The Life in the Peloton pod has always been my way to understand and explain what it is to be a part of the pro peloton. I love chatting to people and learning, not just about the job of being a cyclist, but about the characters that do it, and to get a better understanding the sport.
When the racing chapter of my life was coming to a close a few years ago, I decided I wanted to try to put all of this down in one place to close out that part of my career. That is where the Life in the Peloton book was born.
THE LIFE IN THE PELOTON BOOK IS HERE
A traditional cycling autobiography was never going to be for me, I wanted to make the kind of book that I like to read. Sure, I wanted to talk about my experiences in the peloton and put down in print some of the stories that came out of my time as a pro cyclist. But more than anything I wanted to do something that people could enjoy, learn from, and pick up time and time again to try to make sense of what life in the peloton is really like. As much as I wanted this book to be fun, I also wanted it to be useful.
The concept it turned out was probably one of the easy parts! The making of it ended up a three-year project which started when I enlisted the help of my old mate Tom Southam. Tom had done this sort of thing already and with his experience in pro cycling was the guy could maybe help solve the puzzle of how I got from the stories, thoughts, and ideas in my head to the final finished product.
I’ve done a lot of podcasts now, but a book really was something new to me. We started off making plans during my last season with EF, and at the end of October in 2021 – in my last months living in Girona, as a pro, Tom came out and we sat down over a weekend to do most of the interviews that would eventually become the book.
We spent a weekend out in Girona, riding our bikes and moving about from bar to bar with the tape running trying to go back through the old memories of racing - for once I had the chance to unpack my own career instead of that of the riders I was used to interviewing! It’s amazing the things you remember, but also how much can slip your mind!
At this point the book still had no shape or format, so it literally was two guys sat down recording hours and hours of a conversation that started back in the early days of my career – some of which (in the Drapac days) Tom was also there for.
Tom was also there at the end of my career as a sports director at my last team, EF. This gave us the chance to both talk and think about how the team works and understand the dynamic from both angles. Funnily enough, I think this was something that opened both our eyes – even with so much combined experience!
After that weekend we had about ten hours of recording that some brave soul – in this case, Ollie Smith down in Bristol in the UK, had to spend the winter transcribing so we had some text (nice one Ollie!). Only then could the fun begin.
We had a huge amount of text – a lot of chat but in there we could dig out the interesting stories and thoughts and the key was to find a format to bring them together into something cohesive. We eventually built up a picture of the book we wanted to make over a few more meetings back in Melbourne and plenty more cold ones.
Images and a fun feel were important, and thanks to Guy and Taz at Blue Train, we were soon in touch with a fantastic illustrator in Ste Johnson and Leo Field a designer (also based in Bristol in the UK, funnily enough) and they helped us visualise what this book could become and step by step built it up.
The finished product is a really beautiful book – I can say that because the work the guys did is so nice, which I hope that maybe someone picks up and might learn what is valuable and what might not be so important when they are a young rider, or that an armchair fan can have a read and get a feel as to what it’s actually like to prepare for races like the cobbled classics or a Grand Tour. Maybe there might be something that even the most experienced cycling buff might raise an eyebrow and say, ‘huh, I didn’t know it could work like that.’
Whatever the case, it was a great experience to put this thing together and there were a lot of happy memories and stories that inspired the advice that you’ll find in the pages of the book.
For me personally to actually have a book that I could spend an awesome evening introducing to the world in Melbourne a few weeks back, and to sit down and sign a few copies amongst a great crew was a really amazing experience.
I’ve a great deal of thanks to hand out to all who worked on the book, and I’m also super happy to have it out there and to hear back from people that they’ve enjoyed it, or maybe, even, learned something new about Life in the Peloton.
For a little taste check out the following section from the book that I’ve picked out to try and set the scene as to what it is like when you finally get into the peloton!
PART IV: MASTERING YOUR (RACE) CRAFT
One of the first professional races I did in Europe was the 2007 Tour of Austria with the Drapac. I was twenty and I was pretty much just hanging on for my life in the race. But as my first experience in a professional peloton, it was quite cool.
There was a group of older Aussie riders; Matt White, Matt Wilson, Nick Gates and a few others were there. Even though they were in different teams they would all get together at the back of the peloton and hang out as a big group of Aussies.
By about stage four, there were only three of us from Drapac left in the race so we would go and join them and sit there chatting. When the race got hard, those guys would recognize what was going on, switch to race mode and move to the front (while we were just stuck there at the back, unable to move if we wanted to – see ya fellas!).
The biggest difference between them and us – apart from age and strength was that they just knew what they were doing. They were masters of their craft.
Incidentally, when I turned pro a few years later that sort of thing happened, but in the last ten years that has all gone and socializing in a race like that with guys from other teams would almost never happen now.
Cycling is constantly evolving, and you should be too.
I saw a lot of changes during my time as a pro, but one of the things that allowed me to continue to have a career was by watching how these trends changed and honing in on the different skills that I recognized that the races demanded and that the teams that I rode for needed at that time.
In this section I’m going to break down the finer points and technical aspects that can help you to continue to be a valued professional.
WORKING THE BUNCH
Going back to my story about Austria, one of the biggest transitions in the peloton has been the way that teams now line up very early in the stages and try to sit there together all day. The attitude now is that the race is four hours of your day, and you are here to compete, so why would you spend thirty minutes making jokes with your mates at the back of the bunch? Do that in your own time.
