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the break. my life as a cycling maverick - steve cummings. allen unwin hardback. 318pp illus. £20

the break - steve cummings

bruichladdich distillery features, as part of its various offerings, an academy, ostensibly a quasi-educational institution for which whisky aficionados pay large sums of money to attend for a period of one or two weeks, learning about each aspect of the whisky production process. this ranges from rolling casks into the warehouses, to checking the veracity of the spirit pouring into the spirit-safe. it is a slightly ironic situation given that the distillery's employees, as well as those at the island's other distilleries, are remarkably well remunerated for doing the very same thing.

while the majority of those intent on visiting the island during the last week of this month for fèis ìle/ the islay whisky festival, would probably give their right hands to work in a distillery, to a certain extent, locally, it's simply viewed as a job, albeit sometimes with an impressive salary. less than twenty years ago, whisky distilleries were regarded as little more than production units; the very notion of undertaking even a guided tour of the plant, was viewed as decidedly eccentric, to the point of being a highly odd request.

from our point of view, the life of a professional cyclist might be similarly viewed as the ultimate achievement, possibly encapsulated in the phrase 'living the dream'. the very notion of being well-paid to ride your bicycle every day, aboard state-of-the-art carbon fibre and electronic componentry while travelling the world, would appear almost too good to be true. and separated from idealism and idolatry, it's simply another job. but supposing that fortune, ability or opportunity has led you to the professional level, there is surely a great deal of satisfaction to be derived from undertaking the 'job', not only to the best of your ability, but seeking every practical way to improve as such a career progresses.

this is not to suggest that tadej, primoz, wout, mathieu and the other boys in the band are not similarly engaged, despite apparently possessing the natural skills to succeed, but those reckoned to be lower down the hierarchical order often have to identify their own particular skillset, and lean on it to the best of their ability. one such might be britain's steve cummings, whose soon to be published autobiography (written in conjunction with noted cycling writer, alasdair fotheringham) is testament to a highly commendable and successful career.

at the risk of creating a spoiler alert so early in a book review, chapter ten, entitled 'mandela day' is worth the price of admission alone, and possibly not for the reasons you might think. celebrated followers of cycling will have derived that the above-mentioned chapter refers to cummings' astounding victory in the 2015 tour de france, when he sailed past frenchmen thibaut pinot and romain bardet on the final ascent to mende airfield. the victory was made even more auspicious due to 18 july having been designated as mandela day and with cummings wearing the colours of south-africa's mtn-qhubeka.

at the time (and i'm sure many others will recall the tv pictures) it seemed the result of an opportune victory, but cummings' career has been anything but opportune.

"...I was a lot more aerodynamic than many of the other riders in the break, and the energy I'd saved during the hours we spent riding together before the Mende climb was going to be mine to use up on the final ascent. Finally, I knew I'd got a 450-watt threshold for my power output and the climbers had maybe a 400-watt threshold..."

that hardly sounds like a rider whose victories came as the result of inspired guesswork.

cummings, currently employed as a directeur sportif with team ineos, began on the lower-slopes of a professional career when joining birkenhead north end cycling club "...they wouldn't let me sign up [...] because they weren't insured for kids. But we got round it through my dad joining." early coaching was received at the hands of chris boardman's dad, keith. ultimately, attending drop-in induction sessions at manchester velodrome led to an invitation to national team training sessions as a first-year junior and onto the national track championships as a first-year junior.

"...with bradley wiggins as my biggest rival."

like several riders from britain's track team, cummings was placed with a european professional team (landbouwkrediet-colnago) in order to develop his road skills. others who did likewise were geraint thomas, the aforementioned wiggins and mark cavendish, all of whom feature in this book. in fact, despite originally thinking it a tad odd to apportion a chapter to each of the above, particularly in an autobiography, in hindsight, not only was this the ideal opportunity to gain insight into the abilities and characters of thomas, wiggins and cavendish, it helped frame steve cummings' place in the cycling firmament.

but to return to my original opening gambit, about cycling being 'just another job', cummings lays bare some of the employment difficulties he came across, particularly following a change of management at qhubeka. cummings places great faith in one-time team manager, now eurosport commentator, brian smith, in whose judgment and abilities obviously impressed.

"Above all, Brian Smith had left. For me, personally, this was bad news. [...] If you committed and made sacrifices and did your best, he'd reciprocate, doing all from his side to support you."

but with smith gone from the qhubeka management, "Race programmes were literally changing every five minutes. So people were ... going through the motions because they didn't know if things would or wouldn't change. [...] It had got to the point where I felt I was no longer welcome whenever I got on the team bus..."

in short, through stints with the british cycling track team, landbouwkrediet, discovery, barloworld, team sky, bmc and various iterations of mtn-qhubeka, cummings had an astonishingly successful career, one which has, until now, appeared to be a glaringly obvious, yet hidden secret. if asked to name four top british riders, i fear cummings might be found missing in action. that would be a grave error. his narrative is somewhat compulsive, perhaps because my knowledge of his many exploits was less than i'd be willing to admit, demonstrating that, like many professional cyclists, his powers of recall are mightily impressive. and through that narrative, it is plain that steve cummings possessed a tenacity and desire to win that benefited from his strong character, a character that was simultaneously shaped by his many successes.

like all good books, the back pages consist of a comprehensive index, along with a list of nine lessons learned over an exemplary career, and a palmares of placings and victories achieved over a fourteen year career as a professional. it's a book that, in tandem with alasdair fotheringham, is a triumph in and of itself. you really do want to read this book.

steve cummings' the break is published by allen and unwin on thursday 19 may.

wednesday 18 may 2022

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................