I still talked to Patxi most days and filled him in on what I was doing, but the pressure was off completely. All I had to do was get through the 2015 season. I was quitting soon. Why so serious?
By now, I knew how much I liked the Tour of California. I’d been there five times and come back with five green jerseys. The people were always pleased to see you, but they were never in your face. The air smelled clean and held the scent of oranges. The roads were good, the racing was fast but laid-back . . . what wasn’t to like?
My road manager, Gabriele, always says that there is something to remind me of Giovanni there, too: The biggest climb was called Mount Baldy. Thanks, Gabriele. Don’t worry, I’m sure Lomba will never read this.
Oleg, Bjarne, and Bobby were a world away, as were the disappointments of Roubaix, Flanders, and San Remo.
Mark Cavendish was here, though, and he was on fire, sprinting in that explosive way that only he can and reminding me what a pure sprinter looks like. He showed me a clean pair of heels on the first two stages, and I began to think that my green jersey count would be likely to stick on five. Never mind. It’s good to have a plan, but when your plan doesn’t work out, you find another way.
Stage 3 was 170 kilometers with six king of the mountain primes and over 3,000 meters of climbing around San Jose. Not a Sagan kind of day at all. So it felt pretty fine to win the kick for second spot; a great long solo effort from a Latvian guy, Toms Skujinš, held us all off for the win.
The next day I was too quick for Cav for once, and I bounced my wheel off the road a couple of times as I crossed the line then pulled a big wheelie to show how pleased I was. Now that I didn’t care if I won, I was winning again, and I remembered that I liked it.
After Cav turned the tables again on the next stage, I surprised everyone, including myself, by pulling out a win in the next stage. No surprises in that, you might think, Sagan, you greedy bastard, but hold your horses . . . it was a time trial. In my new mode of not giving a shit, I smashed it round the flat 10-kilometer course to not only take the victory, but also the yellow jersey. Not my usual color, but I liked it.
I liked it so much that on the queen stage to Mount Giovanni, sorry, Mount Baldy, I dug in and finished in the top 10, losing less than a minute to Julian Alaphilippe and coming to the summit ski station in front of climbers like Haimar Zubeldia and Gesink. Alaphilippe had taken the jersey from me by two seconds, but with time bonuses to be won on the final stage, I was still confident.
Ahead of the final stage, we were all gathered round the start line, eagerly anticipating the starter’s gun. It was one of the tightest Tours I’ve ever been involved in, and every rider in contention had been crunching the numbers to calculate how the stage might play out to their advantage. As we were held at the start line, Lomba approached Cav and casually inquired whether he intended to challenge for the intermediate sprints and the bonus seconds that came their way. Since I was just a couple of seconds behind his teammate Alaphilippe, Cav confirmed he would be shelving his own ambitions to help the Frenchman in the G.C. No sooner had he finished answering Lomba’s inquiry than his tire exploded! Right in front of him! Surely a good omen for the rest of the day, and an exchange that would have Lomba in hysterics for the rest of the year. To be fair, Cav did storm the sprint to win the stage, and I had no qualms about that—he was flying all week—but nervously I waited to see if I’d pipped Tyler Farrar to third, as that carried a 4-second bonus. As usual, Gabriele was confident and told me not to worry, and sure enough, I’d won the Tour of California.
A retirement present, perhaps.
2015
With sunny miles in my legs and sunny smiles all over my face, I headed to Park City, Utah, for some altitude training as a new man.
Altitude training has proved itself to be a massive benefit for me over the last few years, but 2015 was when it took off. Patxi convinced me of its powers, and he has proved bang on. Plus, I get to hang out in places like Utah, Colorado, and the Sierra Nevada in Spain.
The trick to understanding altitude training and how it can help is to slightly tweak the title. It’s not really altitude training; it’s living at altitude while training. Hanging out and, most importantly, sleeping where the air is thin means you’re using less fuel (oxygen) to carry the load. On the one hand, you’re working your body harder to get through whatever you’re asking it to do, but you’re also teaching it to run more efficiently and make the most of the resources it has available. It’s teaching your engine to run leaner. You need to beware of overtraining, though. If you tip over the edge, it takes a long time to climb out of the drop on the other side. Altitude training with Patxi is safest for me because he is so knowledgeable and understands it better than most, but he also trusts me to tell him when I’ve had enough.
Lots of people say, “sleep high, train low,” but I think the second bit is less important. As long as it’s training, I don’t mind too much if it’s up at the top or down at the bottom. In Spain, we sleep high and train low most days as it’s bloody freezing up high with icy roads, and it gets pretty busy with skiing traffic on the roads at the weekends. The shape of the Sierra Nevada lends itself to it as well: It’s just a huge great lump rising out of the plain. So we hop in the cars in the morning and drive down to Granada to ride. We do a bit of team time trial training with new bikes too, so the quiet roads and warm weather are very handy as there is technical riding to be done, but a fair bit of hanging around too. If it’s a nice day, after the session we ride back up to get some climbing in the legs too. It’s a 30-kilometer drag, and the road can be pretty busy on Saturdays and Sundays. When you can be on the beach at Motril in 20 degrees Celsius and skiing in reliable powder within a couple of hours, that’s not surprising. When it’s grim in the mountains, we can usually persuade Patxi that the road along the beach would be the best place to head. As he’s a member of the new generation of DSs that like to ride with their teams rather than sit in the car barking out instructions, he’s very much up for that kind of training. A coffee. A beer. Why so serious?
There are no beaches in Utah, but I like America, and there is a cool West Coast vibe in Utah that chimes with my Tour of California experiences. I had a great time in Park City. Train hard. Kick back. Repeat.
Back in Europe in June, I went to the Tour of Switzerland, picked up a couple more stages and my fifth points jersey in five appearances there. I then had a brief visit home to Slovakia and got my fifth national road race championship, ensuring I’d have my own personal jersey for another year.
Whether I cared or not, it seemed I was ready for the Tour de France.
I would be riding the Tour de France alongside Alberto Contador at Tinkoff. We’d spoken together in the bunch ever since my very first European pro race, Paris–Nice in 2010, and had always got on well. There was no thought in my mind that we might have a problem racing a big event together. There was no need for me to be known as a co-leader or to have another kind of designation that other people might need to make them feel important. He was the leader. He had proved over