Crommy. The Bouygues Telecom manager, former UCI head and 1997 Slough Roundabout of the Year, is a difficult man to track down for these past 12 months. The team's relegation from the ProTour coincided with the man disappearing out of public life completely, and little has been seen or heard of him. No interviews, no television appearances, not even his rambling sermons at the Church of Bos that he built. I set out to find him.
His team had a rollercoaster season, ending on a high with promotion, a promotion that looked extremely unlikely until their final race of the season. But we start with the rider almost now synonymous with Bouygues Telecom - Theo Bos.
I talk to him as he shoots yet another TV advert for his employers - Theo Bos has been a staple of TV adverts in France for many years now - to see if he knew where Crommy was. He last saw him in January.
Bos had had a decent season by his standards, finishing in the pack at the Down Under Classic in the team's opening race of the season, a major result for him. He is keen however to tell me of Crommy's struggle to cope with the changes caused by relegation, which also happened to be his last interaction with his manager. The team was servicing extremely large and excessive debts, and much of the team's assets had to be sold off. Gone was the previous team coach, formerly the envy of the peloton, which featured state-of-the-art climate control, a small 18-hole miniature golf course, and the largest collection of pornography in the world (including the internet). The new coach left much to be desired. When Crommy discovered that in a cost cutting measure, the team's famous 9-ply toilet paper was instead replaced with 1-ply, all that could be heard from the coach toilet was, "Fuck. Fucking fuck. You fucking fucking fuck. Fuck fuck fuck."
So with Theo Bos not providing any clues, my attentions turned to Rein Taaramae. The Estonian had a strong season, and gave the rewards back to the team given the money invested in him. He racked up wins over the season, none more stunning than his solo victory in the Kenyan Mountain Classic.
Rein also had no idea where he was, and had last seen him in the team time trial stage of the Sibiu Tour, in July. The team rode fantastically on that day to take 2nd, and put Rein into the position where he could push on and win the race.
"He was driving the team car on that day, and you could tell something was slightly...wrong. Yes, he was greased up, naked, and listening to the sounds of pounding techno. Yes, he was high off cough syrup. Yes, he was performing an indecent act on himself. But when you've been around Crommy that long, that's just normal for him. No, what was wrong was his eyes were shut. For the entire race. He followed us in the team car perfectly, and his eyes were shut the entire time. How is that even possible? Normally he doesn't bother following us, just drives wherever he wants whilst we're racing, and we hope he passes us a couple of times during the race. Yea, it would have been unusual if he'd followed us like a normal DS. It's not what we're used to, but OK. But doing that with your eyes closed the entire time is unnerving. It's unnatural. I think..." Rein leaned in, "I think he might actually have magical powers..."
My journey so far had proven fruitless, but the next stop turned out to dramatically improve my fortunes. I met Jurgen Roelandts, hero of Bouygues' 2013 season, and he took me to the old team HQ, which had to be shut down at the beginning of the season due to the new financial constraints.
The formerly opulent structure was in a sorry state. Partially collapsed and in an utter state of ruin. Jurgen was puzzled by this, "It's only been a year. There's no way this building should be like this. This is a lot more than a years worth of dilapidation." He was right. The building looked like it was centuries old, and yet it'd only be built several years previously.
Jurgen had had a phenomenal season up until October. Then, the Impossible Tour happened. Seven victories in ten stages for the team, five for Jurgen. The Tour du Faso was the stuff of legends, and Jurgen was at the centre of it.
But onto more important things, and I asked Jurgen whether he knew where Crommy was, nervous that my search would reach another dead end. It wasn't to be. "I can give you directions, map coordinates, postal address, longitude, latitude," he smiled, "but it's probably easier for me to tell you, he's behind you."
So it seemed that whilst I had been looking for him, he had found me instead. Or so I thought. I turned round, and saw nothing but, but, but...
At last, I had found him. And I stood wide-eyed, in shock and awe.
You see, Crommy has always had a reputation for embezzlement, fraud and corruption. I'd assumed, given the financial woes of the previous season in the second division of cycling, that these talents were mere rumours. I was wrong.
