Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar by Millar David

Author:Millar, David [Millar, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781409114956
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

The roads were like an ice rink. There was a series of crashes on the descent towards the Angliru and I was involved in the first of these. I got up without serious injury, although my left side had been ripped, but on the false flat leading to the foot of the Angliru my wheels disappeared from under me and I went down again, this time on my right side. It was a farce. I was one of the best riders in the wet and yet I had no control of what was going on. Remarkably my bike was still fine, so I straightened it up and set off again. But it was more dangerous than it had been all day, and we were going uphill.

Soon afterwards, I went down again, sliding along in the middle of the road on my left side. The car that was following me ran right over my bike – and I still had my feet in the pedals. Now I was furious. I dragged myself to the side of the road and just sat there with my wrecked bike, watching as bloodied riders came by. I love competition on an epic scale, but this had nothing to do with sport. We were being exploited. It was incredibly irresponsible of the organisation but they were getting what they wanted – headlines and TV ratings – at the risk of not only our health, but even our lives.

But the peloton had only itself to blame. We, the riders, let them do it to us. We were a bunch of lone-wolves, contracted mercenaries who stabbed each other in the back at every opportunity. We couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, I thought to myself as my peers struggled onwards. Then I corrected myself – actually that was probably the one thing we could do.

Eventually, my team car pulled up, with my spare bike on the roof. I got back on, but mentally I had quit the race. Bingen Fernandez, my loyal Basque teammate, finally caught up with me and tried pushing me, but I told him to forget it – we were so far behind that it was over.

It was so dark now that in the pouring rain it felt like dusk. I was covered in blood and had ripped a lot of skin, as coming down on my right side twice had worsened the road rash. I still wanted to finish the stage, even though, at the speed I was capable of, there was still close to an hour of climbing ahead of me.

The last part of the Angliru is the hardest. Over the final 6 kilometres, it averages 13 per cent with some passages at 24 per cent. Bingen didn’t leave my side and, as a Basque rider, he was massively supported. Basque fans are among the most devoted in cycling and they were desperate to help him, but every time they tried to push him he would wave them away and tell them to push me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.