Tall Tales is a collection of our favourite crazy bike-related stories from our favourite riders, racers and industry legends.
Everyone has that story that they wait until the end of the night to pull out when the anecdotal oneupmanship starts to get into the final round. Tall Tales is a collection of our favourite bike-related stories from the best in the business.
Second out of the traps in the Tall Tales saga comes from a legendary race and a legendary photographer. Trans-Provence and Sven Martin respectively.
If I were to tell you I beat both MTB God Nico Vouilloz and Enduro World Champion to be Jerome Clementz once in a fair bike race, no mechanicals or flats you would suspect I’d be telling a tall tale. Now I might be stretching the truth a tiny bit, by race I actually mean a single stage in the 2012 Trans Provence enduro, they both still smoked me in the General Classification but I can forever claim a win over the Alien and Enduro JC against the clock under the same conditions.
Trans Provence for those of you that don’t know is the ultimate multi-,day point-to-point, blind enduro adventure race. It draws the cream of the crop of enduro professionals each year. Amateurs, masters, pros and women all race side by side in a relaxed format with no rigid start order or liaison times, there are a lot of bar stops mid race and post racing each day but I digress…
Once again it was another year with a top class field. Nico Lau, Nicolas Vouilloz, Fabien Barel, Jerome Clementz, Mark Weir, Joe Barnes, Matt Simonds, Adam Craig, Geoff Kabush, Matti Lehikoinen, Matt Simmonds, Florian Golay, Ben Cruz, Sternberg, Wichman, Slaven and a couple of others battled it out in the Pros while in the all important AM’s it was a bunch of friends and fellow industry folk, Chris Ball, myself, Seb Kemp, Joe Rafferty, Toby Pantling, Jon Cancellier, Jeff Callam, Paul Smail and a bunch of other GCs.
Despite the relaxed nature of the event the racing is still serious when you drop in. Already from day one a pattern was emerging. A crew of mates and misfits who all rode together was starting to form that by the end of the race they became known as the Dark Cloud Crew. A name describing the dark cloud both literally and figuratively hovering over us the whole event and for many more years to follow. Mechanicals, crashes, injuries, thunderstorms and hangovers, we attracted it all in some shape or form.
Now I was pulling double duty trying to both shoot and race each day. Rush up to the top of the climbs shoot up near the starts before dropping in myself then shooting a few more riders finishing. Easy… Well not so much. Already you have to carry everything you need for a 40-50km (2000m+) day. First Aid, spares jacket, water and a two foot long lunch baguette. Then I would further handicap myself with a camera and a couple of lenses. Day two dawned looking ominous, it was cold dark and blustery when we set off on a 300m climb to the top of Col de la Croix de Veyre sitting at almost 2000m.
Most of wave one dropped in ahead of the rapidly approaching storm and I shot a couple of riders. As the second half of the field neared the top the storm hit us. Bucketing down with the thunder getting closer and closer. The rain tuned to hail then to sleet. Bear in mind this is at the top of a col above the treeline, nowhere to hide or shelter.
Hop to 2:25 to see what Nico Vouilloz made of that fateful stage.
MAVIC® TRANS-PROVENCE 2012 ::: DAY 2 from Trans-Provence on Vimeo.
A few like Nico V, Anne Caroline and Anka chose to wait out the storm up top, hoping it would blow over. At this point the lightning was getting closer and closer, I saw Chris Ball approaching in the distance when a massive lightning bolt struck the ground pretty much on top of us. There was this overpowering smell of burnt hair, kind of like an electrical fire, I thought for sure I was smelling Chris Ball’s burnt flesh and that he had been melted by the lightning. Luckily as my eyes adjusted I saw he was still alive albeit shell shocked.
At this point there was just five or six of us left to drop. We realised the storm was not blowing over and we had to leave now in case one of us did get hit by lightning next. Nico and Anne we frozen stiff. They are skinny racers. I am not. Anne was unable to get her knee pads on, her hands unable to function to tie her shoelaces. Anka, Chris and I dressed Anne and sent her off. Anka set off next.
All I remember next was was Nico frantically trying to keep his goggles dry before dropping in. An impossible task. He was saying “Thees eez not posseeeble I cannot go without zee goggles, I have never done eet before”. He had no choice and off he went rigid, blue and frozen. I had been up there so long shooting in the wind and rain and cold I was already soaked so didn’t bother with goggles and set off with a nothing to loose attitude. It didn’t feel like anything special but I remember the advice Steve Peat had given me years before on how to ride in the wet. “Just follow the water.”
Easy enough, it was a river at this point, so wet that it wasn’t slippery if this makes sense. I just adopted the eyes half closed; head half turned out of the wind posture and tried to read and milk the rapidly deteriorating terrain. On of my best ever TP stage finishes right there and yes I “smoked” Nico by 23 seconds with a 07:42.”
But we weren’t out of the rough yet in the next stage which dropped yet further down the mud-soaked valley I got caught up in a mid stage mudslide and a comedy of errors. Not quite so funny as Jerome Clementz’s stage two experience though. Despite my poor showing on two I managed to beat the Enduro World Champion, he had a shocker. He had caught his brake lever and shifter on an OTB which ripped his waterproof pants, he tried to ride on but had to stop and pull his pants off, perhaps even removing his shoes to do so.
He crossed the finish line which at this point was a flooding river, pants dangling from his neck and it soon became apparent that it wasn’t just his waterproofs that tore in his crash but also his lycra in a strategically important area. Appendages flapping, he stopped the clock fifteen seconds later than me.
Over the bike bike wash I remember chatting with Chris Ball, encouraging him to break away from the UCI and start the EWS, an idea he was toying with at the time. By the end of the race the decision was made.
Yes, 2012 day two will go down in Trans Provence lore, a day of biblical proportions. Seb Kemp, Chris Ball and myself would go on to battle for the rest of the week and like proper Dark Cloud Members we all experienced our crashes, flats, mechanicals and course finding problems. To the extent that we gave up on our GC position and all that mattered was TSD bragging rights.. Total Stage Domination.
With the TSD attitude we all crept back into a fighting chance in the GC, I got a little carried away and on the final day on the penultimate stage of the week I managed to TSD my way into a heli evacuation with a flyover loop of the Monaco Grand Prix to a Nice Hospital and arm surgery.
Jon Cancellier suffered a similar fate being carried across the finish line by Paul Smail with a broken ankle. Anka fared much better than me, finishing second in Pro Womens after besting Anne-Caroline Chausson on a day and a couple of other stages. All in all a memorable event and a tall tale indeed.
