L'ECOLE DE LA RUE

The wheeltracks of many a young rider’s quest for pro successweave across France. Vern Pitt speaks to a selection of those who moved there to make them

- Vern Pitt

It was 11 pm when the car pulled up outside the team apartment in Marseille, France. Mid-December rolled out its customary inauspicious welcome of lashing rain and a chilling howling gale for the pale skinny 19-year-old from Birmingham who exited it. There was no one else home as he made his way inside and hunkered down for the night. Alone. It was the start of something that would eventually see him realize dreams of winning a Monument and stages of the Tour de France. But he didn’t know any of that as the shutters banged and the constant rain rapped on them. “What the hell am I doing?” thought Dan Martin, then of Vélo-Club La Pomme Marseille, now Israel Start-Up Nation.

What he was doing was following a well-worn road to cycling’s elite levels that bore the wheel tracks of British riders from throughout the post-war period. Though Belgium and the Netherlands are also popular, and Italy and Spain have been used as stepping stones for aspiring pros over the years, few countries offer the full gamut of the terrain combined with the race program, bunch depth and the history and reverence of cycling that France has.

Most importantly, it’s a place where team scouts look for talent; you can be noticed there and that is crucial if you’re to make it past the development ranks into a professional team.

Martin’s experience of that first day is by no means unique. Speaking to those who have taken that route, both the ones who found success and those that didn’t, it’s striking how little the adventure has changed despite the way the world is now nothing like it was decades ago.