I gazed at the new headquarters of Crommy's cycling team. And I marveled. It's impossible to say just how large it was, but think Presidential palace big. Then stack ten of them on top of each other. That'd probably still be smaller, and less opulent than the headquarters of the Bouygues Telecom cycling team. The walls had been plated in actual gold, and I thought there wasn't enough gold in the world to have done so, but there it was (in fact, it turns out it took up 97% of the worlds gold to create this, leading to an overnight financial crisis). But the truly breathtaking feature that commanded the eye, was the statue of Theo Bos that rose in the centre of the building. Several hundred metres high at least, if it didn't have the words Theo Bos emblazoned on it you would never be able to tell it was him, because it looked nothing like him.
Not sure how I didn't see it when we pulled up to it to be honest.
And there, standing in front of this ridiculous extravagance, was the man himself, Crommy.
Finally, finally, I could ask my questions, his plans for next season, his relationship with rumoured target Jan Bakelants, how the hell he'd manage to build this place, his recent victory as Best in Show at Crufts when he entered as the dog. No other journalist had managed to track him down, this would have been the greatest moment certainly in my journalistic career.
"So Crommy, where have you been?" I watched patiently as he considered this question was not last
He answered with just one word, before leaving me and entering his new building.
Crommy wrote:
Bos had had a decent season by his standards, finishing in the pack at the Down Under Classic in the team's opening race of the season, a major result for him.
Not to mention his two victories in the Dutch Crit Series! (Dunno if you ever noticed him writing history there)
Great piece of writing, btw! Really enjoyed it. Yes.
All 20 of our riders have re-signed with the team, earning them and their families safety for another year, a free VHS 10 part-series of motivational speeches by team manager Crommy, and, of course, the limited edition life-size Theo Bos action figure.
The team would like to bring to your attention the following riders
Transfer Listed
Jaime Suaza
€120,000
After 7 great years with the team, it is with great reluctance that Jaime Suaza will almost certainly be leaving the team this transfer period. Rider exchanges for the strong (and wage-cheap) Colombian climber may be considered, but he will probably be sold to the team who offer the largest cash amount.
Listed for Loan
Dries Beatse
€50,000
Warren Barguil
€150,000
We have two able domestiques available for loan, who are looking for experience outside the ProTour. We're ideally looking for a loan swap with these two, but all offers considered. Dries Beatse is also available for transfer, should the offer be right.
Edited by Crommy on 11-03-2014 23:59
Strong. Powerful. Sexy. Jan Bakelants has everything, and now he has everything whilst wearing Bouygues Telecom, after his successful capture and "reeducation" by the armed forces of the tyrannical Bouygues Telecom DS Crommy.
Jan made his debut in the opening race of the ProTour season, an unwelcome return to the ranks of the ProTour for Bouygues Telecom after a season spent in the cold hostile, war-torn wilderness of the Pro Continental Tour.
Jan was aggressive, taking the fight to his rivals by being the first on the attack, making the 10 man front group with 10km to go. But then, in an outrageous move, the cowardly Schleck arranged to have the lights in a tunnel turned off by sympathetic saboteurs, and out of the darkness, Schleck had attacked and gone solo. The swine!
Our brave knight in shining blue armour could only look on with dignity and impunity at such blatant cheating, whilst DS Crommy could only look on with jealousy at such blatant cheating being so effective, ruing that he hadn't thought of it instead.
Jan powered home in the second group up the hill finish to take 2nd. But in my heart, I know he won.
We also went to the Tour of Qatar, where Jurgen Roelandts relished the opportunity to test his sprinting legs again with the ProTour elite. Unfortunately, the bringing of Bakelants into the team meant DS Crommy had completely forgotten about the rest of the team, and had forgotten to feed them for a few weeks. Such neglect is not conducive to bike racing, hence the lack of any notable results in Qatar.
Unfortunately, the bringing of Bakelants into the team meant DS Crommy had completely forgotten about the rest of the team, and had forgotten to feed them for a few weeks. Such neglect is not conducive to bike racing,
February begun with the Chrono des Herbiers, and the three riders we brought along here put in a strong shift, with Tony Martin in 15th and Hugues Mottin in 17th the pick of the bunch.
