Richie Porte’s tour of strength
AFTER a horror crash at the Tour de France, Australia’s top road cyclist Richie Porte starts his 2018 fightback in Adelaide, hoping for a repeat of last year’s TDU triumph.
WATCH this,” says Richie Porte as he coaxes the family’s three-year-old rottweiler, Fritz, onto his hind legs for a trick.
Now standing, the giant dog is eye-to-eye with Australia’s top road cyclist, who might be small in stature but is big in heart.
As Porte eyeballs Fritz in the kitchen of his home in Launceston, it’s impossible not to sense how that metaphor translates to Porte’s career – it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog that matters most.
And Porte, who considers himself a “little Aussie battler”, has had to show plenty of it in the past two years, particularly since July when he crashed out of the Tour de France at 72km/h with a broken collarbone, pelvis, bruised ribs and disappointment so deep it cannot be measured.
Last year was supposed to be Porte’s big chance. His first time leading BMC at the Tour de France in his own right, in the form of his life. And ready to challenge Chris Froome for the yellow jersey.
But on Stage 9, just after he climbed over the top of the Mont du Chat with Froome and a group of riders who were making their way to the finish in Chambery, 181km from where they had started the day, it came unstuck.
To get to Chambery the peloton had to navigate a frightening descent, 13km long, which had been a talking point among riders and the media since it was included in an earlier race known as the Criterium du Dauphine in June.
While Porte was racing down the mountain, his parents were at home watching live on TV, and his wife Gemma was in a hire car on her way to meet him for the Tour’s first rest day the following day.
It took only a second for his brakes to lock up and, despite desperate efforts to correct the bike, he skidded across a small grass verge inside of the corner and slammed back-first into the side of the mountain.
He remained conscious, but bloodied and bruised, as he lay motionless before being loaded into an ambulance in a neck brace.
His first thought wasn’t anger that his Tour was over, or relief that he could still feel his legs. Instead, Porte’s mind was asking him something quite absurd: “Where are my sunnies?”
“It’s a funny one, but Oakley had given me a custom-made pair of sunglasses that morning and I was worried about them,” Porte tells SAWeekend during an off-season interview.
“The medical staff kept on giving me (rival cyclist) Daniel Martin’s glasses, and I was saying ‘No, no, they’re not mine’. I’ve since seen vision of the crash and my glasses were on the apex of the corner, smashed to pieces, so I guess that’s why they couldn’t find them.
“There are bits of the crash that I don’t remember, but I do remember how good the medical staff were. They were there straight away and surrounded me while bikes were coming down at 80km/h around them.”
It was the crash that Porte didn’t see coming, but he wasn’t surprised when it did.
“We did that descent in May in the snow and ice, and already I could tell it was fast, technical and dangerous,” Porte says. “I remember having the conversation with my dad not long after – and my dad is from that old generation where you just harden up – but even he said to me, ‘Don’t take any risks, it’s just a bike race’.
“Then I got down it fine in the Dauphine, when Froomey pushed on, and was comfortable. On the day of the crash I had a bit of a problem with my bike but I’m a professional cyclist and I know my bike and my capabilities.
“I remember touching the brake before the camera picked me up so the rear of the bike had already locked up, and when the camera got to me it looked like I was on a bad line.
“But it’s not how it was; I remember the split second decision – there was a wall there or hit the little grass verge.
“I had time to let go of the brakes to let the bike try to correct itself, but as soon as I touched them again to get around the corner the same thing happened.”
The following day, Porte was visited in hospital by the Tour’s race director Christian Prudhomme.
“That’s when it sunk in that I was in really good form, had a good team around me and was ready to challenge, and to be laid up in hospital eating hospital food I realised it was a massive missed opportunity,” he says.
“But the flip side of that is this is such a small part of my life and to be able to move all my hands and legs was more important than anything else. When I was in the ambulance they kept on asking me ‘Can you feel your feet?’ and I said ‘Yep they’re fine’, so I guess they thought I might have done something more serious.”
Porte watched the rest of the race on TV – there wasn’t much else he could do – and says it was strangely enjoyable. Until the end.
“I hadn’t watched the Tour de France since 2010, and it was actually nice to watch it, and you do get a different perspective from the couch,” he says. “You sit there at home and can think clearly about what’s going on.
“The only thing I couldn’t watch was the podium presentation in Paris. As soon as it got to that we switched it off. That was my big goal of the year. I won Tour Down Under, Tour of Romandie, but the podium in the Tour was my big goal.
“The thing that got me the most was when I got back to Tassie so many people have said to me that after I crashed they stopped watching the race, and that really does mean something to me. Hopefully this year they can remember me fighting for the podium instead of slapping off on a descent.”
The 32-year-old is still disappointed his crash also ended the race for one of his rivals.
“To be honest with you, it still hurts me that I took Daniel Martin down with me. He was having a blinder of a Tour and got fractured vertebrae, and he’s a guy I respect, so that hurts,” Porte says.
Like climbing and sprinting, descending is part of the sport. Porte doesn’t love it, but he doesn’t hate it either. He accepts it’s part of his job and if he’s ever going to win the Tour or reach the podium, he’s got to do it.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a risk taker, I prefer to go uphill and, being a fan of the sport, I’d rather see a race finish on top of a mountain, but it’s part of the sport,” he says.
“It’s a part of cycling, a spectacle, but if the race organisers had a son or a daughter in it would they be happy to send them down a descent like that? Maybe not.
