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Near the summit, the riders climb into the clouds.
Their jerseys are soaked from the moisture in the air and the sweat of effort. The violent accelerations of the day will come in the last hour of the stage. For now, the weather is their main concern.
Raindrops start to ping off the tops of our helmets. One kilometre from the summit, the domestiques (support riders) drop back to team cars and fetch gloves and rain jackets for their teammates. A change in weather can make or ruin a rider’s race.
On Stage 16 of this year’s Tour de France, Christian Vande Velde sent me an email that read, “This weather is for the dogs, dude. We were woken up in the middle of the night by a loud clap of thunder. Twenty centimetres of snow on the Galibier!?”
This year’s Tour has been abnormally cold and wet. As the race enters its highest mountains in the coming days, the riders fear more bad weather. There is snow on the peaks so it will likely be cold.
In the middle of the night, the sound of raindrops against the windowpane will become their nightmare. They can only pray it passes by sunrise.
Cyclists need to be prepared for every climatic condition. In the mountains, the weather can turn in minutes as storms blow in, dumping hail. Worse than that is more than six hours of racing in the cold rain.
Stopping even momentarily to find shelter or warmth isn’t an option. We simply return to the team car to retrieve warmer clothing. As we ride, we’ll pull on a jacket, gloves, leggings, shoe covers and a hat. If we’re lucky the team directeur sportif will hand us up a water bottle of hot tea. Scalding at first, it turns icy cold in minutes.
Nothing we wear is truly waterproof. While we pedal, the icy water slowly soaks its way through the clothing and chills our skin. Pedalling will warm our bodies but on the long sinuous descents, which seem drag on eternally, we freeze.
In the wet, our vision is impaired. The rainwater, which sprays off the wheels in front of us, is laced with grit and grease. Our glasses become instantly dirty but without them the rain and spray painfully pelts our eyes.
We place an almost blind faith in the riders in front of us. The same grit settles into our Lycra shorts and becomes like sandpaper on skin. With every pedal stroke it slowly begins to chaff and then cut.
We descend at slower speeds but even then we still slide out on wet corners and our brakes don’t work as well. The peloton rides nervously, knowing crashes are more likely.
Our bodies become acclimated to different conditions. A cyclist born in southern Spain is comfortable riding under the intense summer sun while a Belgian who’s spent his life riding under the cold rain, excels when a cold wind blows in a storm from the North Sea.
On a cold rainy day, many riders lose their morale and competition becomes secondary to surviving until the finish. Mental strength often plays the greatest role in cycling. A rider with the desire, who can block out negativity, and persist through discomfort, will be at the head of the race.
But, he must also be prudent with his energy. Over the race radio the directeur sportif will remind the riders to eat and drink. In the cold, our frozen hands struggle to find food in our jersey pockets. On hot days, we’ll drink litres of water while in the cold we force down sips only because we know it is essential to maintain our performance.
The weather has already worn out many of the Tour riders. For others, who are now at home, it ended their race. If it rains in the Alps during the coming days, the attrition will continue and possibly accelerate. The determined and courageous, however, may have their moment of glory.
