The Australian races are the furthest away from Europe that the peloton gets all year. So, how did the riders pass the time getting there?
Composite image: Gruber Images and John McArthur/Unsplash. No, Lachlan Morton wasn’t there. Yes, it was impossible to find a photo of a bunch of pros watching a movie on a plane.
If you’re into stats – and aren’t most cyclists? – the start of the pro cycling season, in distant Australia, has a particularly notable one: the Australian bloc of racing marks the furthest point travelled from the European base of the vast majority of the pro peloton, with Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race the single most distant event.
For a sport contested by athletes that are used to spending vast amounts of time travelling, it’s clear that fact still has the ability to shock.
There’s no getting away from it: Australia is very far away, leading to many, many hours of time to kill on a plane, flying to a place on the other side of the world to do your job – a brutal (and boring) reality even if you’re a professional athlete.
Those hours need to be passed, one way or another. How? Well, I spent much of the weekend running between riders to ask them just that: for the films and TV series they watched, if they’re on Team Neck Pillow or not, and more.
“So, Simon, what are your thoughts on the Fast and Furious franchise?”
Even if these athletes are, in most ways, on a completely different plane (ha) of physical existence to us mere mortals, the boredom and intrigue of long-haul travel still offers at least that common ground.
Here’s what they did.
Guillaume Martin Guyonnet (Groupama-FDJ United)
Context notes: In the lobby of the hotel, at the end of a long and interesting interview that we’ll publish soon.
Martin Guyonnet: I can’t sleep a lot on planes – I did, but not enough – so I watched two movies, I read a little bit, I wrote a little bit, and I played chess also. With the team, we have a few chess players – my teammates got me into it, and I am completely addicted.
The best one, and I want to challenge him, is Thibaud Gruel. Here, Tom Donnenwirth is quite good, but right now I’m a bit better than him. But one of the best in the bunch is Axel Zingle [Visma-Lease a Bike], my former teammate. But you know, he was often injured last year, so when you are injured you have time to play chess. And that was what it was like for me last year, at the Vuelta a España I broke a vertebra and then I could play a lot.
Maggie Coles Lyster (Human Powered Health)
Context notes: A couple of minutes before the race start, after taking a moment to congratulate her for her recent win and acknowledge that her partner Joe Laverick is both a friend of Escape and a great writer.
Coles Lyster: I think I slept the entire time, almost. I don’t remember watching anything! Maybe I did watch something, but I just kept falling asleep. But if I was watching something, I’m into The Lincoln Lawyer at the moment so it would have been that.
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