(First story etc. I have experience of writing plenty of diaries and stories on another forum but first cycling story so be nice....Or don't be. Up to you).
This story is on PCM 10. I have not got an updated database (never update until a full non-Beta is out) so please excuse any name mistakes - blame the game not me!
Difficulty level: Medium but we'll see how that goes.
From the desk of Hattori Yamada.
Dear Mr. AteMyHamster.
We are being thanking you for application made as manager to new professional cycling dream - "Team Film 4 - Asahi". A new cycling experience shared by Japanese Asahi corporation and United British Film 4 company.
As British citizen currently live in Japan, your application cause much excitement for us. We very interested and you look much like David Beckham - good for press conferences. We please offer you position immediately. Enjoy 15 cases of Asahi Super Dry beer arriving with this paper.
I blinked my eyes hard, staring at the official letter in my hands. Then glanced at the huge pile of Asahi beer cans blocking my doorway.
I didn't remember applying for the job, although I do remember a drunken rant on the state of Japanese cycling, some kind of letter scrawled on a bar napkin in my friend's lipstick....Then I don't remember anything else of that night.
So it appears that I had applied for a new professional cycling team in my drunken state.
I absentmindedly scratched my backside, a badly tattooed image of Bungle from 80s kinds TV show Rainbow emblazoned across the cheek. At least it wasn't the most ridiculous thing I'd done when drunk.
6am sharp and I turned up at the new cycling team headquarters in Tokyo, It had meant getting a Shinkansen from my home in Nagoya at 4am but that was already full with overzealous businessmen.
My previous job had been teaching English to children - 3 hours a day and plenty of time for slacking around, playing videogames and watching movies...I'm sure cruising around the world watching races in classy, sunny lands would be just as relaxing.
Seven hours of introductory meeting and slideshow later I was being hustled out of the door by a random secretary and into a waiting car for the airport. In my hands were a dossier full of profiles of riders that this new team wanted. As a lowly new team, they weren't expecting much but had a few stars they wanted to pluck from the cycling tree and it was my job to schmooze them.
Unsurprisingly the dossier had a number of Japanese and British cyclists, seeing as the main sponsors were Asahi - the major Japanese company famous for beers, water and more....and Film 4 - the British movie group. So I had plenty of movie premieres and drinks that I could offer as lures.
Better than Quickstep or Liquigas I guess.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, here are the riders I managed to snare ready for the new season.
LEADERS
David Millar (Britain)
Nicolas Roche (Ireland)
Millar was one of the big names the company wanted. I was surprised that I had managed to get Millar to leave Garmin but it seems as though Millar was a huge fan of the movie Trainspotting and was eager to work with Film 4.
Roche was a bit of a coup also. A quality up-and-coming rider that becomes our most expensive rider on the roster (54,272) but should offer some quality on the climbs. We have big hopes for these two.
SPRINTERS
Tiziano Dall'Antonia (Italy)
Our small team is a bit weak on the sprinting front but Dall'Antonia is a decent quality sprinter who should pick up a couple of wins over the season which will please our sponsors.
TIME TRIALISTS
Rick Flens (Netherlands)
Michiel Elijzen (Netherlands)
Seb Lang (Germany)
Cam Meyer (Australia)
Definitely our strongest part of the team. These four, along with Millar, should provide some high points in our first season. Riders like Flens and Lang can also perform on the flat stages and add some backbone to the team.
CLIMBERS
Peter Kennaugh (Britain)
Uh-oh. Roche will be our undisputed number 1 climber with Millar also able to pull himself over the smaller, classics climbs. Just as well because Kennaugh, the young Manxman, will be unable to climb with the big boys.
THE PUNCHY, ROULEURY, AGGRESSIVE BUNCH
Yukiya Arashiro (Japan)
Fumiyuki Beppu (Japan)
Jonathan Bellis (Britain)
Callum Wilkinson (Britain)
The bigwigs at Asahi were unable to hide their excitement at the signing of the two biggest names in Japanese cycling. With these two we've got two top class punchers with a great fighting spirit. They can also tow the party line and work hard for a team leader on the days I don't let them off their leash. Bellis is a decent lad and Wilkinson can learn from these three riders.
KIDS
Jay Whitman (British)
Tom Lonergan (British)
Daniel De Wit (Netherlands)
Danilo Pingitore (Italy)
Filadelfio Guerrieri (Italy)
With my scouts totally unable to properly view these riders I choose them mostly for nationality reasons. The two Italians have been brought in for Dall'Antonia and for interest from Italy in the Italian races. De Wit can learn from his countrymen Flens and Elijzen and of course two young Brits for the sponsors.
