- by Jonathan Ancer

I can’t sleep. I’ve broken out in a fever. My heart races. My palms are damp. I wipe away the sweat moustache on my upper lip. Tomorrow I will tackle the bicycle commute to work – and I’m filled with dread.

It’s not Heartbreak Hill that’s freaking me out, or even the treacherous technical descent. I’m not afraid of the mountain muggers or the road varks. No, I fear something worse. Much, much worse.

Cycling to work means you can kill two dozen birds with one chainset. The pros of the pedal-power commute are well documented: it’s an environmentally-friendly, stress-busting, fitness-building, petrol-saving exercise. And as an extra bonus, you get to whiz past the road-raging red-faced suckers inching their way home in peak-hour gridlocked traffic.

However, my main reason for cycling is not to laugh at these poor bastards (although that comes a close second), but to get as much Time in The Saddle (TiTS) as possible. Between work responsibilities, family commitments, crap weather and five-day Tests, finding time to spend on your bike is increasingly difficult.

Eventually I fall into an uneasy sleep. When the alarm clock buzzes I consider bailing. But I harness my fear and decide to soldier on.

I jump on my bike just as the sun breaks through the night. My commute is part mountain, part road. I manage to avoid the mountain muggers and drop down into the city bowl, then make my way into Cape Town’s CBD. I turn into Long Street and spy a woman in fishnet stockings. When I cycle past her, she flashes me. I see ‘TiTS’ in a completely new light.

Cars whiz by and I realise that cycling on our roads is like being in a 3D game of Frogger, as you try to avoid pedestrians, motorbikes, motorists, car doors, and other cyclists. Unfortunately when speeding metal collides with cyclist, it really is game over.

As I roll into the office I take a deep breath. It’s time to confront my terror head-on. I lock up my bike and enter the open-plan office.

Time freezes. I feel 50 pairs of eyes giving me the once-over (and not in a good way). It’s time to begin the Walk of Shame through the office.

You see, I have not been blessed with attractive legs. I have luminous, eggshell-white pins. Legs that – at best – the Film and Publications Board would slap (and that’s not the end of the sentence) with a 2-to-18 age restriction; and at worst, would see me being hauled before the International Court of Justice to face charges of crimes against humanity.

I feel like a condemned man as I walk to my desk to fetch the clothes I stashed in my desk drawer. I make my way to the receptionist, who holds the shower-room key. From there it’s a 100-metre stretch to the shower room, which is slap-bang in the middle of the office.

As I make the journey – the theme from Chariots of Fire in my head, and imaginary fireworks blasting – I hear a muffled laugh. I look around quickly. Who was it? It could be the boss’s PA, or even the boss himself. I take another step forward. I hear giggles. The more nonchalantly I try to act, the more self-conscious I become. Holey moley, is Betty from Accounts staring at my package?

I take another step, covering my Lycra bulge with my helmet. Just a few more metres. My legs are heavy – each step is a burden.

Colleagues shoot furtive glances in my direction, but I stare intently at the floor and shuffle on. Somehow I make it into the shower room. The Walk of Shame is over, but the shame lingers. I turn on the shower tap and it occurs to me that everyone knows that I’m naked. And the only thing between them and my nakedness is a flimsy brick wall.

I’m not prepared to give up my commute. What are my options? I could cycle to work in my work clothes and not shower. But that will see me being forever branded ‘The Sweaty Guy’.

There’s only way to avoid the Walk of Shame; and that’s why I’m practising my leopard crawl.

Are you asking “Is Jens next?” A fascinating look back at veteran Jens Voigt’s career, and his thoughts on a sport riddled with doping scandals.

- By Jens Voigt

Photo: James Startt

But I’m sure you have heard comments like that before, and I’m well aware of something called “guilt by association,” so maybe some of you don’t really believe me. So let’s walk through this, and let me try to shed some light on my career and hopefully make it clear that I just did not ever dope.


Let’s start early. OK, there should be no doubt that when I was a kid, from age 9 until 14, there was no dope, and I believe it’s absolutely the same today. Later, I qualified for a special sports-school program back in the days of East Germany, and I moved to Berlin where I lived in a dormitory. I trained and went to school there as a junior, and there was still no dope.


