YES! DAVEY! GO! GO FOR THE WIN! COME ON FELLA! YOU'VE GOT IT IN THE BAG! TOUR OF OMAN HERE WE CO.......
I awoke.
Laying, covered in a sheen of sweat. I blinked hard once, twice. Slowly the dark, murky shadows around me swum into focus. Was it all a dream? No way...Surely....not...but....Millar, Roche, evil Uncle Fester....that scumbag of a Ukrainian.....
It was.
Here I was, lying in my apartment in Japan, still a teacher, still doing what I had always done.
I sighed.
Rolled back over and went back to sleep.
I was awoken a few hours later by a knocking at the door.
The sun now up, light attempting to stream in through my window, the curtains thin and cheap. I groaned and rolled over, hopeful of a few more minutes.
But still the knocking continued.
I mumbled, leant over to the edge of the bed, fell in an undignified and frankly embarrassing heap on the floor.
Pulled myself up and, grabbing a towel to wrap around my waist, navigated my way to the front door, accepted the official looking envelope from the overly chirpy postman and headed back inside, scratching various parts of my anatomy.
I flicked the kettle on, slumped down at the kitchen table and yawned before opening the envelope.
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 lack of Asahi beer cans filling my doorway. That bloody cheeky postman must have kept them all for himself. The swine.
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.
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.
So, I set out to recreate the team, quite literally, of my dreams. I spent much of the next weeks travelling around the world speaking to cyclists and to team managers, trying to assemble a crack squad to take on the world of pro bike racing. Thing is, my dreams had been playing terrible tricks on me!
In reality everyone was more expensive. Where I'd been spending 40,000 and 30,000 in my dreams to bring in riders I was now having to spend 60,000 for the same rider! Asahi bosses were horrified to find out that I simply couldn't afford to sign Arashiro, demanding that I rid the team of some of my other riders to make space for him....But I couldn't. I had my new, slightly-altered dream-induced vision and no-one could stand in my way!
THE TEAM:
Leading the team will be my dream pairing.
NICOLAS ROCHE (Ireland)
DAVID MILLAR (Great Britain)
Sprinting duties will fall to the young and hardcore...
JONATHAN BELLIS (Great Britain)
All the hard work will be sweat and bled over by...
JOOST POSTHUMA (Netherlands)
STEPHEN CUMMINGS (Great Britain)
FUMIYUKI BEPPU (Japan)
ALEX DOWSETT (Great Britain)
SEBASTIAN LANG (Germany)
I asked big Seb if he played table tennis at all. Sadly he told me that he'd never picked up a bat in his life.
These pros would be joined by EIGHT youngsters who would be pushed right up into the boiling pot and examined to see whether they succeed or fail. In the case of most of them it's probably fail. Listed from best to worst.
GLEN VANDERHAEGEN (Belgium) - sprinter
JOSEPH MANIEZZO (Italy) - fighter
VIRGILE BARRAS (France) - time trials
CLIFF GOOSSEN (Netherlands) - stage racer
STEPHANE VILLETTE (France) - fighter
MITCH SAWYERS (Great Britain) - northern classics
TIBOR WIEBEN (Germany) - time trials
JERRY VLAYEN (Belgium) - fighter
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.
Frighteningly similar to the kit I'd envisaged in my dream, yet with of course the extra sponsors that come with the real life of pro cycling.
Alongside Asahi and Film 4, Barclays, CyclingNews.com and Ebay.co.uk had all been signed up to keep the money rolling in.
GOALS FOR THE YEAR:
Top 10 in the Vuelta a la Rioja
Wear the sprint jersey in the Tour du Limousin
Win stages in the Tour of Britain
Top 10 in the Subida al Naranco
Win stages in the Tour of California
Top 5 in the Rund um Koln
So there we go. Easy easy.
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.
Arashiro was a total ripoff. Would have easily been our third most expensive rider although his sprinting IS 75. I brought him in too but I couldn't get up to the 15 guys I needed unless I was going to bring in even more youngsters. Also there were no Japanese youngsters.
Beppu was only 28,000 or so and for that reason definitely affordable. After Roche and Millar the next most expensive guy was only in the 40,000s.
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.
What about some of the guys at SKIL, like Doi and such, plus they also have some Chinese peoples, you could have taken them just as "stuffing"... Anyways once again good luck
I've been keeping a brave face nailed to my ugly mug this last week. You want to know why?
Our youngsters are all a bit poo.
Well, not all of them but most of them. Still, I'm sure they've got years and years to mature into beautiful cycling flowers but I ain't got years and years. The bosses want relative success immediately. The money situation with the team means that for the time being I need to get results to keep the team afloat. Nothing like the threat of instant failure to galvanise a team towards victory.
With that in mind I decided to take a strong team to Calabria. A semi-fit Nico Roche would lead an 8 strong team. We won't use eight men often but meh, it's our first race of the season so we're kinda celebrating, or something.
Belly would be the sprinter, Cummings and Joost P would do the dirty work, Bepps and Dowsett would look to get into breaks and the two youngsters would be getting used to seeing the team car throughout the day. They'd also get some practice with seeing how many water bottles they can stuff into their jersey.
We rolled up late the night before - blame the useless airline we flew with. In the car with me would be my number 2 Hideyuki Yamamoto.
That night, while relaxing in the hotel bar I got the British lads to hold Yamamoto's arms and legs while I grabbed a bottle of beer, pouring it all over him and proclaiming it a "new christening". I told him that from now on I'd refer to him only as Takeshi Takeshison.
I dunno how he took it but the lads loved it.
Anyway next day and I'm behind the wheel of the car with, frankly, a terrible hangover. Still I'm a hardcore professional and can deal with it.
Spirits were lifted when Dowsett managed to escape with the break of the day. They stayed out for a decent chunk of time, getting the team jersey some good TV coverage.
Even better, Dowsett managed to take two of the mountain sprints and a second place in the third to guarantee him the Mountains jersey for tomorrow! Our first day and already we have a jersey holder! Groovy!
Still, inevitably the group were pulled back within 10km of the finish and some generic Liqui rider won a straightforward sprint.
Good for him.
Still, our main focus was on the mountains jersey presentation and we were giving it large when Dowy stepped up onto the podium to accept the kisses of the lovely podium lasses.
