"Shocking, scars and a portal in hell" - Svein Tuft remembers the brutality of the classics in the new book

The next one is an extract of us will never be here: adventures in the cyclism in the wilderness until the tour of France by Svein Tuft and Richard Abraham.

Recently published, Svein’s autobiography tells the story of his remarkable life both as an adventurous young man growing up in the North -Writer -the Pacific Vest, as well as a professional rider for a decade and a half.

When you follow the classics, sometimes it can look like the boys only ride and nothing really happens. What you do not realize is that the front boys go with 500 to 600 watts to dictate the rhythm and reach the next small turn on the road in front of the peloton. The classics are running from the front. When you know every centimeter of those small small roads there, in Belgium, you have a huge advantage. When you come from North America, you have no hint.

Most boys were allowed to get rid of Pegasus Debac, but in the same winter, a Canadian team called Spiderch took a step to the procontinental ranks, the second level of sport, and in a week, I had a contract. I was a bigger guy, who had a decent power, so people spoke my chances in the classics, but without any idea of reality. You can go there with maximum fitness, perfect training and yet to shake your head. And until you have not let go of Nieuwe Kwaremont to enter the Oude Kwaremont position, you will never know what psychic bicycle races can be.

That section of the road is a key part of all those races in Belgium and nothing more than the Flanders Tour. Oude Kwaremont is a cobbled climb. It is quite hard, quite gnar and quite long at 2.2 kilometers, but the gradient is not so steep: only 4 percent average with the steep no more than 11 percent. It is a place where many happens – quite often, is the place where the winning move will go clear – and it is an excellent example of how bicycle races are controlled. If you are not in the front of 20 riders on Oude Kwaremont, then you can say goodbye to the front group when Smackdown comes. You can be in the best form of your life, but if you are too far in the package, you will never go back – the roads are too narrow to move – and so it is imperative to be close.

Running up is like a funnel. The road passes from a quick and wide descent on a series of turns on narrow roads. You find yourself doing 100 km/h on Nieuwe Kwaremont, which is a large main road a kilometer from the bottom of Oude Kwaremont. It is a 100 km/h washing machine. The boys take risks throughout the course of the hope of moving in front. The best riders are able to float and hold the position next to the face (but never on the face), and just before the first lap after this descent, they will make a massive hit – they take a calculated risk – to move to the primordial position.

Now we are on the goat paths, those narrow roads of concrete block that are so typical for Flanders. The old boys club arrive in front: Belgies, the best colleagues, training partners, those who know the roads better than the back of their hands. Most of them have ridden those roads together since they were nine years old. It is in their interest in controlling the race and thus to ride with 30 km/h constantly in the climb, soaking the peloton and blocking on the road. And they made the effort; Now it recovers.

Meanwhile, behind the Peloton, the individual riders sprint to try to return to the bouquet, and the groups are trying to take advantage of the valley to catch it. But it is too late, because those front guys are about to hit the basis of the cobbled climb, completely recovered, ready to light it. Maybe you take some crazy risks. Maybe you can go through Verge Grassy or over some rocks to move up 10 seats. Or ride with 550 watts all over the ascent – as loud as the boys in front. But you still end in the bottom of the peloton to the top. Now you have a 500 -meter gap between you and the front of the race. How do you close this gap with the best riders in the world? You’re not.

I like to take calculated risks and used to take them while climbing the mountains. You have to understand the elements – with what you are against and what you try to get – but, whether you succeed or get up, in the mountains is your choice and problem. You are never in control, but your decisions can help you dictate the result for you in classics, taking risks is just one thing. It is totally out of control.

I am not afraid I would not collapse -I have crashed so many times by doing all kinds of stupid shit -but I do not like that aspect of the people in which decisions are made of despair. Even so, in 2011, I made a decision: I will train the house and take risks and not fuck. That did not necessarily mean to say the hell everyone else, it just meant to say that when something happened in the race, I had to be there. When the Peloton broke up, I had to be there. When Fabian Cancellara attacked, I had to be there. I realized that if I could do it through the shit of the attacks that fragment the peloton, then the race afterwards was not so difficult. The game is not hard; The hardest part is to be there to play it. And as one of the biggest riders on Spiderch, this would be my opportunity to try.

I found out enough about the classics to realize that I will not get in front of the bouquet with all those guys. I knew I had to climb the road before them, so that they could be ready when they made the first movements. This would involve spending a large amount of energy to enter the separation and stay there, but I could not afford to enter the weapon, because I would have nothing left for the end. I only needed to be the nameless guy on the road, when things settled in a old fashion bicycle race. In classics, more than anywhere else, an unnamed guy has the chance to make a big victory against the chance.

On a heavy road section, with about 80 kilometers left, the race broke. Early break was still on the road, but the big teams were trying to slow down things so that they could regroup. I chose that short action as my moment of attack. A Dutch guy, Bram Tankink, came up with me and took an exchange of two people to take the break. When Fabian Cancellara made her attack in the pile (on Oude Kwaremont, of course), I was already on the road. When he joined us, there were 19 of us in front and 30 kilometers to take the race. As I wanted it to be.

Since then, it was like entering the 12th round of a boxing match. The boys hit to understand how likely everyone was to drive them away. Everyone knew that if Cancellara went, they would have to be on the steering wheel. I was in similar situations in Jiu Jitsu. It is easy to panic if someone is about to suffocate, but you learn that if you panic, you will reach a much worse situation. Bicycle races can be a nice thing in those moments, because it is limited to how much you can give. It is a moment of survival and you start to enter deep, instinctive, mental and physical reserves. I thought I could win, which was perhaps delusional, but if you don’t think you can win, then forget about it.

I covered each movement, digging deeper and deeper. In retrospect, the best thing for me to do as a nameless name in the group would have been to stay in the back, start breaking food and water and follow everything. Then maybe I could have made a big move. Maybe the chancellor would have already been stopped. Maybe I would have run to second place. But I was caught at the moment. When Cancellara finally left, no one could follow him. I lost too much energy and arrived in 11th place (Sic 13). As much as I was disappointed with that result I beat, full of good energy. I was up there, finally fighting with a few big names. I never succeeded this with Slipstream. I was thirty -three, but I was still progressing as a bicycle pilot.