LITMIR.BIZ

      Great. So now the guy who had brought me here had disappeared. But not after burdening me with a coach who was destroying me week by week. Bobby didn’t understand me, and I couldn’t stand his persistent interventions.

      I’m lucky. I’ve never had any problem motivating myself to train. If I want to win, I have to race well. And if I want to race well, I have to train. But that is what training is to me: preparation to race. Not training for its own sake. Maybe that works for some riders: G.C. riders, for instance, like Alberto Contador or Chris Froome, who don’t race so often, need to train with structure to make sure they arrive at their goals in peak condition. Also, they can use races like the one-week stage races in Spain or the Dauphiné or Tour de Romandie to train. If you take this year, 2018, as a comparison, I won my first race in Australia in January. I’m basically trying to win twice a week pretty much from then until the world’s in September with a couple of weeks off here and there for good behavior. Or, in the case of last year, bad behavior, but we’ll come to that.

      Training to say you’re in good shape. Amazing numbers. Wow. Well, as far as I’m aware, no bike race has ever been won on a power meter. Nobody ever got UCI points for wearing the maximum output jersey. Even Chris Froome has to stop looking at his computer and run up mountains in his cycling shoes sometimes. Training for its own sake. That’s exactly how it felt with Bobby. He was obsessed with my figures. I had to do exactly as he asked every day and then spend the rest of the day talking to him about it. I was absolutely exhausted and miserable with it. I’d start thinking I’d turn my phone off or pretend I was sick. It was ludicrous. I love training, but this was killing me. Death by numbers.

      Every coach I’ve ever met asks me: “Do you want to be a better climber? A better sprinter? A better time trialer?” I say, why mess with nature? I am what I am. I go OK. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. I believe that if you make a drastic change to improve one facet of your performance, there will be a price to pay elsewhere. Riders who have lost weight to climb better lose their kick. People who have improved their stamina become unable to sprint. Becoming more aerodynamic means losing power. The list is endless, and I’m sure you get what I’m talking about.

      The basic problem was a pretty simple one. Forget resting heart rate, fat content, power outputs, and training algorithms. I was just plain knackered. Tired beyond belief. But still, I’d drag myself out of the flat in Monaco and cajole myself into riding along, sticking to whatever plan Bobby had set for me that day.

      I went to the northern classics and admit I was truly shit. This was meant to be the year when I cracked it: no more second and third steps of the podium, no more near misses. Well, we got that right anyway. I was nowhere near. By the time April blew itself out, I’d forgotten what a podium looked like.

      The team was not happy. All sorts of rumors were floating around about what was going wrong. I can’t say if Bobby actually said this or not, but I heard he told the team I’d been overraced so much since turning pro, that I was already burnt out. Any results I would ever achieve in my career had already been won. I was finished at 25. A busted flush. A racehorse whose knees had gone.

      “That’s it,” I said. “Fuck it, I quit.”

      In my mind I was already an ex-professional cyclist on the beach with Katarina. Well, I’d still have some stories to tell about the times I’d had. Maybe I’d write a book one day.