Tour de L’ Avenir 1978.
First Time for USA
Sitting on the grassy hill overlooking the Velodrome at Kenosha Wisconsin while watching the Track national Championships Eddy B comes by to ask me if I am interested in being the Soigneur for the national team at the Tour de L’ Avenir which is starting in about 4 weeks in France. He asks if I can pay my own way over to Divonne Les Bains once there my expenses would be paid for by the race organization which is the same outfit ASO, that owns the Tour de France.
I was honored by the request, even though I had to pay airfare, because I knew that we, USA had never been invited to this prestigious fourteen-day stage race considered to be one of the top 3 of its type in the world for amateurs. The others being The Milk Race in Great Britain and The Peace Race in Poland. I thought of John Allis immediately and how he had always dreamed of riding this race, so I had to say yes!
This whole request had caught me by surprise, and I welcomed the opportunity to move up from my previous job as the National Junior Road Coach to work with our senior National Team. I had worked and at times lived with Eddie B in the process of selecting and grooming that successful Junior team that placed 4 riders in the top 20 of the Junior World Championship Road Race and then won a bronze medal in the team time trial.
Since the Junior Worlds in Washington D C, I had flown directly back to Colorado to run a Cycling Camp at Copper Mountain and then directly to Boulder to coach an East Coast Regional Team in the Red Zinger Classic Stage Race. I arrived in Boulder, to find that this team, who had never raced together was not to receive any lodging or travel expenses. I had 24 hours to secure a mechanic, travel and lodging arrangements in Boulder, Vail and Aspen while not getting paid. We finished as a team and made some preme money on the last stage criterium in Washington Park.
I took a little time to relax in Colorado after the Zinger and then followed the circuit to Milwaukee for the national championships where I would not be racing, and I had no coaching assignments. I did hand-ups for Rory O’Reilly who was on my Zinger team in the senior road race and got a front row seat on a motorcycle to watch the Junior’s I had coached in their Championship race won by Jeff Bradley who got a free lead out from Steve Wood and beat Greg LeMond.
After this, I had no plans, other than to head back east, when I showed up at the track on my way out of town.
I would not be travelling alone to France. Eddy said I would be taking Mac Martin and Rudy Sroka with me to meet up with the team that had been racing over there for 5 weeks. We were all paying our own way and chose the cheapest, Icelandic Airlines which would take us to Luxembourg. Although I had been to Ireland, England, Spain and a few airports in Italy, this would be my first time on the European continent, and I had no idea how we would all get to Aux Les Bains in the south of France near Geneva.
The train we were on hit the end of the line, somewhere in the middle of France and we had to get off for the evening. It was a small town we had all our gear or thought we did, but no hotels were open. It turned out that the boy’s bikes were not on this train, which really freaked us out, until we were taken in by some local folks for the night who assured us the bikes would be there in the morning.
The bikes were at the station the next morning and we did manage to get to Geneva and the race organization took us to the start town where we met the rest of the US team for the first time and it was awkward to say the least.
When a team has been living traveling and racing together in Europe for weeks at a time, they become close knit and not quick to accept newcomers even though they needed us as replacements. They were also quite tired and now they were facing what would be the hardest race they had ever lined up for.
Only National Teams were invited and all the major European cycling nations from: Belgium, Spain, France, Holland, Italy, Poland, Russia, East &West Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia sent their seven best riders to race 14 days, 1476.9 kilometers (915miles) over all the major mountain passes that the Tour de France used. The professional teams sent scouts to take notes on the climbing ability of the world’s best amateurs, past winners of this race had gone on to win and place in the top 3 of the Tour de France.
Most of the euro team coaches and staff were ex professionals who had done well in this race as amateurs and had years of experience behind them. I recognized many idles driving team cars and managing these national teams. I was determined to meet the Dutch coach, Rini Wagtmans, whom I had read about in VeloNews. The article explained how Rini had won stages in the Tour de France, worn the Yellow Jersey and had brought the Tour de France to his cycling crazy village of St. Willebrord, while coaching the Dutch team time trial team to a World Championship. I would meet Rini and we would become fast friends over the 2 weeks. He made a point of inviting me to Holland, “You come, and I show you everything about cycling in Holland.” That turned out to be a chance of a lifetime, a story for another time.
Meanwhile I was in awe of everything around me and knew instantly that I was in for a tough learning experience.
