*Chapter 4*

Prima Gaby
 
 
The Swede and two Swiss soon rejoined us, no point in making things too hard for ourselves and apart from some dirty looks from the Swiss pair we slipped quickly into a kilometre eating rotation again. The drop through Greppen was a short but welcome relief after the climb but all too quickly we were having to push the pedals around again as we returned to Küssnacht. From here to the finish we retrace the outward route to Luzern just fourteen kilometres away.
 
 

“Bloody hell!” Laura gasped as the road finally levelled after the climb.

“Well done.” Gret mentioned, her breathing better controlled but still panting hard.

The GB and German girls unlike some of the other girls were still in the main peloton, Mand’s suggestion of shadowing the Germans having born fruit, Jamie, Darren and Geth were still there too even helping to chase down some of the increasing number of attacks. The wiser riders had now realised their error in letting the no hope Britisher's go up the road. One group had succeeded in escaping but despite gaining time on the bunch they were still over thirty seconds behind the escapees when they turned into Weggis.
 
 

“The neutral’s dropping back.” Josh observed as we departed Küssnacht.

“Only about six.” Mark supplied after balancing against me to look behind.

“Keep going?”

“Too right,” Cav grinned, “they can flippin’ work for it.”

All pretence at working together was now gone as we climbed through Merlischachen, Josh taking the brunt of the effort, the others sat behind us – not sure how much use that was as both Mark and I don’t give much protection! The pace had gradually dropped and as we entered the town the pursuivants made contact and swept through making us have to work to get on the train.

On one hand the extra riders pulled out the odds somewhat but also took the pressure off of Team GB at a crucial moment. A quick count now made us thirteen strong and the neutral was back behind us so with any luck we’ll hold out to the finish. We got a chance to rest a bit as we descended towards Seeburg

“We’ll try to get you up front.” I offered Cav.

“Cheers, don’t pull up for me though, you deserve a crack too.”

I didn’t reply, it’s a nice offer but I doubt I’ve got the legs to really be in contention. Under the railway bridge then along the wide road around the lido. We’re finishing near the Bahnhof so there’s a way to go yet, all of it on the level. Somehow they’d cleared the route of traffic, crowds of Far Eastern tourists swelling the watching fans as we passed the Altstadt and headed across the Seebruck.

Josh finally blew as we came off the bridge leaving me to lead out Cav for the final accounting. A good chunk of the others fell by the wayside as they ran out of steam, improving the odds somewhat in our favour. I held us in fourth and fifth as we made the penultimate turn, this was on a different level to pretty much everything I’ve ridden before – I’d typically have this pretty much sewn up back home by now.

Last corner, two hundred to go and I didn’t so much pull off as Cav catapulted past me. I’m not going to race him but I reckon I can get a placing so I kept the power on. Mark is something else, overhauling the others and pulling away all the way to the line.

It didn’t look like I’d podium until the last few metres, my final red hazed push just edging me past a Spanish kid for a fairly distant third. It was chaos then, Caro guiding me to the holding area where I found a grinning Cav being attended to by Director Brailsford.

“Well done lads!” he grinned.

“I think you made an impression.” Caro put in as she rubbed my legs.

I took a long pull on a bidon, “that was flippin’ hard.”

“Four more days of the same.” Herr Direktor observed.

“Thanks for the tow.” Mark added.

“Where’d Josh get?”

“No idea yet, you two ready for testing?”

“Eh?” I dumbly queried.

“Drugs? Podium get the pleasure as well as some random's.” Caro advised.

“Course.”

Ever had a drug test? So okay its pretty much just weeing into a bottle but try doing that when you can barely stand, you're dehydrated and all you want to do is sleep. You get the idea, its not so bad of course when its 'out of competition' but the last thing I needed after three hours on the bike was to be told to 'pee in this fraulein.' you are allowed a few sips of cold water which after ten minutes finally let me do the business, bloody 'fraulein'.
 
 
"What took you?" Mark asked when I emerged from the caravan.

"Nothing a couple of litres of cold drink couldn't put right."

"Good lead out."

"Mostly Josh." I demurred.

"Don’t sell yourself short, he wasn't there at the end."

I shrugged.

"Come on you two, presentation." Steve prompted.

"Oh goody" Mark observed.
 
 
'Most aggressive rider goes to...Joshua Worg Team GB!' they never get his name right!

Wow, that’s pretty cool, he well deserves that. Josh went up and did the hand-shaking bit.

"Und next, our mountains leader, Drew Bond Team GB!"

Hey, my turn. I stepped up and clearly the bloke handing stuff out was a bit confused, not sure whether to do the kiss bit or handshake, finally going with the latter. The prize of course is a jersey, bit big on me but I was still pretty chuffed to slip on the polka dots except instead of dots it was Swiss flags.

