , striving I never wondered what might have together ahead of an international pack been. After a year in doing a job under the beating Asian sun in 90 per I hated, I made my great escape, cent humidity and just being. Mid-break working as a scuba diver in Thailand for I said, “Man this is great!” and got a year and an English teacher in Hong confused looks from my companions. Kong and Japan. Falling in love with the Truthfully, had my racing career place after a year in rural Japan, I ended there I’d have been content. returned there, to Saga Prefecture, and In November 2011, I got a call from lived for a decade, marrying a Japanese RTS Racing Team. They asked if I’d like woman and working as a teacher, ebay to join them to race in the Tour of Qatar salesman (selling kimonos to rich and Oman. Once I’d picked my jaw up Americans), part-time writer and off the floor I answered in the affirma- weekend vicar (that’s another story). tive. Unfortunately, three days before I got into bodybuilding too, in a big Christmas I broke my hand in a collision way, expanding from 75kg to 97kg over with a Nissan Micra which forced me to three years, but then had a break and got tape a pillow around my handlebars 104 FEATURE Lee Rodgers 105

and put in 75 hours over three weeks on Not easy. The next morning Fabian the indoor trainer on the rooftop of my Cancellara asked me to pass the muesli apartment block, all the while having to at the breakfast bar. Then a fat guy on tell my new team manager that I an Eddy Merckx rode past me on the couldn’t join the training camps because way to the bike tent. It was Eddy of work. I was terrified that my injury Merckx. Tom Boonen took a leak next to would keep me from going to the Middle me in the men’s after dinner. All surreal. East. Those were three hard weeks. The racing was unbelievably fast, but Before I’d worried about not being able I hung on to the end, coming in 105th, to compete for the top 10 in Asian races. riding one day with after Soon I’d be fighting in desert crosswinds a puncture, chatting with Philippe not to be dropped and humiliated. Gilbert on another and getting shouted at by Boonen in a crosswind. I was more Surreal moments than a little outclassed, but I finished. I Broken bones mostly healed, the first felt like Robert De Niro in Raging Bull: morning in Qatar I was in the elevator at “You never got me down, Ray!” even got into a break. The British the race hotel with Bernie Eisel and Oman followed and a better result. I press asked me who the hell I was. Mark Cavendish, trying to act normal. was getting into the pace of things and Tour of Oman On one stage we started in high red mountains and came down all day, hitting 104kph. On the last stage on a circuit along the ocean in front of a beautiful ancient market, I dropped off the back for the last two kilometres just to cement the memory. Choppers buzzed the peloton over the bay, luxury yachts bobbed and crowds in dazzling “English journalists started white robes whooped. said, “Nice ride, Lee.” coming over to ask Then came Langkawi, Korea, Jelajah and the Tour of Taiwan, with my legs me who the hell I was” getting better with each race. The Taiwanese race had been upgraded to KOM classification. We had equal Thrills, spills, podiums Continental team strung out, along with 2.1 and had a decent field. It was my points, but I had more first places. and trophies for the the help of the entire Taiwan national home tour, really, held in my adoptive The last day had two sprints. My Taiwanese-based team. I turned and shouted, “I’ll work for nation, and one stage even finished in entire focus was on the first one, and British rider you guys but I get the points! OK?” the city I lived in, Taichung, on a hill I when I got into a break with Feng and “Shut up!” trained on twice a week. By the third five others I knew I’d probably lose it, “No, I get the points! OK?” day I was doing OK on GC, but got into and I did, coming second, meaning he “OK! Now shut up and ride!” a break with a Japanese rider, Shinichi was leading the hunt for Green on the And we did just that, hammering Fukushima. We got hauled in with five road. But as I passed him I heard his over rolling hills and drawing further kilometres to go but I did pick up some breathing sounding laboured. The away. That was another transcendent sprint points. peloton came together but as we hit a moment in my year, being in that break The next day I got into another small rise to a tunnel, I attacked. It was — we were all flying. I don’t think I’ve break, then finished 11th on the stage in 37km to the second sprint, but I wasn’t ever ridden so hard; 500 metres from my home town with friends cheering me going to give up yet, not after suffering the sprint the guys let me go ahead. It on. On the penultimate stage I got into through three breakaways in five days. meant I’d won the yet another day-long break with half an I went as hard as I could, taking of a 2.1 UCI race. I’m still smiling. eye to getting more points, and by the three others with me: Cameron Wurf, a end of the stage had taken the points Hong Kong guy and a Saxo Bank guy, Lee Rodgers is now racing for the CCN classification from the local star, Chen and we managed to get a 15-second cycling team. He blogs regularly at Kai Feng, who’d already secured the lead. Behind I could see Feng’s www.crankpunk.com