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Bradley’s big day out

Published: Jul. 13, 2007
A long, long, long day
A long, long, long day
Photo: Graham Watson

Cofidis rider Bradley Wiggins made no secret that he was disappointed after finishing fourth in the Tour de France’s opening prologue in London.

The reigning world and Olympic track pursuit champion — and an outspoken critic of doping in cycling — had set his season around winning in London, on streets he rode as a teenager. Earlier this year, Wiggins even set out to test out the course at 3 a.m., to get the feel of the route with the fewest numbers of cars on the course. He showed he was on form by winning the prologue of the Dauphiné Libéré in June.

But when Wiggins crossed the finish line in London 23 seconds slower than CSC’s Fabian Cancellara, the Londoner was visibly upset with his result in front of friends and family.

“I gave it everything,” Wiggins said. “I thought I'd really had the perfect race. I didn't brake at all throughout. I couldn't have gone any faster.”

With the race headed into the Alps on Saturday, Wiggins knew he wanted to make a mark on this Tour before he became too fatigued. Friday was his day. During the first rounds of attack in the opening kilometers, Wiggins slipped off the front with five other riders.

“At the start there were six us — Cedric Hervé (Ag2r) and a Milram guy and a couple others,” Wiggins said. “We were going through and off and I took a big turn and I looked around and they were gone. That it was it, and I just carried on.”

Without intending to, Wiggins had become the race’s first solo breakaway, riding largely into a headwind alone for 190km. His lead stretched from 2:10 at the 10.5km mark to 7:20 at the 18.5km mark before reaching a maximum of 19:00 at 53km into the stage.

“Someone had to do it, it just ended up falling on me,” Wiggins said. “Someone’s got to make the racing, and it just sort of fell on me today. You can’t choose when you get into a break at the Tour de France, it just kind of happens. I thought someone would come across in a counterattack, but no one came across, and then I found myself with one minute, two minutes, and I thought, well this is the Tour, you can’t sit up in situations like that. I just settled in for a long day.”

For those who have ever wondered what goes through a rider’s head during five hours in front of the field at the world’s toughest bike race, Wiggins said not much, actually.

“You just have to sort of count the kilometers down and concentrate on eating and drinking,” he said. “I really wanted to stop for a piss at one point, but I thought, ‘I can’t stop when I’m in the lead.’ You just have to switch off at times. I was getting constant feedback as to how the peloton was riding. When they slowed down, I slowed down, and when they sped up, I sped up a bit.”

Wiggins’s break was marked by a broken-spoke wheel change that involved an equipment toss the Tour de France hadn’t seen since Bjarne Riis’s infamous bike throw at the final time trial of the 1997 Tour at Euro Disneyland.

After dismounting his bike with 50km remaining and a five-minute lead, Wiggins removed his rear wheel to prepare for a replacement, and tossed his expensive carbon wheel into a nearby grassy embankment.

“I didn’t lose that much time,” Wiggins said. “The mechanic did a great change and I was up and running straight away.”

Wiggins was caught with just 7km remaining, and soon went straight backwards, finishing 3:42 behind stage winner Tom Boonen.

That Wiggins hadn’t made a conscious decision to commemorate the 40th anniversary of British rider Tom Simpson’s death came as a disappointment to journalists hungry for an angle on Wiggins’s day-long escapade. Simpson died on the Mont Ventoux on a baking hot day in 1967, and his death was partly attributed to amphetamines found in his jersey. Talk before Friday’s stage was that one of the Tour’s five riders from the United Kingdom might do something special to honor Simpson’s memory.

“I didn’t know anything about that, actually, so it’s worked out pretty well for me,” Wiggins said. “It just happens like that.”

If the ride belonged to anyone, Wiggins said, it was his wife, who was celebrating her birthday in London. “She would’ve been watching on the telly,” Wiggins said. “So it’s the only way I could spend the day with her.”

But Scot David Millar most definitely knew about the anniversary of Simpson’s death on Ventoux. At the start in Semur-en-Auxois, Millar said, “It’s an important day that deserves to be remembered more than it is being. He was our greatest rider, and it’s a tragedy that he’s not here today.”

Asked if he felt there should have been a stage held on Ventoux to memorialize Simpson, Millar answered, “I think it would have been pertinent to have done that. We have to remember the past, not forget it, if we want to create a better future for cycling. We definitely have to remember Tommy.”

Perhaps, but for Bradley Wiggins, it was simply a big day out on the bike, at the world’s biggest bike race.