Then I turned 18 and did a few races with the East German national team. I was in the national team but I wasn’t on the elite traveling team going to big events such as the Peace Race or world championships. I was just a young talent, of which there were many. Now, of course with what we know today about the East German sports system, it’s clear that there was a fair amount of doping and it was actually put in place by the government. But I was lucky because before I was old enough, or good enough, to be confronted with the question, the Berlin Wall had collapsed and Germany was reunited.

I continued to race with the German national team after that, but it was more controlled by what was West Germany and honestly I didn’t see any signs of doping. I raced as an amateur until 1996 and I didn’t see anything! By that point I was racing on an international level as an amateur and I won some races, but also lost plenty. Basically, I didn’t see anything that resembled doping at all. And since other riders were racing at my level as well, I figured that they were clean, too.


Then, in 1997, I turned pro with ZVVZ-Giant-AIS, an Australian-Czech team. As hopefully everybody knows, the Australians have very strict rules against doping, and they have for a long time. So with them, even the thought of doping was an absolute no go. We competed in some races and had some great results, but we also got our behinds kicked a few times. Then I finally signed with a big team in 1998, with Team GAN, which later became Crédit Agricole, and I had six great years there. When I came in everything was new, especially the French language. I did a crash course in French and in how to train, as well as in racing and wine and cheese.



And it was there that I had my first experience with doping because, as you know, 1998 was the year of the Festina Affair. Now I was still a neo-pro officially (the neo-professional title technically lasts for the first two years of a professional career) in 1998, but I was fortunate enough to be selected to ride the Tour de France.

“Wow!” I thought. “This is my childhood dream come true!” But then I went to Dublin for the prologue and I saw my childhood dream shattered by doping. The whole Festina Affair just left me thinking, “Really? There are so many people involved. It was almost so perfectly organised. And there’s no sign of a guilty conscience?”


I was shocked. And shockwaves ripped through the Tour that year as riders were getting caught and kicked out of the race. Teams went home, there were protests on the road, and there were even talks about canceling the race entirely. It was terrible and terrifying.


And let me make it clear: On a personal level, I was not doping. I’d had one win that year, a stage in the Tour of the Basque Country. Now that may be one of the hardest races of the season, but my win was particular. I was getting my head kicked in for the first four days, and was about an hour down in the overall standings. So I just attacked on a short morning stage before the afternoon time trial, and of course the favourites let me get away with a couple of other guys in a similar situation. In addition, it was cold, windy, rainy, and, in short, perfect conditions for me. Eventually I managed to drop the others to win my first pro race. So while there may well have been guys on EPO in the race, the circumstances of my victory were particular.

Now personally I thought that the Festina Affair would be a turning point for cycling. It certainly reinforced to me that doping was wrong and not something I ever wanted to get involved with, not ever. My wife, Stephanie, and I were starting what would become our family of six children, and the thought that my kids would one day learn that their dad was a doper just was not a possibility. 
And the Festina Affair was just so big that it threatened to kill our sport unless everyone woke up and used a little common sense and understood that the doping problem had to stop. I mean, what else would it take to show people that we were on the wrong path here?

Well, history has shown us that Festina was not enough. That said, I do believe the doping problems decreased a lot in the years that followed, and I can tell you that on my French team, doping was a no go. The French teams were the first to install the longitudinal testing that would eventually become the “biological passport.” Team management often pointed out how important it was to ride clean, and I’m pretty sure that none of my teammates were doing anything, and I know I wasn’t. And we sure were not getting any results where people would go, “Hmm, I don’t know about that.” Now, I had some good wins in those years, but hey, I’m a good rider, so I should have some good wins!

Then I signed with Bjarne Riis and CSC. After six years on Crédit Agricole I was ready for a change. And Riis offered that, because in 2004 he had the most different and innovative team out there. I mean, who had ever heard of survival camps? In addition to training hard, we had some of the most sophisticated training programs. We had the best time-trial equipment, and Bjarne gave us tremendous team spirit and made it fun to race together.


Perhaps his strength was that he paid attention to every detail and that’s why we hit the ground running and won a lot of races early in the season. For example, we did 300 to 400 kilometers of training on our TT bikes before the first race. Heck, some teams even today only put their TT bikes together the night before the prologue of Paris-Nice!