First off was earning the respect of the team as a soigneur. I was recently retired from competing and had raced with or against all these guys at one time or another, but now I had to let them know by my actions that I knew what I was doing and could be trusted.
Ed Burke the sports medicine guru of our era had been with the team to learn firsthand what the European system was with regards to massage and nutrition. I had worked closely with Ed on the Junior Team and he knew how important the soigneur position was to a team. He had learned all he needed to know by working 16-hour days for the weeks leading up to my arrival. He stayed on until the rest day of this tour and handed the reins over to me before heading back home for a deserved rest.
I had much to learn here and it started with washing bikes after each stage with Manager coach Mike Neel, who knew I was not going to be good at that for long. Mike and I had ridden the World Championships together in 1973 and had raced against each other for several years but he had spent time racing professionally in Europe and was looked up to by all the team. This was his element, and I had my work cut out for me to prove my value by doing whatever it took for the team.
Rudy and Mac were also thrown into the fray without any euro experience and had to learn quickly to become a part of this team. They had no time to adjust to the jet lag and different food, weather, and roads of the French Alps before the first stage started by going straight up a major climb.
The five members of the original team had done well while racing the Grand Prix Wilhelm Tell, (tour du Suisse) stage race held just before the World Championships a few weeks earlier and they knew what they were in for and had some confidence in their abilities.
As I sat in the back seat of the team car, we were in 14th of 18 follow car positions based on our poor performance in the opening prologue, I could get a good look at the colorful peleton as it wound up thru the switchbacks on a depressingly gray rainy day.
Then I saw the first rider to start slipping off the back of the large group and he was wearing a stars and stripes jersey; it was none other than our national champion and two-time Olympian Wayne Stetina.
Both Wayne and his brother Dale had been having stomach problems for a few days before the start and had come to me the night before the start asking what I might have that could make him better that would not show up as a positive on a random control test.
When I was hammering and being hammered by Wayne back in the early seventies while protecting my team leaders back in the States it had never occurred to me that I would be doing his legs and trying to keep him healthy in Europe years later. We had been on the same US team that dominated the Tour of Newfoundland in 1974 and I was his domestique then, so it was not that unusual to be in a similar position now.
Wayne was the next generation of rider back in 1972 at age 19 while I was just riding my bike across the country at age 28. He and his brother Dale were the challengers to the Raleigh Team’s dominance in the early part of the decade when my job was to protect my team captains, Howard, Allis & Chauner from the onslaught of the Stetina’s managed by their father, “papa Roy”.
The Stetina’s were equipment freaks back then with the experimental light weight equipment drilling out whatever they could to lighten their bikes. They were also nutrition freaks espousing all the latest on white sugar, and how bad coke and burgers were for a rider. They were on the leading edge in many areas and we could not argue with the results they were getting backing up their claims.
When the team for Newfoundland finally met for the first time at Jeff Joiner’s house in Marblehead, Mass we all agreed to set Wayne up for Breakfast. He had been quoted in the first Velo News interview of the season that he would rather die than eat a white donut or drink a coke. I had gone out early that morning and bought a few boxes of frosty white donuts and we were all chowing them down with powder all over our faces when Wayne came into the kitchen and asked what was for breakfast. He gave us that “Oh no look” but knowing he had to live and race with us for the next 7 days, he really had no choice but to laugh with us and join in on the powder fest.
The only thing I could suggest for Wayne the night before stage one was to try flushing his intestines with an enema but apparently that was not a help as we watched him slowly fade off the back on this Category 2 Col De La Faucelle. As he drifted back into the team cars, I passed him his pump and spare and some food, he said he was going to keep riding that he might start to feel better which happens in many long stages, but he had another mountainous 100 kilometers to go which included another cat 2 and cat 3 climb. He rode alone for the remainder and in the process blew whatever was ailing him out of his system by the finish, but he was outside the time limit and out of the race. Not a good omen for the team moral to lose a team leader on day one.
At the hotel dining room that night I had the audacity to approach the commissaires table which had several directors of the Tour de France among them and humbly ask in my poor French if our national champion, who was ill at the start of the stage could be allowed to continue the next day.
It was an intimidating moment that I have not forgotten all these years later, as they to a man replied, “But of course he must go home and leave the Tour immediately.”
