Bradley Wiggins: My Time by Bradley Wiggins Read Free Book Online

off-season. We were mates, talking all the time. That winter, I rode some of the German Six Day races, on the tracks at Dortmund and Munich. Shane came with me as my mechanic and we had a massive laugh, not to mention some big drinking sessions; there’s a bit of that culture in the Six-Days.
    This might sound like a lot of drinking for an elite athlete, but I’m not exaggerating. For one thing, there was more of a drinking culture within the sport back then, certainly in the UK. The other point is that I was only twenty-two; people say to me, ‘You were in the
gruppetto
with us six years ago and now look how far you’ve come’, but they don’t fully appreciate what I used to be like. Marc Madiot, who managed me in 2002 and 2003, said recently that he would never have imagined me as a Tour contender; he didn’t really know me, he had no idea what I got up to in the winter. As I’ve explained elsewhere, I had another drinking winter in 2004 when I was trying to figure out my future after taking my first Olympic gold medal at Athens. In spite of the gold medals and even though I got close to the podium of the Tour in 2009, I’d say it was only in 2011 that I completely understood how much you need to work to get to the very top, what hard training is, and how much of a lifestyle change is involved. I simply didn’t train as much back then. I just never did the work. I’ve now realised what I’m capable of and I’ve done something about it.
    Shane was the mate I’d go down the pub with, but sometime in 2003 he stopped drinking and that was it: he hasn’t touched a drop since. He was working with British Cycling, but not on the track-endurance squad of which I was a part; he was quite heavily involved with the team sprinters, Chris Hoy and the others. I guess in a lot of ways it was like having a father who worked at British Cycling. He always looked out for me, although initially he wasn’t in charge of me or my programme. It was always Shane I’d ring if I had any problems. The thing with Shane is that from the minute we became mates this guy would do anything for me, literally anything. Then again, if you get on the wrong side of him you’ve got an enemy for life. But if you’re on the right side, he’ll take a bullet for you.
    Typically for Shane, he had established contact of a kind with Gary even though they hadn’t got on together in their racing days. After the winter of 2002, when we were drinking together and became friends, Shane went off to Australia for a training camp with the team sprinters. I hadn’t had contact with my dad for a couple of years but while he was out there Shane bumped into him at the Tasmanian carnivals. He came home from that winter break and said, ‘I met Gary out there, he’s living in Taz.’
    ‘How was he?’
    ‘He was in a really bad way, mate, he didn’t look so well. I bought him a drink one night and we talked through a few things and he asked a lot after you, you know.’
    Shane had looked after Gary because he was my dad, helped him out a bit and gave him a thousand dollars out of his own pocket and that was it; I think it was the last time Shane saw Gary, and pretty much the last I heard of him.
    Six years later, when Gary died in January 2008, it was Shane who phoned me at 4 a.m. to tell me he had heard from a mate in Australia that my dad was in hospital and it wasn’t looking good for him.
    Later I spoke with Shane a bit more about him and he said, ‘Fuck, Gary was talented, very talented, but he just didn’t put the work in. And he was a big drinker.’ I never knew my father as well as I know Shane; I do know he’s far more loyal than Gary ever was. Shane has been my role model for the last ten years and he says I’m like his son.
    When Simon Jones, my coach since 1998, left British Cycling in early 2007, Shane was brought in by Dave Brailsford to oversee the team pursuit squad. Simon had wanted us all to go on a massive training camp in Australia