Manual for Speed

In Stage 01 Laurent Pichon (second from left) crashed on a seemingly innocuous stretch of road. After taking some time to get back on his bike, and receiving medical assistance from the Course Doctor regarding a bloody mouth and possible missing tooth, he finished the stage. Later that night he was taken to a hospital where he received stitches. FDJ DS Martial Gayant described the condition of his mouth as “very poor”.¹ Sunday morning he showed up to the start in kit and raced. He is still in the race.

1. Props: VeloNation. [↩]

The crowds in Naples around Stage One (and the team presentation the day prior) included vast numbers of Italians in limited dress—including all the ages, types and demographics you might imagine.

In 2013, Manual For Speed is focused on Alex Howes and Team Garmin-Sharp, Development (Colombian, American and Belgian), the Giro d’Italia, Domestic Racing, and Cyclocross.

PRO TOUR: For a more intimate and in-depth look at the Pro Tour scene we are working closely with Team Garmin-Sharp’s Alex Howes: following him to Belgium for the Ardennes Classics, to California for the TOC, visiting him training in Colorado, et cetera. We will also chronicle Team Garmin-Sharp’s Giro d’Italia Campaign.

DEVELOPMENT: This spring MFS travelled to Colombia (Bogotá, Medellín, Urrao, Manizales and Tuluá) to interview and photograph Colombia’s extensive (and effective) Junior Development program – from Clubs & Academies to U23 to Pro World Tour. We are also following Bear Development, a Northern California grass roots based development program, as well as several individual stand-out juniors and U-23 kids from America and Belgium.

THE GIRO D’ITALIA: MFS is chronicling every stage on-the-ground and day-for-day, during the entire 2013 Giro d’Italia. In addition to documenting the Enterprise that is a Grand Tour, we have special access to Team Garmin-Sharp and Team Colombia, Colombia’s national team.

DOMESTIC: In addition to documenting several key Domestic races like Tour of Califronia and Tour of Colorado, MFS will check-in with several ex-Team Exergy athletes still racing at the professional level – Carlos Alzate, Ben Chaddock, Morgan Schmitt Matt Cooke, Connor and Kevin Mullervy.

CYCLOCROSS: MFS is documenting Cyclocross from the perspective of Team Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com: Ryan Trebon, Tim Johnson, Jamey Driscoll and Kaitie Antonneau.

Fans from Belgium (primarily) and around Europe line the steep streets of Mur de Huy for eight-plus hours not just to see the race for a few minutes, but to socialize over any number of Jupilers.

Team Garmin-Sharp domestique Alex Howes files towards the introductions stage.

After I won the Baby Giro, my phone really started going nuts. At that point I had maybe 15 different offers, mostly from Pro Tour and some Pro Continental teams. At first I was like, “Oh I dunno how I feel about agents,” but I was spending four hours a day on the phone. I can’t do that. So I got an agent.—Joe Dombrowski

After the Tour of Utah in 2010, Axel offered me a spot on Bontrager-Livestrong in 2011. Of course I said yeah. I was planning on taking that next spring semester off anyway and this was a good opportunity. I hadn’t been doing this very long, so why not take some time off and give it a shot? I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I had no idea how hard it was going to be. At the time it all just seemed cool. I had no idea if I would be on the team the following year, I just wanted to see what would happen.—Joe Dombrowski

Team Garmin-Sharp lines up with the rest of the stretched peloton outside Salt Lake City during Stage 4 of the Tour of Utah.

At first I was thinking that I don’t want to talk about it a lot with the guys. The whole point of the team is for all of us to move on, but the reality is that not all of us will move up. Not everyone can be a Pro Tour rider.

At somepoint in the middle of [Joe Dombrowski’s] sophomore year, because his friends raced and because he thought it looked like fun, he showed up to a mountain bike race on a 100-degree day. In a t-shirt and tennis shoes—no water bottle. He raced Junior Beginner, he finished seventh out of ten.

Six years later he won the Baby Giro and hired an agent.

Trying to weigh contracts and offers is really tough, especially for Neo-Pros. There are so many U23 riders that are really talented, but when they go up to the Pro Tour teams they get lost in the shuffle. People are always saying, whatever happened to that guy? I don’t want to be THAT guy.—Joe Dombrowski

Sam Johnson, cooked both figuratively and literally, after 130 brutal miles in 100-degree Utah heat.

Fifteen minutes to the gun, focused and ready to go all-out for an hour, Quinn Keogh still finds time for the camera.

When the race started it was dry and warm, but after 20 minutes the rain started and it was like racing on an ice rink. Everybody out there was crashing through the turns. I actually went down early on the last lap and recovered, only to get involved in a nasty one on the last lap.—Logan Loader (pictured: Kevin Mullervy)

I hope that at least the foundation of it is my Hard Work. Hard Work, many years in the sport, being solid, being reliable. And I mean since you guys um, do a cycling web page, you know that our sport has taken a few turns—to the better and to the worse. And I think what people like is that I was always at my spot. I never turned left or right or up and down I was always at my spot, hopefully people see some certain stability. “Whatever happens, Jens will be still Jens.”—Jens Voigt

In a modest hotel up the road from Ghent is Garmin. The Ronde De Vlaanderen is in two days. Team cars line the edge of a driveway running past the side of the hotel. In the back, two Garmin buses are parked side-by-side, tip-to-tail. Between them, under an awning, is an impromptu alley and place to converge and congregate.

Two days before the start of this week, a week most racers will likely experience maybe six or seven times at best, they go slow. They noodle. They pedal as if their cranks were made of glass. They take a walk on the bike. They ride slow enough for a local club rider to catch them up and draft-bask in the back for a few miles. Note: The recovery pace for a 6-watt-per-kilogramer is 60% or 3.6 watts per kilogram, which happens to be the threshold pace for a good cat 3. Because to go fast in two days, and again in five days, and again nine days, they first need to go slow. It’s a layering thing.

“Heat is always good, it makes it easier to ride hard, easier to get to the point of feeling good. You just have to use cooling strategies. You take a pantyhose and put ice in it, and you put it, the Ice Sock, down your back. Ideally you’re able to get more during the race. I started with a bunch of ice and that’s probably why I felt so good for the first 30 minutes.”—Quinn Keogh

No one gets to be a pro bike racer without hard, hard training, but for many people who do make the grade, training is easy. The daily routine of eat, train, sleep provides comfort and order. However, when it comes time to rest and allow the hard work to metastasize, they cannot do it. Rest and recovery is equally important to training, and the obsessive behavior that drives many athletes will not allow the down time.—Tad Hamilton