“They’re making Grand Tours harder and more dangerous and, at the end of the day, I’ve still got my wife at home, my mum and dad and brothers at home in Tassie not knowing what the hell had happened.”
If his first thought after the crash were for his sunnies, the next was for his family.
“The team got in touch with my wife Gemma and she let them (my parents) know,” Porte says.
The response to his accident was overwhelming. He got hundreds of texts and thousands of messages on social media.
“The coolest message was from Steve Waugh who was checking if I was OK and then we talked about his charity ride in November,” he says.
Porte delivered on his promise to do the charity ride alongside Mark Webber and Drew Ginn but it was Paralympians John Maclean and Michael Milton who had the biggest impact on him – “watching a guy with one leg ride up these climbs, and beating able-bodied people”.
“Then the next day he’s (Milton) injured but still pushing through, and it was inspiring. There were people getting in the cars, and he had a genuine reason to stop, but he kept persevering with it.”
As it was the year before, when he crashed out at high speed in the road race at the Rio Olympics, the moment Porte was picked off the bitumen in the Tour de France became a starting point for the new season.
“It’s not ideal crashing in the Tour (de France) but I think I can come back and challenge for the Tour Down Under crown as well,” he says.
Porte enjoyed his off-season but was rarely without his bike.
He had no shortage of motivation and this weekend lines up in the road race at the national championships in Ballarat before heading to Adelaide to defend his Tour Down Under title.
“I’m super motivated,” he says. “I started riding my bike and got to a decent level of fitness in September, then scrubbed it all off with travel in October.
“But I am so motivated to come back and I’d love to win the Tour Down Under again.
“Winning it (last) year, the amount of respect for winning that race, it’s head and shoulders the best race in Australia and I honestly think it’s up there with the Tour de France in organisation. The riders love it, it’s such a great way to start the season and it’s a bonus that it’s in Australia.”
With so much talk about his crash in the Tour de France, it’s easy to forget that Porte also did a lot right last season.
He followed his TDU victory – and fourth straight stage win on Old Willunga Hill – by winning the Tour of Romandie and would have won the Criterium du Dauphine had it not been for a full-blown assault on his lead by rivals on the last stage.
“I still won the Queen stage at Paris-Nice and won the time trial at Dauphine against the world champion Tony Martin,” Porte adds. “The team know I’m motivated, they can let me go and I will always turn up to races fit and ready to go. I’ve matured as a person and a rider, my wife Gemma is a massive stabilising influence on my life and while it wasn’t the greatest season because I didn’t finish the Tour, I still had a good season and showed you can go from the Tour Down Under to being a contender at the Tour de France.”
His 2018 campaign is being launched from Launceston, which is where he grew up. It is a haven for cyclists with its quiet roads and rolling hills.
This is the most relaxed Porte will be all year, as far away from the pressure cooker environment of the Tour de France as you can imagine.
“It’s just so easy to come back here,” he says. “The weather is good and, from a mental point, it’s nice to start your training in familiar surroundings.
“We spend the majority of the season in Europe in Monaco, and to come here it doesn’t take you 20 minutes to drive your car down the street.
“ It’s nice to come back and see family and ride on the roads that you used to as a kid.”
As an international sporting star, Porte can’t hide in Launceston, but he doesn’t mind. When SAWeekend visited, he was stopped at a restaurant by a keen cyclist who said he’d just sent a text to a friend telling him he was “having dinner with Richie Porte”. The friend demanded photographic proof so Porte posed for a selfie.
The next day he was stopped at the coffee shop and then three times at the local pool before he could even get in the water.
Porte is a fanatical swimmer and if the bike is his office, the pool is his sanctuary.
Every day in the off-season he rides uninterrupted for anywhere from 3-6 hours in the morning, then walks to the pool, where he once worked as a lifeguard, for a 4km swim after lunch.
“It’s nice to even the tan lines out a bit so I don’t have the old farmer’s arms,” he jokes.
“I do more of my thinking in the pool. When I’m riding it’s always stressing about the next effort but to swim is just straightforward and you feel so good afterwards.
“I’m an early riser. I’d like to be out on the bike before seven because if I sleep in it doesn’t happen.
“There’s a loop here called the Scottsdale loop, it’s about 135km with 2000m of climbing, and you get a headwind one way.
“There is no give in the roads here and I always find myself out that way.
“I’ve been back for three weeks and I’ve done 16 loops of it so call me a creature of habit but it works for me.”
If Porte does win or podium in the Tour de France he will emulate Australian legend Cadel Evans, who knows all about the mountain (literally and figuratively) a rider must climb to reach the holy grail.
Evans was eighth, fourth, second and second before finally winning the yellow jersey in 2011 and is now one of Porte’s closest confidants.
“I always got along quite well with Cadel even when I was riding against him for Wiggins (at Sky),” Porte says.
“For him to come and see me before the Tour and talk through different situations, he’s a massive pillar of strength to have.
“I get text messages from him, and the thing is he actually cares, and no one sees that, no one knows he’s behind the scenes helping out but he is.”
Perhaps the greatest lesson Porte can learn from Evans is that of perseverance.
Like Porte, Evans endured his fair share of knocks and bad luck but if the Tour de France was easy to win then it wouldn’t be worth winning in the first place.
“Everyone that starts riding a bike probably dreams at some point of winning the Tour,” Porte says. “But, like Cadel said, I’d love to go to the Tour and not have good luck but just have no bad luck. I think I have a few more years to have a full crack at it.”
The 2018 Santos Tour Under, January 13-21, tourdownunder.com.au