I’m running a little late getting to today’s blog, but at least I have a good reason. Today was the kickoff event for my new book tour in support of “The Time-Crunched Cyclist: Fit, Fast, and Powerful in 6 Hours a Week“. For tonight’s event we had John Wilcockson come in to sign his new book, “Lance: The Making of the World’s Greatest Champion” and a Q&A hosted by my old friend and 7-Eleven teammate Ron Kiefel.

Sitting around and talking with Ron and John brought back a lot of great memories and wonderful stories from my racing career in the 1980s and the early years of coaching Lance Armstrong. One of the best was reminiscing about the first day of the 1986 Tour de France. The 7-Eleven team was the first American cycling team to ride the Tour de France and truth be told, we didn’t know what we were doing. Alex Steida, a Canadian rider on the team, showed up for the first road stage in a skinsuit. He had pinned his numbers on his back in such a way that the number formed a pocket, in which he stashed a banana. That day we actually had to ride two stages: a 120-kilometer road race in the morning and a team time trial in the afternoon.

Well, not 300 meters into the road stage, we saw this guy shooting up the side of the road and soon realized it was Steida. The rest of the peloton just laughed at this crazy guy going from the gun like that, as if it just proved their suspicions that this American team didn’t know how to race. But Alex had the last laugh. He stayed off the front by himself for about 60 kilometers, snagging all the time bonus sprints, mountain points, and sprint points along the way. He was eventually caught by a larger breakaway group, but I remember crossing the finish line and looking up to see Alex on the podium in the yellow jersey! Not only that, but his daring move had netted him enough mountain points and sprint points that he also earned the polka dot jersey for King of the Mountains, and the green jersey as the leader in the points competition. There was also a “Combination jersey” for the rider who was best-placed in all the competitions, and he earned that as well. And to top it all off, because he was young he also earned the white jersey as Best Young Rider. In one move he had captured every jersey competition in the whole race!

Back then, the Tour de France was a lot different than it is today. Instead of a nice hotel, our team housing was in a gymnasium, and there were no team buses. We meandered our way back to the gym, ate, rehydrated, and rested up for the team time trial in the afternoon. But Alex spent so much time on the podium accepting his menagerie of jerseys, doing interviews, etc., that he didn’t make it back to the gymnasium until about two hours after the rest of us. He barely had time to eat or rest before having to go back out for the team time trial.

We were so excited to have the yellow jersey in the team that we started the team time trial like it was a one-kilometer race. For the first few kilometers we rode so hard that Alex, who was tired from his efforts in the morning, started to skip pulls. Then we went into corner way too fast (we hadn’t really practiced the team time trial) and three riders crashed. We didn’t know what to do – do we wait, do we go on, what about Alex? By the time we regrouped, Alex was really starting to suffer and we were all losing massive amounts of time. The team director informed us that unless we picked up the pace we were all at risk of missing the time cut and being sent home! At the Tour de France, unless you finish each stage within a certain percentage of the winner’s time, you’re eliminated from the race. So despite having the yellow jersey in the team, there was a chance that none of us would start the next day!

We made the decision to split the team. I dropped back with a few others to stay with Alex and pace him to the finish, and the rest of the team rode flat out to get to the finish within the time cut. In the end, Alex crossed the finish line just 38 seconds away from being eliminated. To this day, we are the only team to capture and lose the yellow jersey in the same day.

We were devastated, but fortunately the Tour de France can take you to both tremendous highs and lows. Just two days later, our teammate Davis Phinney became the first American to win a road stage of the Tour de France when he won a sprint finish. But even that tremendous event was a comedy of errors. Davis was in a breakaway group of six, and about 10 kilometers from the finish a Spanish rider went off the front. Coming into the finishing straight, Davis thought he was sprinting for second place on the stage. He won the sprint, but didn’t put his arms up because as far as he knew, the Spanish rider had won the stage. It was John Wilcockson who informed him that he had actually won. It turns out, the Spanish rider had suffered a flat tire, and pulled off to the side of the road to wait for a spare wheel from his team car. The rest of the breakaway had ridden past him without realizing it (these were the days before race radios).

A lot has changed since the 1986 Tour de France. That was the first year that an American won the Tour de France – Greg Lemond – and between 1986 and 2005 Lemond and Lance Armstrong combined for a total of 10 Tour de France victories. Race radios, live television coverage, improved training methods, and vastly-improved accommodations and rider salaries all evolved during the same time period. But one thing has remained the same since the days I spent racing the Tour de France: the race is still won by the strongest rider in the race. This year that was Alberto Contador, and between John Wilcockson (who has reported on the Tour de France for 40 consecutive years) and me, we believe there’s a chance that Lance Armstrong – supported by his new Radio Shack team - may once again reach the level where he is the strongest rider at the Tour de France.

Chris Carmichael

www.trainright.com