We missed out on the team classification as its the first six that count and the best of the rest was Jamie down in 53rd, the Italians out pointed us on the day even with only one top twenty finisher. I slipped the jersey back off, the overall was next.

'After a very exciting finale we have some riders to watch out for tomorrow, in third place ... Drew Bond Team GB!"

I punched the air as I stood on the podium with a huge grin on my chops.

'Second place ... Jose Martinez Espana!'

The Spaniards teammates were typically Spanish, very loud.

'Our winner today, from Team GB, Mark Cavendish!'

Well two can play at that game, a grinning Cav climbed to the top step to receive the winner’s plaudits accompanied by some very loud cheering. Could I have won? Possibly but thirds not too shabby. Tomorrow we are literally going to be marked men, Mark wearing the yellow, me the dotty.
 
 

Back at the hotel an hour later the three of us were summoned to a meeting with the Director, Steve and Caro.

“Would someone like to tell me what happened out there?” Dave requested.

“We got a result?” Mark offered.

“A result we weren’t looking for and didn’t need today, so whose idea was it to attack less than halfway through what should have been an easy day?”

I thought the whole idea was to win.

“It wasn’t planned.” I offered.

“I know it wasn’t planned, what we planned was to get everyone around in a fairly relaxed way instead of which you three go and blast the rest of the field to bits and ignored your team mates.”

“That’s a bit strong Dave.” Caro interjected.

“It was sort of my fault I guess.” I proposed, “there were some lads away and no one was making any effort to contain them, they were starting to pull away so I thought we should drag them back.” I paused.

“No one chased us like,” Josh added, “so we were in no mans land, we had quite a gap when we got up to them like.”

“You didn’t think that the others were maybe waiting to pull them back more steadily?” Herr Direktor suggested.

“We expected at least someone to chase us.” Mark put in.

“And just why were you there?” Dave enquired of our sprinter man.

“I sort of got Drew’s intention wrong, I thought he was attacking seriously.”

“So can one of you explain why you continued when you saw how it was playing out?”

“We thought we’d might as well keep going, we thought the bunch would chase us.”

“Dave.” Steve motioned something to his boss.

“Alright we’ll leave it for now, you’ve left us with something of a problem though, four more stages and we have two jerseys to defend with a mostly inexperienced team, Mark will be watched like a hawk and anything you two are involved with will be marked to death. You three are our most experienced riders, any suggestions?” Dave queried.

“I don’t think we should defend the yellow.” Mark offered, “its nice an all but whilst the others have improved loads I don’t think we can do it. Lose that and we’ll have more freedom, maybe have a crack the last couple of days if we’re not too far off the pace.”

“So you think we should defend the mountains?” Caro asked.

“Its more attainable.” Cav stated with a shrug.

“Drew?” the Director queried.

“I guess, there’s only one big climb tomorrow, a good time trial will count and stage four only has one climb too. The last stage doesn’t have any point on offer so whoever has the dots after stage four just needs to get to Bern in one piece.”

“What about you Josh, anything to add?” Steve prompted.

“Well like, it’ll be less work for the team if we aren’t worrying about finishing each day at the front, I reckon we could have a bash on the last day like.”

“How’s the side Drew?” Caro posed.

“Bit sore, be alright as long as I don’t deck it again.”

“Okay you three, go enjoy your fame for a bit, dinner at the same place we ate Thursday at seven if you can let everyone know please. Well go on scoot!” Herr Brailsford waved us away, we were only too happy to oblige.
 
 
“What was that all about?” Mand enquired when we rejoined the others in the makeshift massage room otherwise known as the hotels breakfast room.

“Just a debrief.” I stated, I’m hardly going to admit that we got a dressing down for winning am I?

“Yeah, they wanted to get some expert opinion on the rest of the race.” Mark added taking a seat to wait his turn.

“Is it always like today, the big races?” Laura enquired from behind the improvised modesty curtain where Jemma was pummelling her legs back into shape.

“Nah, its usually much more intense.” Mark offered.

“Before ah forget like, dinners same place as Thursday, we meet there at seven.” Josh informed everyone.

“Three hours to kill then, I’m starving now.” Claire told us.

“We could go for a walk, get a burger or something.” Geth suggested emerging from the second treatment tent.

“Drew, you’re next.” Dad instructed.

 
 
In the end it was only me, Claire and Manda who headed out in search of a pre dinner snack. We walked down towards the lake, I’m sure I saw some sort of snack bar the other afternoon.

“Do you recognise her,” Claire pointed to one of the damned posters that I adorn across half of Switzerland. ”I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere before.”

Mand snorted.

“Ma-and!”

“What’s so funny?” Claire asked.

“Drew?” Mand queried.

“She’ll find out soon enough.” I sighed.

“Find out what? There something I don’t know?”

© Maddy Bell 09.01.14