Jean Christophe Peraud Interview

Would I be up for interviewing Jean Christophe Peraud the following day since he was preparing for the Tour de France�over the phone? My first thought was (FFS) I speak French with a Delboy sort of panache and he'll slam down the phone as soon as he hears my lilting Welsh attempt at pidgeon French. It's not every day that you get to speak to a TdF finisher(top 10 placing last year), a Silver medallist(Beijing in 2008)and a Frenchman.  I quickly got together 10 or so questions and asked for his number.

This guy is a big, big name in cycling and to be fair he was pretty good in taking a phone call from me at 9.30pm French time. He explained that the hotel room was pretty noisy with teammates chatting. I imagined them sat on turbos in a huge row spinning out some horrific intervals before throwing themselves into a vat of pasta. Think of the scene from Belle Vue Rendezvous. In reality it turns out they were just watching the telly.

He was quick to point out that this now was just too much of a schedule and that he wanted to focus on JUST the Tour and the Mountain bike. Thankfully he laughed when I suggested giving the BMX a go. He was quick to point out that form after the tour will not be a problem but that he will spend most of the time practising technique since he hasn't ridden at Hadleigh and will not get an opportunity to do so until one week before THE race on Sunday 12th August. I asked him about intervals but he did stress that recovery was paramount and that after pouring over photos of the Hadleigh course and discussions with Julien (Absalon!) and the French team manager he would spend his time hammering technical sections back home. 

He did state that he likes the natural terrain courses but that he likes the technical dimensions of the Beijing and Hadleigh courses. He suggested that based only upon photos, the course up at Hadleigh seemd to be stretching the technical dimension of xc racing a step further and that this has always been one of his strengths so fingers crossed for him.

His response to this was that races have become shorter and so much more technically challenging that whilst having the physical ability he has been too long off a mountain bike and that the current MTB elite are so highly trained at pushing out huge efforts  in short bursts for an hour and half whilst riding increasingly aggressive courses  that he thinks it would take a while for him to adjust but would still struggle.

Jean Christope Peraud, however, has had an impressive season on the mountain bike. Even more so when you think that due to having no mountain bike ranking points he had to start from the back of the pack for 2012 and by Nove Mesto in May he had broken into the Top 20 of the elite men. This made me laugh to myself since I thought I had it hard at the back of the Masters field.

 

Jean Christophe certainly did agree with Armstrong. I guess that my last question had touched upon this but his perception was that mtb racing was tougher. Whilst road riders also have power outputs that seem unbelievable to the likes of us, they get more opportunities to recover over a 5/6 hour stage and therefore he does agree. He was also quite clear when he said that the best riders were on the road! He believes that the gap between him and Abasalon in a mountain bike race is not so great and may come down to seconds but that the difference between himself and a rider like Bradley Wiggins on the road is significant and can be minutes. It got me thinking are the best riders really on the road chasing lucrative contracts and if so what would it be like to see Wiggins chasing Schlek down over Worry Gill? 

Question 5 Is Lance Armstrong guilty or innocent?  He laughed and said that he didn't want to talk about that. I don't blame him but couldn't resist the question. 

It turns out his team AG2R have been pretty good allowing him to choose a bike and equipment for his mtb races. In fact it is unusual for such a high profile team and such a committed road rider to be allowed to compete on the mountain bike at all. He rode for Massi at Beijing and he did tell me what bike he will be riding at the Olympics but he asked me not to say! He said that there will be a fair amount of tape over the decals. You can probably guess which brand though can't you? 

When it comes to 29ers he is not a fan despite me eulogising about them. He rates my opinion on bike matters as zilch quite rightly! In fact he said that he could not see himself using one in the near future. He just doesn't feel as fast on one and the bigger wheels don't suit his riding. For the technical stuff he just doesn't have the faith. I was about to ask him about 650b and I could tell from the tone of his voice that he couldn't give a monkey about the size of one's wheels. Quite refreshing really I suppose.

It is the Olympics though and anything can happen I asked him about Killen's chances and he said that he just didn't think so and he seemed to place himself in the same bracket. He thinks that these guys are just so fast and so technically brilliant that they are sure-fire favourites. Anything can happen though! 

Will you and Absalon have any tactics or will you just go from the gun and ride for yourselves? He was keen to state that as team mates he will do everything to support Julien and he stressed that ultimately they will work together and be thinking of France. I tried pushing him a bit on this and replied with, " can you really work together and support someone in a race that is so short and so technical?" but he stuck to his guns. His selection, it seems is quite controversial in France since he has just turned 35 and that he has literally only raced a handful of times on a mountain bike since Beijing. 

His response was so quick that it was beyond doubt. Mountain bike. He has said to the French press that he would prefer to win the Olympic mountain bike race than the Tour de France which must've gone down well in a country that is desperate for its first Tour De France winner in almost 3 decades.

He doesn't like Pastis but he certainly enjoys the odd party in the off season but he says the calendar for road racing is just so jam packed that enjoying yourself too much is out of the question. Mountain bikers though have a more spread out season and he seemed to be suggesting that they can have more fun. That was the inference I drew anyway.

Despite being French and having the spirit of revolutionaries flowing through his veins he didn't know or care too much for luddites so he opted for the ubiquitous- in the peloton anyway- Power meter. I started asking about numbers and data but he didn't seem that interested in any of that stuff he told me that he will be using a SRM for the tour and that his resting heart rate was 38 bpm or maybe 40! 

The irony struck me that here was a guy at the top of his game gunning for the Tour de France and the Olympics and he didn't really care much about such things. He should loiter at the back of the Masters field. Some of those guys could tell you almost too much about their functional threshold power figures and resting HR and the fact that they literally have not done any training lately. The fibbers.

I never got to question 12. There was someone trying to get through on the other line or that is what he told me anyway! I was grateful anyhow. He had already spent 15 minutes talking to some star struck Welsh man so it seemed only fair to thank him and wish him all the best for the upcoming races: a very friendly guy and a great insight into the life of a professional cyclist. 

 

Jean Christophe will finish his preparations for Hadleigh with a Belgian Cup race in Boom on Aug 4

Advertise your business/event here »