Cycling News

10 January 2009

By Samantha Lane of www.theage.com.au

COULD there be a greater compliment in cycling than the reigning Tour de France champion saying he wants you to help him defend his title? Unlikely as it might seem for a boy who didn't care for pedal pushing while growing up in country Victoria, Simon Gerrans has been paid that compliment by Carlos Sastre, the 2008 winner of the world's most famous bike race.

He chuckles when reminded, but the look on his face is a giveaway that the novelty of the news Gerrans received last September has not worn off. "It's a huge honour," Gerrans, 28, says.

After Gerrans bobbed up to win stage 15 of last year's Tour de France at the ski village of Prato Nevoso in Italy — becoming the first Australian to win a mountain stage in the tour — the rider who says he has no outstanding single talent but "can do a little bit of everything" gained cachet that even multiple stage wins at other European races doesn't provide.

The feat might not have earned Gerrans much prizemoney — "I think you probably get more money for getting knocked out in the first round of the Australian Open," he says — but as he has already seen, the paybacks present themselves in other ways.

While in Australia for three months over summer, Gerrans has been recognised on every one of the cross-town rides he made from Melbourne's north side to the famed meeting spot of cyclists in training on the south side, St Kilda's Cafe Racer. And when Sastre was recruited by Canadian enterprise Cervelo after his big July victory with team CSC, Gerrans was the name the Spaniard wanted added to the new team's books. Tour de France champ gets what Tour de France champ wants. Gerrans was on the market after four years with France-based Credit Agricole, formerly Ag2r Prevoyance, and at Sastre's urging Cervelo cut him a deal.

Usually, Gerrans would be tackling tomorrow's road race at the Australian open road championships near Ballarat. He would also ride the Tour Down Under in Adelaide and enjoy a final week of Australian sun before returning to his home-away-from-home in Monaco and then proceed to live out of a suitcase for the best part of six months while competing all over Europe. But yesterday, after roughly 12 weeks bunking at the North Carlton home of the parents of his fiancee Rahna Demarte — a former junior world champion on the track — he was Portugal-bound for the camp Cervelo is holding next week to outline the season's plans.

Gerrans has ambitions, and capabilities, to win one of the European spring classics like the Amstel Gold, in Holland and in which he placed 12th last year, and Belgium's La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Each is a one-day affair on a course rolling up and down short, sharp hills for between 200 and 260 kilometres. Not everyone's idea of a good time, but Gerrans is a fan.

"That's the sort of racing I really like, so that's where I really want to keep striving to succeed," he says. "The hard part it there's only three of them in a year. While in the Tour de France you've got an array of stages to have a go at, but then there's not too many opportunities where a breakaway rider like myself will win a stage, especially over the past couple of years. I'm not going to beat the likes of Robbie (McEwen) and those guys in the bunch sprints. I'm not going to beat Cadel (Evans) if everything's together at the last hill of the day. I sort of need to win exactly like I did — by breaking away from a long way out and holding off the bunch to beat whoever I'm around at the finish.

"To win a Tour de France you almost need to be a specialist at one thing — a time triallist, a sprinter, a climber or something along those lines. I'm a bit of a jack of all trades. I can climb a bit, I sprint a bit, I can do a little bit of everything."

In time, Gerrans may add to his Tour de France stage victory count, but it is not the current focus. In recent years, his old team lacked a cyclist who was a chance for the Tour de France yellow jersey and so prioritised winning daily line honours. The mission at Cervelo is different. "When I think 2009, I think Carlos Sastre's right-hand man," Gerrans says. Sastre will demand top-class help in the mountains and Gerrans, who says he has never regarded himself as a really good climber, needs to be better at it in five months.

His new contract is for two years and there's every chance they could be the best of a career that took flight after he threw in a business degree at Swinburne University, and his part-time job assembling go-karts, in order to get good enough for a European team to want him.

"He's among the top flight of Australians," cycling guru Phil Liggett, who has known about Gerrans since he was a 15-year-old more interested in motor sport, said this week. "When you're comparing him to Robbie McEwen, Stuart O'Grady and Cadel Evans you can tend to think of him as the inferior member of the team, which is an unfair way to look at it because pound-for-pound or dollar-for-dollar he'd be probably better value in many aspects to a team because he can do so much."

Upon first look at the Alps in his debut Tour de France in 2005, Gerrans was so intimidated by the task facing him that he rang his old mentor from Mansfield, Australian cycling legend Phil Anderson, for reassurance. Now, sitting in his home state sipping a soy latte (such is the life of a modern cyclist, Gerrans has had blood analysis and learnt that eggs, cows milk and tomatoes don't sit well with too him), he reflects on how the seemingly insurmountable has always brought the best out of him.

When quizzed about a line attributed to Winston Churchill that he quotes on his website to sum up his modus operandi — "Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference" — Gerrans says he isn't "somebody that lives by sayings or mottos for life, or that sort of thing". But when asked about his reputation as one of the nicest members of the peloton and how that contrasts with his competitive alter ego, he recites another saying he committed to memory after reading Roger Federer's autobiography: "It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice."

Perhaps he really isn't into mottos for life, but right now Gerrans is living out both word for word.

Print