TAO GEOGHEGAN HART

I hadn’t felt great all day but often I get that feeling from hiding in the wheels. I was however attentive and when I kicked over the top of the first climb I should have felt the zip in my legs and known I was on for a good day. It was just focus. Engrossed in conservation, eeking out every last bit of power I could spare until that last burst to the line, I spent the whole day in a bubble: watching and waiting.

Cycling is often as much about what you don't do, as what you do do I have found.

The run in was hectic. No surprise. There was a roundabout with just over five kilometres to go and I entered in the top ten of the bunch. Sitting pretty I had learnt the difference between ‘good positioning’ and good positioning via being caught behind a few untimely crashes in my first year as a junior. Later that evening my DS had asked me why I had been sat at the back out of the roundabout. He hadn’t seen the rider flick me to fuck just as we entered, forcing me the long way round or straight into a traffic island. From the front to the back in one clean swoop. It's these things you don't see unless you’re racing - the cutthroat moves people pull all day long, the ruthlessness. Even now, four months in to the winter, four months away from racing, I am sure I have probably forgotten quite what it is like.

It drags uphill for a few hundred meters and I make the most of a slight hesitation to move back up to the front of the depleted group. At three k to go there is a petrol station on the right of the road, with a small sign ziptied to a lamppost signifying the distance. I pay little attention to it. Last year on the first stage they had still been inflating the km to go arch as we raced on by, caught completely unawares, so it’s better to go from memory. I could shut my eyes even now, almost a year on, and recount you the exact finish:

Now it runs downhill, fast and wide. We had hit out too early with three riders last year on this finish. This time, despite there only being two of us, I know I have an advantage. Experience. We jostle, but I sit patient on my teammates wheel, shouting to wait, wait, wait a little longer.

Through another roundabout and the bunch lines out before slowing again upon exit. I am not the only one who knows the finish and nobody wants to take it on. Yet. Eyes dart around, I position myself ready to pounce on the inevitable flyer, making my space and readying for the frenzy…

The Belgians come steaming over the top three strong. I barge on to the last wheel and breathe as we pass under the red kite. The tension is building and building. The hours of waiting, positioning, avoiding crashes and saving energy are about to come to a crux. The pace isn’t that fast but nobody is moving up. There must be some tired legs around, but I don't realise it, I’m still in my bubble.

Whenever I ride to a race I get similar legs to today, as if that conservation button has been switched, nothing really in the tank. But then I hit the start line and it all changes. Today my start line doesn't seem to come until the last ten metres. But it is damn perfect timing all the same.

I shift into the little ring just before we turn the righthander and hit the cobbles with fifty hundred metres to go. It must be fifteen percent and steeper all the way to the line now. I am glued to the last Belgians wheel, his teammate having peeled away, their job done. He goes, but of course it's too early and he isn’t really going anywhere anyway. An empty gesture of thanks for his teammates sacrifice as much as anything else.

Last year I hadn’t had nearly enough urgency left in my body at this stage of this game but this time it is different. I let my momentum carry me the first few revs and then, still seated, manoeuvre on to the next wheel that comes by. It is just like I have been taught on the track all be it at a far slower, bumpier speed.

Its 200 metres to the big finish banner now and the Frenchman goes on the left. I jump on to his wheel still waiting. All I can see is his tyre infront of me, the block capitals FRANCE across his backside. It hurts now. But there is one man between me and the finish line and I have got more to come yet. I’ve been thinking of this finish all day, ever since last year infact, and so I wait a little longer. He is still going strong, but I am sat behind, the pedals turning, waiting for me to rise out the chair.

I hold the wheel, biding my time a little longer. The line looms but I am barely aware. I focus and then persuade myself to fire up and let it all out. And with fifteen meters to go, maybe less, I kick with all my might. The cobbles persist but the bike is smooth. I hit tarmac and immediately after a finish line. I get one hand in the air, my right, and probably shout. I can't remember, my heart was beating way to fast to recall all that much.

It felt damn good, of that I am certain. Amidst the grimace, I was definitely smiling.

I ride on in to the small town square, back onto rough stones, staring at the ground and shaking my head. I had won? I couldn't fucking believe it. The chaperone chased after me, the announcer blathered away in the local tounge on the loud speaker and I just kept riding round in circles. Looking down and catching my breathe, I keep reiterating it over and over in my head. ‘You won?! You fucking won?!’

And it doesn't leave me. Not during the hour wait sat on a plastic chair outside doping control, talking shit with the chaperone in what turned out to be a police station. Not lay on my bed that evening, a yellow jersey on the end of my bed. Not even the next day when I stand on the top step of the final podium of the race.