(continued)

All pictures: Peter Huber

- By Paul Kaye

So – you think you’ll have time to exercise and stay fit, you know it’s good for you – you’ll spend less on medical bills, hopefully live a little longer and be fitter older and probably be more productive at work, which means you’ll have more money when you’re older during you extended retirement.

But life intervenes – you keep chasing the money, the opportunities, the hope of an easier life one day and you think you’ll be able to buy your health and happiness. The gym membership card stays in your wallet, the running shoes only walk (if at all) and the bikes gather dust in the garage as they rest on flat tyres.

I’ve had one of those busy (blessed and fortunate) years interrupted by brief bursts of “wobble-round-the-waist” panic induced training sessions – where I quickly chose a goal and trained silly for 5 weeks and absolutely died in the race (last year’s Jailbreak Triathlon is classic proof of this – muscle memory? Who was I kidding, more like muscle Alzheimer’s) and then vowed to keep up the little fitness I’d build but alas, work and stress intervenes. And instead of managing the stress with a ride, it gets managed with wine…

I was working at a race this past weekend in Austria, and the winner of the 65-69 age category said something very simple yet so inspirational. When asked how he managed to still race and do such great times, he said he trains 1 hour a day – nothing more, nothing less and has been doing so every day for 30 years.

Wow!

So, I’ve pulled my finger out of you-know-where and started training again. But starting really slowly. No really! It took me 3 days of biking to do a little over 100K and 1000m of climbing with a silly, slow ave speed (before, I wouldn’t even get out of bed to ride less than 100K – I mean, these 3 days were less than a Cycle Tour). I’ve been biking where time and my work/travel schedule allow and been squeezing in some slow runs. I know it’s going to take long to get where I want to be again – I need to be patient.

It helps to be inspired and motivated. And being based in Kitzbuehel in Tyrol, the northern, mountainous part of Austria provides lots of inspiration. The vistas are breathtaking – every road or path is framed by green pastures blossoming full of Spring wild flowers with epic, high Alpine snow capped mountains and the soundtrack is provided by the hum of good rubber rolling on smooth tar and a swollen river singing over rocks down from the mountains towards a distant sea.

Further inspiration came from a little technology allowing me to go where I currently wouldn’t be able to go – because I’m just not in shape yet. That technology is taking over Europe and it’s called e-bikes. Bicycles that have electric motors to assist the rider get where he/she needs to go – typically ridden by elderly people, but now more often than not – ridden by everyone, all shapes and sizes. I’ve been out on my rides and seen guided groups go past – the guide riding unassisted and the groups on e-bikes – with those at the back not even pedaling. I chuckled quietly to myself, thinking – “lazy sods – RIDE!”. I felt superior. My bike was being powered by me – as it should be.

But then I had to quickly put my ego and false sense of superiority into my pocket as I was asked to join in on a ride. On an e-bike – a new one that had just been delivered to Gerry’s-Sport (he sells and rents out e-bikes, MTB etc in the summer and skis in the winter). My mate Peter with whom we stay in Kitzbuehel ski guides n the winter, and in the summer he guides bike tours. He wanted to test the new Rotwild 29’er MTB with the electric motor – specifically to test its battery power and life over quite a challenging route. And he needed me (because he’s an Ironman uber-biker) as I, at best, currently represent your average fitness hobby, holiday bike rider.

Would the battery last with me riding to get to the top of the Kitzbueheler Horn? Yip, the Horn – or what my son Sebastian calls, the K(aye)-Mountain. 2000m above sea level and when starting the ascent you start from 700m, so still quite a way up to go – over about 9K. More about that later, and actually, I hope the pics will tell the story – if not the stats from my Ambit will.

So, Peter came to fetch me – I was waiting lycra clad but in running shoes as the Rotwild had flat pedals and I only had road shoes with me – and off we went to Gerry’s to collect the bikes and head off.

