Jonathan Vaughters helps celebrate Garmin's greatest victory. (James Startt)
The team’s emphasis on the TTT nets its biggest-ever win.
By Joe Lindsey
Jonathan Vaughters is not a taciturn man. In response to a question about doping at the post-race press conference Sunday, specifically why many in cycling don’t like to say anything at all on the subject, the Garmin-Cervelo team manager quipped, “I’m more chatty than most people,” and then delivered a long response.
But earlier that morning, the normally talkative Vaughters was unusually quiet. It was the day of the team time trial, one of the most prestigious stages in the Tour de France and one which Vaughters had coveted for his team since its first Tour.
He’d lain awake nights pondering the order in which the nine Garmin riders would start and trade turns. The pressure was only turned up when, on stage 1, Garmin’s entire GC roster – Christian Vande Velde, Ryder Hesjedal and Tom Danielson – were caught behind a crash and lost 1:55.
Even the morning of the team time trial, said Millar, Vaughters couldn’t stop tinkering. “(Jonathan) was a walking ball of nerves. He didn’t hide the fact that he was putting everything into this. I think he came into each of our rooms 10 times this morning giving us new ideas, and we’d say ‘Jonathan, calm down; we know what we’re doing.’”
“The order was really important,” Vaughters explained of why they started with lead-out man Julian Dean, who is not known as a time triallist. “We knew Julian wouldn’t be that good but that we could burn him hard at the start and he’d make five or six kilometers.” Dave Zabriskie was second to last, just ahead of sprinter Tyler Farrar.
“That was key,” said Vaughters afterward. “We decided that those two guys would do the max, and whether they could hang on the last five k’s was irrelevant. But the way I lined them up, if they popped (off the back), it didn’t affect anyone in front of them, because guys came back into the same position in line.”
Garmin’s obsession extended to equipment. Wheel sponsor Mavic unveiled a slippery front wheel system that smoothed the transition between the tire and rim bed. The team’s sports scientist, Robby Ketchell, designed a special time trial helmet in conjunction with Giro that was specifically made for the stage; no other team had access to it.
Everything – from equipment to start order and even rider position on the bike – was informed by extensive modeling of real-world aerodynamic and weather conditions that Ketchell did using data collection and a sophisticated algorithm that filters data to separate aerodynamic clues from the noise of open-road conditions.
At the line, Garmin’s singular focus netted them an extraordinary haul of results: a stage win; a four-second margin to three other teams, which produced the leader’s yellow jersey for Thor Hushovd; and the lead in the teams classification.
Three years after a win in the team time trial at the Giro d’Italia that put Vande Velde in the leader’s jersey there, and two years after a narrow miss in a Tour de France team time trial, Garmin accomplished its biggest goal.
Ketchell said it was impossible to add up what all the changes and tweaks equated to in terms of time advantages, but said everything had to go right to have a chance to win, a point Vaughters echoed in response to a question about whether HTC, had they not lost Bernhard Eisel to a crash in the opening kilometers, might have beat Garmin.
“We knew this race would be extremely tight. You simply can’t make any mistakes. A flat tire, you can call that bad luck but taking a corner too fast is a mistake. Had we made a mistake, we would not have won.”
Garmin started seventh, meaning they would not know that their time would stand as the fastest until the last team, Omega Pharma-Lotto, finished, some time later. The tension built as one team after another crossed the line short of Garmin’s time of 24:48 – an average speed of more than 55kph.
Sky set the fastest time at the first check, but faded in the final kilometers to finish third. HTC lost Eisel and was fifth, just five seconds back. But the wild card was BMC Racing, with Cadel Evans three seconds ahead of Hushovd on overall time, and starting second to last.
They were just two seconds back of Garmin at the first time check and faded to six seconds at the second check before crossing the line in second place, four seconds in arrears, and giving Hushovd the leader’s jersey by just one second. As the time flashed on the TV screen at the Garmin bus, a huge cheer went up from the support staff gathered outside, and the riders disembarked wearing ear-to-ear smiles.
“The tension on the bus was unbelievable,” said Millar. “Our hearts were just racing and we’re so close because many of us have been together here for four years; it was just great, just magic.”
For Vaughters specifically, there was a poignancy to the win. It came on the 10th anniversary, almost to the day, of his proudest moment as a racer – a team time trial win in the Tour de France with Credit Agricole, alongside a phenomenally talented young teammate from Norway named Thor.
As a vocal anti-doping advocate, did he see it as a sign of cleaner racing, he was asked? “The broad, broad majority of the peloton is riding clean. There is no way we could accomplish what we have if that were not the case,” he said, adding that everyone “should be very proud of the sport.”
Was it more special than a win in another kind of stage, say if Hushovd had managed to win on Mont des Alouettes the day before? “Absolutely,” he responded, clearly emotional. “I love this event. Watching the beauty of it and the teamwork, to me this is the real spirit of cycling.”
On the right leg of the shorts Garmin riders wear is the slogan: Innovate, Sacrifice, Unity, Succeed. For Garmin, but especially Vaughters, today was a reward not just for the work he and the team have done, but a validation of the personality of the team – one that stems from Vaughters himself.
It’s been a long road to this point for Garmin and its manager. All teams take on the personality of their leader, but perhaps none more so than this one, down to the jaunty argyle motif on its uniforms.
And for Vaughters, the team time trial is the most important thing in the world because of what, to him, the discipline embodies: the triumph of teamwork and sacrifice. To win is not just an affirmation of the work he and the team have done, but the values it holds, including that, sometimes, gambles pay off.
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