It's a small team, but we can dream.
Sky have the money but the other Brits kept the passion.
Why not check out my story of sexy new team Film4 - Asahi in the PCM10 Story section?
Much wub to: Cav, Millar, Lovqvist, Cunego, Hinc, Voigt, Cancellara, Menchov.
Wub to: Wiggins, Boonen, Beppu, Kloden, Gesink, Rogers, Moncoutie, Roche.
I get a phone call from our very average trainers (Sky we are not) to give me the rundown on our youngsters. It's mixed news.
Whitman is average at best who shows a small talent for time trialling. Probably down to his weirdly shaped head.
De Wit and Lonergan are currently showing no promise whatsoever. They can travel ok downhill but then, what rider can't?
The good news is on the Italian riders - Guerrieri and Pingitore (Pingu as he's now known). Their downhill stats are both "In the 70s" as the trainers say with Guerrieri looking decent enough up the big climbs and Pingu showing some good rhythm over the hills. I'll need to watch those two - I think we may have something there.
SPONSOR NEWS:
Seeing as I've been given a measly 65,000 Euros with which to kit out my team with sexy new helmets and wheels, it's lucky that a few sponsors have flirted with us. After checking out a few I initiated talks with three who are new our new supporting sponsors.
Some website called PCM Daily will be upping the British interest with 25,600 a month and some crazy desires for a Tour de France performance. They were offering 54,000 for a top ten position. Doubting any kind of involvement in the race I just offered them a stage win instead. More fool them.
Gebakken Spul took interest in our inclusion of a couple of decent Dutch riders and have thrown 24,800 a month at us with an 18k bonus for a top ten at the Maastricht-Valkenburg. Might be possible.
Finally, my sneaky Italian plans are coming to fruition almost immediately. Maskinen got a bit excited and offered 33,500 a month with an extra 27,000 with a top ten at the Gran Premio di Lombardia....Something which isn't out of reach if we get a spot.
EXPECTATIONS:
Along with our three sponsor expectations I got handed the main expectations from Asahi and Film 4.
Seems like a typo may have made things a bit easier for me as they want me to win the GP von Frankfurt and then win it again.....Even once will be tricky. Might be Millar territory though.
They also want a top ten in Gent-Wevelgem which isn't beyond the wildest dreams of a crazed imagination.
At least Asahi's fight fight fight attitude didn't throw something utterly ridiculous at me.
RACE NEWS:
Asahi are demanding that I should "Keep fighting for everything" or some such Japanese "go get-em" attitude and so, with more hope than belief, I sent a request for a place in the Tour Down Under later in the month. If we get in I'll eat one of Cadel Evan's hats.
MISC:
How the hell did we end up with a doctor called Raheem CRAPO?! Ugh. We've got no hope!
Rather imaginatively I've taken to calling him "Crappy". I'm pretty pleased with myself as I'm sure he's never been called that before. I'm some kind of comedy genius.
I'm sending the team off to La Londe for three days just to build some kind of team banter and get them cycling together. I'm also challenging Seb Lang to a game of ping pong on the Tuesday so hopefully I can report back with news of my mighty victory.
Anyway, Meyer's off to race in his national championships in a couple of days so I'll be back after that!
Sky have the money but the other Brits kept the passion.
Why not check out my story of sexy new team Film4 - Asahi in the PCM10 Story section?
Much wub to: Cav, Millar, Lovqvist, Cunego, Hinc, Voigt, Cancellara, Menchov.
Wub to: Wiggins, Boonen, Beppu, Kloden, Gesink, Rogers, Moncoutie, Roche.
AUSSIE CHAMPS
In the end I didn't do with Cam Meyer to Australia because of my promised ping pong match with Seb. I sent one of my underlings to follow him around in our preowned Mazda team car instead (we've only got two - they're going to be doing some serious mileage this year).
I don't know why he was so full of confidence going into the race seeing as it's pretty much the opposite of his ideal (for a start it was about 200km longer!)
In the end he limped home in the main pack (taking positions 10-39), finishing 36th at 10.39 minutes behind the winner O'Grady from Saxo who just destroyed the field.
Still, he finished ahead of Robbie McEwan so I bought him a bottle of Spar's cheapest Sparkling White wine as a congratulations.
HAPPY TRAINING DAYS
Who'da thought that training would be so fun?! Well it was for me because I got to sit around in a car all day, yelling orders at cyclists who were slogging around the south of France.