I was reasonably impressed – the Rotwild still looks like a bike – a real bike (not one of those city-only e-bike types). Being a 29’er it’s big. And being an e-bike with a battery and motor, it’s HEAVY, about 20kg’s – but don’t forget – you now have a motor. The majority of the e-bikes seem to still push you along if you’re not pedaling, but not the Rotwild – you have to pedal to get the benefit of the electric motor – which I quite like, a lot. It has various settings for Sport, Speed, Tour and Eco and each setting has 3 speeds, 1, 2 and 3 – 1 being least assistance and 3 most. So, after adjusting the seat height, putting my water bottle in the back of my jersey (as the bike was brand new, it didn’t have cages yet and typically in Austria you stop as often as possible to drink beer, you don’t need cages), I set the motor to Eco and position 1 – to give me the least possible assistance and the best possible range and battery power endurance.

And off we went – slightly downhill at first from Gerry’s in Kirchberg in the direction of Kitzbuehel, off road down a path alongside the river. Through the back of town and then the ascent began – at first gently, but with some serious climbing to come. Properly serious climbing! The Kitzbuehler Horn is a stage of the Tour of Austria with a mountain top finish, after 150k of riding. It’s considered the steepest road bike route in all of Austria with an average gradient of 14% plus and kicks at 22.3%. EINA! From when we started at about 700m till the top was about 9K, and in those few kilometers we climbed 1000 meters.

Now I mentioned I wasn’t fit, that I was slowly getting back into it. I also mentioned my scorn for e-bikes.

Well – no longer. This Rotwild with the electric motor allowed me to do something I otherwise would never have been able to do (except when I was Ironman fit). With the motor still set to Eco, and the speed setting on its lowest at 1, I was chugging up the early parts of the climb at 10kph with my heart rate at 165 and rivers of sweat pouring off me.

But the mountain kept on climbing and getting steeper – I thought I was going to have a heart attack – I also thought that this e-bike should be making it easier for me – and then realized – it is! And the gradient kicked again – we went past a sign telling us 19% with a few kays to go and I really started to worry, I thought – even with the motor assistance, I’m so bloody useless that I still won’t make it. So, I fiddled with the motor and realized (only then) that if I changed the setting to 3 – I didn’t have to pedal as hard. Voila, we were still going up (and so was the gradient) – you still have to pedal – if you don’t turn the pedals, the electric motor doesn’t engage, but it certainly helped my heart rate drop a bit and allowed me to get my breath back (the altitude was taking its toll too). It also allowed me to focus on my pedal stroke and form, as my brain could think again and wasn’t distracted by thoughts of my early demise and if anybody would come to my funeral.

More importantly it gave me the chance to look around and get drunk on my surroundings and the scenery and to a degree – what I was accomplishing – I was climbing a real mountain, just like you see in the Giro D’Italia or Tour de France (except those are a lot longer). It gave me a chance to celebrate being back on the bike and it got me fired up and motivated to do even more riding, to use my time wisely and to get fit and stay fit – and hopefully be back soon to tackle the climb (unassisted) on my own bike.

Finally we reached the top – +/- 9K and 1000 meters in 40 or so minutes (the guys in the Tour of Austria do it in 28 minutes, without electric motors). The views down over the surrounding towns and the valley were spectacular – the surrounding mountains didn’t seem as high anymore – yet were even more beautiful in perspective and my legs were exploding out of their skin. And that felt good – it hurt, but hurt good. And f it weren’t for the Rotwild e-bike, I wouldn’t have experienced all of this, seen all of this.

I was so pumped that I celebrated with an alcohol-free Wies beer – delicious (I needed my wits about me for the descent).

After having got my breath back, Peter and I looked for adventurous routes back down the mountain not wanting to go down the way we came up and by the time we got back to Gerry’s in Kirchberg we still had some battery power left – proving that this new machine would be the means for many to do something they otherwise couldn’t have. It is reward for cyclists who know how to ride, but have let their fitness lapse somewhat. And it is beautiful motivation to get off the couch and back in the saddle.

Total distance covered door-up-a-mountain-to-door was just over 31K, with 1043 meters of ascent, an average speed of 14.36kmh and in a total time of 2h10m. My heart rate peaked at 168 and I had an average of 136 while I burnt 900kcal. Without the e-bike – I wouldn’t have done a thing!

This kind of riding, on bikes like these will no doubt get people out there more often than not – and that’s fantastic. Even better is, the more we use them, the more popular this becomes and more far reaching – so the technology will get better, smaller, lighter and cheaper – and in the process be affordable to more people.

I scorn no more – I respect!