I was out for a ride recently with my friend Bernard. The conversation turned to Sir Bradley Wiggins, a rider whom Bernard has always admired, all the way back to his junior pursuit world title in 1998. Sadly, he’s a bit less of a fan these days. “He says he hates cycling now,” said Bernard grumpily. “Can you imagine, hating cycling? You look at him riding a bike, the grace, the power. How could he hate that? He says he hated winning the Tour de France.”
My first thought was that Wiggins has had quite a lot to go through and process in recent years and I’d be first in line to let him do that. I think there’s a lot of pressure on pro riders that it’s easy to overlook in a raging jealousy that they’re getting paid a fortune to ride their bikes, have fun, and live in Girona.
But there’s a long history of fans and media asking riders if they enjoy cycling, mainly so they can target anyone with the temerity to say anything other than yes. Chris Boardman had to clarify an interview where he said he didn’t like cycling as much as he liked winning. And I once watched a French reporter have the following exchange with Mark Cavendish: Reporter: “Do you like cycling?” Cavendish: “Like it, how?” Reporter: “Do you ride your bike to do the shopping?” All the blood drained out of my head in terror, and I was only standing next to her. My enthusiasm for an escape meant I became the first person ever to summon the willpower required to teleport.
Throws of love
It’s a curious demand to place on a pro rider, because there are plenty of amateurs whose relationship with cycling is less than simple. I asked Bernard to reminisce about his love of cycling at the moment a couple of years earlier when he had hurled his bike over a hedge into a field and implored a flock of sheep to come and trample on it. “I was loving it, mate,” he said. The time he gave up for two years and sold all his kit? “Never loved cycling more,” he said. (Only afterwards did it strike me that this might be exactly the case.)
Hobby worth hating
Another friend describes cycling as, “It’s my ’obby and I ’ates it,” which is playing for laughs but expresses a worldview that I tend to associate with time triallists above other disciplines. (Time triallists set themselves targets based on fantasy conjectures about their training and the efficacy of their latest shopping spree, and are disappointed when it does not come to pass. Time trialling is a rollercoaster ride of optimism and crushing letdown.)
My affection for the sport has had ups and downs too. I’ve had weeks and months where I’ve had enough of it but kept doing it anyway. I once defined a cyclist as “someone who goes cycling even when they don’t want to,” which is glib, but does say something about commitment, and about the fact that if you keep going things more often than not get better.
And when they’ve got better you will want to be fit, will you not?
It’s natural that anything that plays a large role in your life will bring with it both good times and bad. If you’ve ever taken refuge from your job in your cycling, imagine what it would be like if they were both the same thing. (And if your pro team is your ‘family’ for a lot of the year, it’s even more prone to difficulties.)
In the end I often think about an old friend of mine – he died a few years ago. He hated cycling with a true passion for over 60 years. But, as he put it himself, he hated it fractionally less than he hated everything else in the world.