Bliss.
The evenings were spent eating fine food, staring off whistfully into the cool, French nights and losing terribly to Seb at ping pong.
Rick Flens left us all astonished by managing to shove five ping pong balls into his mouth at once. Stunning. That lad has some serious talents on and off the bike.
Anyway, Elijzen and Roche came up to me at the end of the three days and announced that the training was probably the happiest times of their entire lives.
Which was nice.
TOUR OF AUS
No Evans-hat eating for me. The Tour organizers didn't just send us a letter to tell us we weren't accepted, they actually recorded a video of them laughing at our application and uploaded it to Youtube.
So instead I sat around at HQ with the bigwigs and watched stage highlights. Good early form from the big sprinters!
I phoned up Mark Cavendish to congratulate him on his stage wins and points victory but he refused to take the call stating "who the f**k is this random?"
TEAM GB
Turns out that British racing is more desperate than I thought it was. Take a country that has the best track team in the world, has a widely publicized new pro team headed up by the guy who lead said track team to loads of gold medals despite being Duncan Goodhew's long lost twin....a country who have their best crop of talent in years and years and years and a few more years than that.....and they ask me to manage their national team at the World Champs later in the season.
Seriously?!
I would show you their letter but it's drying out on top of the radiator because of the tea that I spat all over it in my shock. They must have asked me because I've turned Peter Kennaugh into the saviour of British mountain climbs.
UPCOMING RACES
So after a totally non-descript January, Feb will brighten up. We've got the Giro della Calabria for four days, then GP de Marseille during it.
After that it's the Coppa costa degli Etruschi, five days at the GP Mediterraneen and 6 at the Tour of Oman before the Giro di Laigueglia on the 20th.
Busy times, I hope the cars can cope.
Sky have the money but the other Brits kept the passion.
Why not check out my story of sexy new team Film4 - Asahi in the PCM10 Story section?
Much wub to: Cav, Millar, Lovqvist, Cunego, Hinc, Voigt, Cancellara, Menchov.
Wub to: Wiggins, Boonen, Beppu, Kloden, Gesink, Rogers, Moncoutie, Roche.
BREAKFAST
Crusty rolls with chocolate spread today. Didn't really fancy it but it's what Jens Voigt ate in that Overcoming movie and he's a hard arse so it must work.
As well as the usual masseur/mechanic/crew combo we've got eight guys with us to try and get something done. Roche'll be leading, maybe pushing it a bit on the later stages. Dall'Antonia will be taking on some properly decent sprinters so a top ten in the sprint classification will be a great result for him.
Beppu and Arashiro will be pretty much taking it in turns to attack and Bellis, Elijzen, Guerrieri and Flens will be doing the dirty work. It's early season for Flens but it'll be good for him to stretch his legs.
Anyway, onto the important news. Roche, Dall'Antonia and Elijzen joined me with the bread/choc combo. Arashiro and Beppu had some dodgy Japanese miso soup. Flens managed to chow down half a dozen boiled eggs which may explain his ping pong ball trick.
THE RACE
Nightmare in the first 5km as Nicky Roche's back tyre virtually explodes. Total bummer as my superior driving skills skid us to a halt next to him and get him on his way again. I get the lad Guerrieri to wait for him but by the time Roche reaches him he's three minutes back from the peloton.
Meanwhile the day's attack his gone off the front including Film4-Asahi's Beppu. No scary riders in that bunch with Quickstep's Hulsmans probably the best out there. The group gets the lead out to 5'25" at the most but the best news for us is Guerrieri earning himself a Mars Bar and a good night's sleep for bringing Roche back into the pack.
After his hard work, Guerrieri would eventually drop back as the pace quickened and would finish 5'54" down....Not last place in the stage though. That honour went to our own Elijzen who managed to smack head first into a bollard. No serious injuries, just scrapes and bruises but he'd end up at 7'47".
The peloton started to chase back the escape as Beppu picks up full points at the second and third mountain checks guaranteeing himself the mountain jersey.
The lead fell to 4'06" with 40km to go, then 3'15" with 30km to go and 2'13" with 20km to go. A steady decrease and it'd be a close call...But with 15km to go Beppu reported back that he was feeling good so attacked the group with Cusaro and Zun. It only lasted 5km as they were caught at the 10km to go, but it had screwed the peloton who were still 1'59" behind. It was gonna go down to a sprint between the lead group which had no real sprinting ability in it....Indeed, Beppu timed his sprint right and somehow held out to cross the line first! Awesome!