These days almost as soon as the break has gone, one or two teams will start to ride, and the rest of the peloton falls in position around them. This happens much faster than it used to – check the time gaps. Breaks that used to be allowed seven minutes in 2009 only get a maximum of three in 2022.
Once the bunch gets organised, you’ll have the top three teams on GC all up there, then you’ll have a super motivated smaller team that wants to make a point by holding their ground with the big guys, and behind them about fifty or sixty riders back there is a bit more movement but not much.
The thing that has really changed even in the past two years has been that everyone now treats the whole of the race as seriously as if it is the last thirty kilometers of a Tour stage, so there just isn’t the room on the road anymore.
Instead of the bunch being in a long line when it is hard, it is the opposite: when things are hard the bunch is one huge tightly packed mass, and when it’s strung out in a line, those are the few moments a day when people relax.
Although there is a sort of hierarchy when teams are pulling in the first part of the day, when the race is really on then it all goes out of the window. If it is your job to hold the team at the front the first thing is that you need to be strong enough to put your nose in the wind for long periods, secondly you need to be aware of your teammates behind you, and how the moves you make will impact them.
If you try to get together as a team by meeting at the front, then it can be tough to find each other. You want to arrive all together at the front in one go, so a nice way to do it is to get everyone together at the back of the bunch when there is still time. Take a breath and move together when the time is right.
Ideally, you have your leader a few wheels back from the first rider in your line, and the rest of the team behind him. A line of six or seven riders is quite long, and it is the last two guys who get chopped all the time when other teams try to come up and take your position. If the leader is there, he will get worn out trying to fend the other guys off – this is someone else’s job.
When you do move the team to the front of the bunch you aren’t always trying to increase the pace at the front of the bunch, although this happens naturally. Instead, what you are doing is getting there, making sure your leader is close enough and then using the road to keep closing the door on the waves of other teams that are coming up. The problem is that this jostling for the front can start earlier and earlier, as each team that doesn’t make it says, ‘Well we were too late yesterday, so instead of moving up with 50k to go we should move at 80k to go.’ And so on.
Once you get to the front you need to make yourself hard to pass for other riders. The ideal position is on the outside of the bunch as you can only get passed on one side. Turns and different widths of the road mean that this is constantly changing, and you have to keep your guard up at all times.
If you do get trapped it is a matter of being able to either force your way back out once you feel a gap is going to open – and doing this in a way that you can be followed by the rest of your team (not just sprinting for yourself as you’ll end up alone at the front with a group of angry teammates lost in the washing machine behind you). The alternative is to slide all the way back, re-group and wait until where there is space move up the side of the bunch when the road allows.
If you have good information and the DS is in tune with the race, they can help you here: ‘In two kilometers the road will get bigger and there will be time to move up there. The road turns to the left so you will have space on the right.’
If you want to watch this in action then have a look at the final of Milan San Remo, where you can see teams using the turns on the coast road to close the door on the guys trying to move up on the crucial run in to the Cipressa.
Make no mistake this is not any easy job!
It may not seem that glamorous but being trusted with the job of delivering you leaders into a climb like the Cipressa in a race as significant at San Remo is a prized role. If you earn that role and you pull it off, you will gain a lot of respect from your peers in the peloton.
When it comes to moving about in the bunch on your own or with just one rider to look after then things are a little different. Some riders (with bigger engines than mine) try to move up on the outside in the wind. If the wind is coming from the right side, then the bunch naturally moves to the left and (in time) space will open to move on the outside.
The hardest way to move is through the middle of the bunch. There aren’t many riders who can do this; you are sheltered the whole time in the group, but the gaps are infrequent, unpredictable and much harder to get through. It takes a huge amount of skill, great bike handling and some patience.
You are just waiting for that moment when you can get your bars in front of the people around you, once you have that done then you have the position. You also need to be totally solid on your bike as you will be leant on from both sides, and you need to absorb those movements without going backwards.
The ultimate domestique is one who can move a leader through the peloton. You’re not just finding space for yourself, but also creating enough space for the rider or riders behind to follow through. It’s an incredible skill, which also requires a certain level of respect in the peloton from the other riders. If you have that respect when they feel or see you moving through, they know you are doing a job and that you will also move past them when there is enough room and won’t chop into their own train.
It’s all these little things that makes a difference over time. You might get though one day chopping everyone up and think, ‘sayonara suckers’ as you move forward, but even though you’ve won that battle but you will most certainly loose the war. The next time they will not give you an inch - or they’ll even go as far to make your life harder.
There does come a time when you need to get to the front as fast as possible in an ‘emergency’ situation – you may have lost your teammates, and you have an organised crosswind attack coming up, or you know that in two kilometres you have to be in position. In this case there are a couple of cheeky things you can do, although remember – you won’t win any friends doing this, so do it sparingly:
Use rider’s names from other teams. If you call a rider by his first name it can make you seem like a mate for a split second. If you try. “Hey, Mads, on your right mate.” His instinct will be to move slightly and open a gap, and by the time he realises, it’s not a teammate you are already past. This is a trick that Robbie McEwen used a bunch, and he would make sure that he knew every rider’s first name in a Grand Tour – just in case.
Bike paths – this one is a big risk move. If you look ahead to see if there is a bike path or a bit of a slip road that can give you a short cut it can be worth taking it. It’s crazily dangerous, because if you get caught you can get thrown out of the race, or worse still you can go down a road that leads you off the course and end up on the other side of a wall while the race speeds off in another direction!
A less cheeky move is just to follow the coattails of a reliable strong team up to the front. Be ready for that train to come up and when it does you jump on the back and act as if you have every right to be there!
