The Cycling Professor by Marco Pinotti

Author:Marco Pinotti [Pinotti, Marco]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

Cedric Vasseur and Christophe Le Mevel

In general, riders from the peloton tend to bond with their “neighbours”, those with whom they have more opportunities to spend long days of training. Beyond those, there are bonds made after a long stage ridden together in a breakaway. At the Giro in 2005, I attacked early in the stage Cava dei Tirreni-Frosinone and the Frenchman Cedric Vasseur, yellow jersey in the Tour and a top rider, caught up with me. During the long stage we took it in turns to keep the pace high. The already little hopes of succeeding all the way to the finish line were completely undermined when, along the way, we found out to our regret that the length of the stage was greater than expected by twenty kilometres. Clearly, at that point I wanted to sit up and wait for the group, but Vasseur gave me a speech, in Italian, about the people who were at home on TV watching me and cheering for me. So we kept going until our fate was eventually sealed and we were caught not far from the finish. We went from being at the front, to being dropped together. Then, the next day, due to the efforts made in the previous stage, each time the speed increased we found ourselves at the back, while joking about the “madness” of what we had done. Since then I have always had a few words with Vasseur and my respect for him is still intact. In fact, to tell you the truth, he is one of the few French riders with whom I have become friends. The fact is that most of the trans-alpine cousins (as they are known to us in Italy) ride for teams that are made up mainly of their countrymen, so they tend to be less open to speak a different language; the same happens with some Italian colleagues, though. A Frenchman with whom I have a good relationship is Christophe Le Mevel, who won a stage in the 2005 Giro, beating my friend and training partner Alessandro Vanotti. I discovered that he had married an Italian woman from Bergamo, so it is even easier to bond with him, because he has learned my language and every time I see him he does not fail to remind me how intense the traffic is in my area, but also the fabulous pizza he eats when visiting relatives there. We have promised several times to train together sooner or later.

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