THE RESULT
(I'll export in future but on this first stage...)
1. Beppu
2-14 group same time (except for sprint bonus)
Peloton @ 57"
153. Guerrieri @ 5'54"
154. Elijzen @ 7'47"
THE INTERVIEW
BEPPU: "I like to thank team. Training been good and I use super Asahi power for big win! I see break go and am feeling good so follow!"
HAMSTER: "Yeah, good win innit. Now our lad has 8 seconds for us to defend for as long as we can and we're rocking. Good to see Beppu get his chance and take it. He was telling me he was feeling it today and that's exactly what he's in the team to do. Go on the lad!"
Sky have the money but the other Brits kept the passion.
Why not check out my story of sexy new team Film4 - Asahi in the PCM10 Story section?
Much wub to: Cav, Millar, Lovqvist, Cunego, Hinc, Voigt, Cancellara, Menchov.
Wub to: Wiggins, Boonen, Beppu, Kloden, Gesink, Rogers, Moncoutie, Roche.
BREAKFAST
More crusty bread and more chocolate this morning. Worked yesterday and kept me going behind the wheel all day, following our lad Beppu to victory. I'm a bit worried about Ricky Flens though cos he only managed the four eggs. The lad ain't on top form this morning.
Highlight of breakfast was Belly (Jonathan Bellis) not looking when someone opened the door behind him. He leant backwards and fell over into the hallway. All a bit reminiscent of Del Boy falling over in Only Fools and Horses:
The poor fella has been re-christened "Bel Boy" by the Dutch lads.
THE RACE
Chasing down breaks and controlling the peloton is a lot harder in real life. See, all those years of playing Pro Cycling Manager on my PC back home taught me that all I had to do was sit back in the main group and every breakaway would eventually be caught....But now in real life it's really hard to actually drag in a breakaway group.
Stage 2 was a little bit up and down throughout with one big climb about half way. The first attack went early and we let it go. However by the big climb it hadn't come down at all and the rolling nature of the second half would cause problems keeping the peloton together so after pulling the car over for a quick toilet break I got into the car with a renewed cavalier attitude and told Cool Hand Rick to head to the front and pull a huge turn up the climb. He brought it back a couple of minutes but he was in trouble before the top so Arashiro had to go and help out. Total pain in the neck to be honest but it looked impressive on the TV monitors, and probably good for the sponsors with Film4-Asahi riders splitting the peloton, dropping 60 guys out the rear on the climb.
Trying to keep Beppu and Dall'Antonia protected near the front, Elijzen and Roche went forward to pull back the leaders and we finally did with about 20km to go and the peloton in tatters with just 50 in the lead group. Thing is, my inexperience had showed and we'd caught them too early. As the peloton slowed, allowing a few guys to regain touch, four riders - Ratto, Stulder, Borghini and Bertagnolli went off the front. Ugh, just what we needed. So Roche had to go to the front again and we caught 'em just 2km from the line. Sadly Dall'Antonia was busted from the ride and couldn't nail the sprint. Some geezer called Francesco Ginanni won the sprint from Petacchi.
Keeping the yellow jersey will be harder than I thought but 'Bepps' has got it for another day.
So, I'm celebrating Beppu's second day in yellow and a job ultimately well done by the team (no thanks to me) and I get this phone call from David Brailsford of Team Sky.
I'm all happy and expecting the usual congratulations etc, especially as we're both managers of British teams....But no...
"This Hamster? Who do you think you are kid? There's only space in cycling for one saviour of British cycling and that's me....Not some young upstart like you..."
I couldn't believe it.
"Listen here David, cycling's big enough for both...."
His voice was soft with menace.
"Don't David me you little s**t. You'll never amount to nothing in this sport, you hear me. Nothing. I'm everything, you're nothing....remember that. While Wiggo is winning the Tour de France you'll be following your sixth rate team around the back end of Europe....Never forget that...."
RELATIONSHIP STATUS
Disliked by David Brailsford.
Hero-worshipped by Nicolas Roche.
Ping pong skills pitied by Seb Lang.
Oh, also, just out of story for a second...I'm having trouble exporting images from the game but I'll see what I can do...Edited by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster on 22-06-2010 18:07
Sky have the money but the other Brits kept the passion.
Why not check out my story of sexy new team Film4 - Asahi in the PCM10 Story section?
Much wub to: Cav, Millar, Lovqvist, Cunego, Hinc, Voigt, Cancellara, Menchov.