Then, the triple header: Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya. The most important of which was of course, Theo Bos' adventures in Catalunya.
Theo started the race with a tidy 131st in the prologue, before taking an astonishing 9th in the sprint on stage 2!
Then the tough stages started, and whilst any stage over the length of 10km isn't suitable for him, the touch climbs of Catalunya really aren't suited to him. Despite getting lost several times, he managed to leave others (actually just other) trailing in his wake, as he finished second from last on stage 4, dropping to last on stage 5. Two more stages later, and Theo was still last on GC, putting the rest of the pack exactly where he wanted them. Victory seemed certain...
Final GC:
162
Troels Vinter
Team B&O
+ 1h19'18
163
Theo Bos
Bouygues Telecom
+ 1h21'10
...But he suffered from a rare off day, finishing last in the final GC. But he finished, which is a hell of a moral victory. Which the team needed, given we also finished dead last in the Team classification, over an hour behind everyone else.
But to the other two races, which saw riders of lesser calibre than Theo racing.
Paris-Nice saw the season debut of Rein Taaramae, who started the race off well by taking victory on stage 3, resplendent in the Estonian national champion jersey.
This put him 2nd in GC, 41 seconds behind the Shark of Messina, Nibali. The next stage saw a 2nd place finish, and more time etched towards the lead, before the subsequent stage gave Rein a 3rd place finish on the stage up a summit finish, moving him down to 3rd on GC but now only 17 seconds off the lead.
Stage 6's mountains saw him lose time to 2nd placed Dan Martin, but gain time on leader Andy Schleck, thus moving him up to 2nd on GC, now 31 seconds off the lead.
The stage was set for the final day's time trial, but Dan Martin managed to hold off Rein to keep the lead at 15 seconds. 2nd place in GC and the points jersey was a great return for Rein, and Tony Martin performed excellently throughout the race to take the mountain jersey home.
Finally, Tirreno - Adriatico saw the final of our 3 team leaders, as Jan Bakelants led the team looking for victory in his first stage race with the team. Sexy, sexy Jan.
A decent opening time trial saw him follow with 3rd on stage 2, losing 8 seconds on Simone Ponzi and putting him 4th in the GC, 26 seconds down. Stage 3 saw him lose to Ponzi again, but this time take 2nd on the stage, whilst stage 4 saw another 3rd place. However, the rest of the race saw no movement, and Jan finished 4th on GC, 1'17 behind race winner Ponzi, and 15 seconds behind 3rd place (and management game legend) Cunego.
So Theo almost wins in Catalunya, Rein 2nd at Paris-Nice, and Jan 4th at Tirreno-Adriatico. A good triple header for the team.
And finally to Milano-Sanremo, where we loaded the team with Bakelants for the hills, and Roelandts in case of a sprint. Jan came 12th with Jurgen 16th in a sprint finish. Erm...
To March, and time for the wind, rain, mud, beer and cobbles of the Classics. Time for our two cobble leaders, Pieter Jacobs and Clement Lhotellerie to see what they can do. They're not the best cobble riders, but they definitely can challenge for a top 10 on a good day. Heck, Lhotellerie even won the Monte Paschi Eroica in 2009.
In other races, we had a decent Run um Koln, with Wouter Weylandt in 19th, but our biggest hopes for the month laid with both Rein Taaramae and Jan Bakelants in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco.
Jan finished 3rd then 7th on the first two stages, before the mountains of stage 3 called for Rein to take over leadership, which he did admirably given the strong field, finishing 5th and going 6th in the GC.
A brutal stage 6 however saw Rein slip a place, which he then held onto in the final TT by finishing 3rd on the stage to go home with 7th overall, only 3 seconds behind 6th.
All in all, a poor month for the team.
Edited by Crommy on 15-03-2015 17:33
Nice to see these monthly write ups. Well written and nicely different from most other HQ summaries. Looks like the early months were a bit up and down for the team
April means more classics. And the month started off with Paris - Roubaix, where our cobbled team continued their spectacular form with Pieter Jacobs finishing 23rd and Clement Lhotellerie taking 32nd.