We would lose a few more riders as the stages went by but the most difficult time was having to leave Rudy behind in Aix-Les-Bains hospital because of the huge boil he had on his crotch. Wool Shorts with real chamois took their toll on many a rider and Rudy rode a couple of stages not being able to sit on the saddle without excruciating pain before he was forced to stop. We would watch him hanging on to a small group in the mountains for hours, constantly getting out of the saddle to catch up or close gaps, he had the toughness and fitness to ride with these euro’s, but it was not in the cards this time. He was left to fend for himself with no English-speaking friends. He got home to the states somehow and when I went by his house months later to give him some Mavic Rims, we had purchased at their factory in Saint Trivier he did not seem overjoyed to see me, good thing I had those rims.
The next day on a 174 km stage from Saint –Etienne our team car was suddenly given permission to move up in the procession because we had a rider, Bob Cooke climbing with a lead group of 5 on the final climb of the day, the category 1 Col Du Relais. It was our first look at how the race was breaking down in front of us as we passed the small groups including the current World Champion Gilbert Claus and other top climbers on our way up to cover Bob. It was raining and foggy on this narrow goat path of a road and Bob was holding his own, much to the surprise of the race caravan and the spectators on the side of the road who had never seen a stars and stripes jersey near the front in such difficult conditions.
As we started the descent the severity of which was totally unexpected, riders were crashing, and sliding down the slick pavement. A Czech rider was seen climbing back over a guard rail without his bike as Bob lost contact with his group and crashed right in front of us. Mike hit the brakes quickly and we picked Bob up and put him back on his bike quickly telling him to just take it easy and get to the bottom about 20 more klicks. He was shaken but not injured but he lost it on another slippery switchback and went deep into the woods before we found him sitting upright holding his head. Ed Burke was concerned about a concussion and I could see the changed look on Bob’s face.
He had avoided breaking any bones or incurring any serious road rash, but he was shaken as Mike and I talked to him about just getting down the mountain and finishing the stage before making any decision about quitting. He was still far up on most of the peleton because of his climbing ability and would have a good placing on the stage.
By this time one of the busy ambulance crews had stopped to see if he needed help. We had a spare bike ready for him to mount as we walked him out to the woods, but Bob was not getting back on the bike this day. We held the bike up above our heads as he climbed in the ambulance giving him a last chance to change his mind and finish the last 20 kilometers of the stage. Ed Burke was shaking his head hoping Bob would not continue but Ed also understood our efforts to keep Bob in the race. (I would tell this story 20 years later to a sports medicine class I was taking, and the professor and students were shocked beyond belief)
One year later I would be on a motorcycle following Bob in a small break away outside Boulder, Colorado in the Red Zinger Classic, when for no apparent reason Bob lost his balance and crashed on a flat smooth section of road. I thought for sure it was just a freak accident as I picked him up to continue but soon learned that his balance was being impaired by a brain tumor and Bob would never ride again and died a year later. They have named the Mount Evans Hill Climb after him as a tribute to his overall character and climbing ability. America lost a great person and rider that day.
Looking back on that rainy slick day in France with riders slipping and sliding off the road (even one of the top Russian’s was severely hurt but finished) I could not help but wonder if the early growth of that brain tumor had played a part in Bob’s crashes. Descending is a skill that is required of all riders in the big stage races and classics and especially important to those who can get over the top with the leaders.
At the time, I was disappointed that Bob did not finish the stage before making his decision. I had seen several riders take some bad falls that day and in days to come but it is all part of the sport and for these hard-nosed European kids getting up and back on the bike was expected.
Peter Duker, the famous British journalist who was covering the race mentioned Bob’s crash in his race coverage for International Cycle Sport Magazine, November 1978 issue:
“To American dismay Bob Cook also came down and appeared to lose both his sense of direction and his courage at the same time. With only 15 kilometers to go, and most of that either downhill or on wide flat roads, I feel that he could have made it easily if he had been brought up in a tougher school.”
Mac Martin and Dale Stetina were the only two Americans who finished in our first attempt at the 1978 Tour de L’Avenir.
Mac was definitely “Thrown to the Dogs” as it were, and his grit and determination were on display everyday as he finished each stage. As a result, he was invited back for the 1979 edition, where he was able to help his teammates and be one of two finishers again.
Dale was very consistent riding alone, he was 21st overall on general classification and caught the eye of one Rini Wagtmans, who offered Dale a spot on his club team and a place to live. Dale was gracious in turning it down, he was still young and felt he needed more time to mature as a rider.
As for me, I would take Rini up on his offer to visit and learn all things cycling in Holland and continue to pioneer the Soigneur position in this country for the next 2 years, before moving on to race promotions.