Wub to: Wiggins, Boonen, Beppu, Kloden, Gesink, Rogers, Moncoutie, Roche.
ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster wrote:
I phoned up Mark Cavendish to congratulate him on his stage wins and points victory but he refused to take the call stating "who the f**k is this random?"
[...]
....and they ask me to manage their national team at the World Champs later in the season.
Seriously?!
If you are unsure of how to take pics its ctrl+t. If they aren't showing up in your docs try taking 3-6 at once of the same point in the race as eventually one has gotta show up.
GP de Marseille showcases new British team
by Cyril Wiggleberry.
As the BBC's head cycling correspondent I was shocked today to learn that there are actually professional cycling races held around the world in which Team Sky don't compete.
While we at the BBC, just like you, will be tuning in eagerly to the Tour de France to watch the showdown between Lance Armstrong and Bradley Wiggins to decide the champion, there will be another British team who may not even make it to the Tour de France. However this is the team that British cyclist David Millar now rides for since mysteriously leaving Garmin at the beginning of this season.
Millar isn't a top sprinter like Mark Cavendish and he's not a great cyclist like Bradley Wiggins or any of the other British Sky riders like Steven Cummings, Russell Downing or Chris Froome. He only managed 85th position in the Tour de France last year and 68th in 2008. So it's not surprising that he's moved down to the new small British team "Film 4 - Asahi" where he can finally be a team "leader".
Millar made his debut for Anglo-Japanese team Film 4 - Asahi yesterday at a small race in France called the GP de Marseille which Team Sky didn't attend because they are too good. Millar only finished 71st despite racing away on his own for 35 miles of the race in total. We at BBC are disappointed with his performance and wonder if his career might finally be over and if Film 4 - Asahi's adventure may be over before it has even begun. Unlike Team Sky.
MILLAR INTERVIEW TO CYCLING NEWS
"Yeah it was nice to stretch my legs out there. I knew I didn't really have much chance of winning as my focus for the year will be starting from the spring classics. However with a small team you need to be ready to cycle and it was a great way to start the season. I feel strong out there and Cam (Meyer) did a great job of pulling me back into the peloton after the crash.
We didn't have any real sprinters out there but we tested some new strategies and the young guys got to have a chance pulling the peloton and chasing down the breaks. We're pleased with how it went and I think you'll be seeing more of us over the next couple of months, for sure.
Race images and blow-by-blow report coming soon.
Edited by ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster on 23-06-2010 06:38
Sky have the money but the other Brits kept the passion.
Why not check out my story of sexy new team Film4 - Asahi in the PCM10 Story section?
Much wub to: Cav, Millar, Lovqvist, Cunego, Hinc, Voigt, Cancellara, Menchov.
Wub to: Wiggins, Boonen, Beppu, Kloden, Gesink, Rogers, Moncoutie, Roche.
One day race. Set for roleurs and sprinters if the peloton stays together....Which ain't good for us.
For some reason I spend most of the day in the team car unable to tear my eyes off the backsides of certain riders. Dunno why though.....
Off goes the main break of the day. Goes early, only lasts until 100km to go....Partly due to me getting Pingu some action on the front of the peloton.
Oh bugger.
Millar takes a tumble as the peloton increases its' speed. Time to send Meyer back to help him out.
Meyer acts the total pro, protecting Millar and making up the 2+ minutes back to the main group in quick time. Heroic.
Millar feels sexy enough to stretch his legs out the front, making two solo breaks over the second half of the race. First one dies out after 10km but the second sees him to within touching distance of the stage win...
Pinguuuuuuuuuuu!
Some clumsy beggar goes over, taking out a swathe of the fast-moving peloton. Thankfully Pingu isn't injured but rolls home a few minutes back of the stage winner.
....and the winner is BBox's William Bonnet who takes the win with some class and power. Good on him.
...and he looks pretty chuffed on the peloton too. Fair play to the lad. Wish him well for the season.
Definite positives to take from this. All the lads managed to stay with the pace despite pushing at the front of the peloton for long periods. Jay Whitman was surprisingly good in his strength throughout the race.
Sky have the money but the other Brits kept the passion.
Why not check out my story of sexy new team Film4 - Asahi in the PCM10 Story section?
Much wub to: Cav, Millar, Lovqvist, Cunego, Hinc, Voigt, Cancellara, Menchov.
Wub to: Wiggins, Boonen, Beppu, Kloden, Gesink, Rogers, Moncoutie, Roche.