But then we moved to the most anticipated part of our season, as Jan Bakelants lined up his first Ardennes classics campaign wearing his true colours, the colours of Bouygues Telecom.
Amstel Gold Race was the first start of his glorious campaign, where he triumphantly, err... missed the front group of 3, and ended up taking 6th. Wait, this isn't how it was supposed to be.
But he of course redeemed himself at La Fleche Wallonne, by taking, erm... 13th, despite being in a strong two man group with Yuri Trofimov, he faded at the end.
But then came Liege Bastogne Liege, and boy was it good.
Jan came into the finale in the lead four man group, consisting of himself, Ponzi, Boasson Hagen and Trofimov, having been aggressive throughout. It came down to a four man head-to-head sprint...
I greeted Jan joyously at the line. I hugged him. I kissed him. There may have been some tongue. What a result!
The month ended with the Tour de Romandie, where we did nothing of note.
May means the Giro, or as it's known in the management game, Cunego's Race. He was here again and would win the race, but we turned up with a team of stage hunters, led by Jan Bakelants for the hills, Jurgen Roelandts on the flat, Morgan Kniesky/Hugues Mottin for time trials and Daniel Teklehaimanot as the nominated GC rider.
The opening prologue saw a solid start from Hugues Mottin, as he took 4th, just 5 seconds down on stage winner Ignatiev.
We then move onto stage 4, where Jan took a very good second place behind home favourite Simone Ponazi in a sprint finish, with Jurgen then coming 4th in the sprint finish the day after. At this point, Jan was sitting 5th, 36 seconds down on leader Trofimov.
Having lost time on the mountainous stage 6, Jan bounced back with an excellent 3rd place on stage 7, taking him back into the top 10, and then took 5th on stage 9 to move up to 6th overall! Serious mountains were coming, but this was an unexpected and pleasant surprise to see Jan going so well (Teklehaimanot had crashed by this point, and was no longer a GC contender).
The time trial on stage 10 saw Jan move up to 5th on GC - this was now slightly bonkers! He then won the sprint finish on the following stage, but this was unfortunately after a breakaway win
After this, the proper mountains began, and Jan drifted out of the top 10. However, being part of an audacious 3 man break on stage 20 gave him a third place finish on that stage, and bumped him up to 13th overall, which he held on the final time trial.
So some excellent results from Jan, especially that GC position, a just reward for that stage 20 breakaway, but sadly, no stage win. It was also disappointing to see Jurgen be so uncompetitive in the sprints.
We also had the Tour of California, where the focus was again on stage hunters, with Tony Martin leading the team. We didn't really have any expectations, which was fortunate, because our best result was Tony Martin coming 18th on the penultimate stage.
After the Giro comes the Vuelta, and we sent former points jersey winner Jurgen Roelandts here along with other stage hunters. Jurgen was seeking redemption after his poor Giro.
And definitely showed much improvement, but not quite the quality which had previously won him the points jersey and multiple Vuelta stages, in part due to a stronger sprinter field being here. He did win the bunch sprint twice, on stages 15 and 17. Alas, it was after the breakaway had already won, but was a good marker to his rivals.
His stage results were fairly impressive, as he remained competitive in almost every sprint finish. This is fairly amazing, but he managed to achieve 8 out of the top places for a stage winner:
2nd x 2
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
9th x 2
But alas, that top one is missing.
Then to the Strade Appia Antica, where our misfiring cobbles squad continued to misfire, this time having Pieter Jacobs finishing best in 21st.
Attention then turned to the traditional Tour de France warm ups. The Tour de Suisse took backseat for us, and that showed, as our most newsworthy result was dead last in the team time trial.
However, the Criterium du Dauphine Libere saw us send Rein Taaramae along with his Tour de France support, with the goal of putting himself into top shape for the biggest race of the year. And boy, did he deliver.
The opening prologue saw him go round 4th, the only GC candidate going better than him being Thomas Dekker
However, a tricky finish on stage 3 saw Rein go away with Simon Spilak and put over a minute into their rivals, lifting Rein into 2nd place, only 2 seconds down on Spilak due to Spilak winning the sprint and the stage. This also gave him the KOM jersey.
Stage 5 saw a couple of touch climbs right before the finish, but on the final descent, Rein and 2 others moved away, and today Rein made no mistake as he took the stage and the lead! He lost the KOM jersey but gained the points jersey in the process.
The following stage saw Rein try to be too aggressive on the climbs, and he paid for early efforts as Spilak caught and overhauled him. Rein came 4th on the stage, but surrendered the jersey to Spilak by 5 seconds. Disaster!
The following stage, and it was the final mountain stage before the final time trial. This time, it was Spilak who went early, but Rein remained calm and patient, and dragged himself up on his own. The two went man-to-man, both trying to dislodge the other, but no party was willing to surrender, and Rein could take it easy as the motor in his bike kicked in.
The summit finish beckoned, and it became a pivotal sprint, as the winner would get the bonus seconds and the lead...
More celebrations! More hugs, more kisses, more tongue, more sexual harassment lawsuits from my riders! Rein had taken the lead by 3 seconds, and his superior time trialling ability gave him a final lead margin of 53 seconds, as he came 2nd on the final stage
WE'D WON! WE'D ACTUALLY WON!
Heck, we'd actually completed a sponsor goal...
We then finished the month with the Classic du Grand-Duche, where Jan only managed 14th, bringing us back to reality swiftly.
This was it. The big one. Le Tour. We'd won it in 2007 with Christophe Moreau, and now we'd brought along Rein Taaramae after his Criterium du Dauphine Libere victory. A top 10 was necessary, a top 5 was ambitious, could he win?
Of course not.
The team started with a poor team time trial, losing 1'28 to stage winners ING, but Rein made an immediate improvement on stage 2, which featured a hill summit finish, as he made the cut of 14 and pushed himself up to 16th on GC.
Over the next few stages, Rein and his team kept him safe despite some high profile crashes, and he entered the stage 6 time trial in 10th position, but Rein went very badly, coming 37th @ 2'36. This was still good enough to push him into 9th, but was very disappointing on terrain where he should have been sublime. Hugues Mottin and Tony Martin were fantasticthough, finishing 7th and 8th respectively.
The mountains followed. There was blood. There were tears. There was semen. Rein had fought hard over consecutive mountain stages, and came out standing in 6th place after stage 12, 5'25 down on race leader Pluchkin, 3'01 down on Andy Schleck in 5th, and 11 seconds ahead of Madrazo in 7th.
The hilly stage 14 was perfect breakaway opportunity, with a summit finish up Mont Faron. Our man for the day was our on loan rider, Daniel Teklehaimanot, who joined the 6 man break, forced a 3 man selection, then powered his way to the finish line to take a stunning stage win!
The brutal stage 18 proved the next defining moment for Rein, a 46.7km long time trial up 3 climbs!
After the disappointing first time trial, we were hoping for much improvement from Rein, and he delivered by the bucketload, coming in 4th, 42 seconds down on stage winner Tenorio. However, he'd extended the gap down to 7th to over 2 minutes!
Stage 19 saw more heroics, as he came 5th on the day to go into 5th on GC, but the hard work finally took it's toll on the following stage, as Angel Madrazo leapfrogged him and Rein fell back down to 6th, his finishing position.
August was a poor month for the team after the excitement of Le Tour. Jurgen Roelandts managed a 2nd and 3rd place in the Tour of Norway. Oscar Solis did well to come 21st in the GC at the Vuelta a Colombia, a solid ride from him. Rein was off the pace at the GP Liechtenstein, his first post-Tour race, finishing 11th.
Theo Bos finished in the pack at the GP Moscow though. Which is all that matters.
We continued our impressive season of TTTs in September, by coming dead last yet again, this time at the Deutschland Tour, our only notable result there apart from a fine 7th place from Wouter Weylandt on the opening sprint stage.
Jurgen Roelandts was impressive at the Lisbon Classic, with a fine 4th place finish behind breakaway act Pozzato and top sprintes Boonen and Bewley. However, he misfired again in the Tour of Northern Europe, only managing two 5ths and a 4th.
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