It’s late November near Covent Garden, London. Commuters rush past as rain starts to fall. Cars edge along at walking pace. All the signs are that this will be an instantly forgettable morning in the capital. Or it would be if I wasn’t so nervous.
‘It’s 9.28am,’ I mutter to photographer Alex. ‘He should have been here 28 minutes ago.’ Fabian Cancellara, one of the greatest time-triallists and one-day riders of a generation, a man who is the living embodiment of that most Swiss of traits – precision timing – is late.
‘Apologies,’ says Cancellara in perfect English (he can speak five languages) when he arrives at Cyclefit, bike fitter for Trek Factory Racing and the location for our interview. ‘The traffic system is…’ he searches for the exact word ‘…difficult in London.’
The last time Cancellara was in the capital was July 2014 when he finished behind a rampant Marcel Kittel on Stage 3 of the Tour. ‘I’ve never really done London properly,’ he says. ‘My friends had a bachelor weekend [stag do] here. I would have joined them but I had to train. Never mind. I’ll have plenty of time when I’m retired…’
Closing time
Just two weeks before our interview Cancellara confirmed cycling’s worst-kept secret – that 2016 will be his final season of racing. After 16 years as a professional, Spartacus will brush off the cobble dust and ride into the Swiss sunset.
And who can blame him? In 2015 Cancellara broke his back twice, first at E3 Harelbeke in March and then during Stage 3 of the Tour de France while wearing yellow. Illness also forced him out of February’s Tour of Oman and September’s Vuelta a Espana. Could it be that his body can’t cope with the punishment any more?
‘Not at all,’ he says. ‘I’m 35 years old next year and physically I could still ride for four years without a problem. But 16 years as a professional cyclist is a long time and has involved a lot of sacrifice for myself, my wife and our two young girls. I don’t want to continue with a good contract and good salary – I want to win. That’s getting harder and harder. Ultimately, cycling is not my life, it’s my passion.’
I suggest to him this passion will see the multi-faceted Cancellara target numerous victories during his farewell year. His reply has the measured quality of an athlete still in recovery. He will, he says, focus on ‘not crashing’, ‘riding relaxed’ and ‘just enjoying the year’. ‘My training will become more intense but it’ll be fun, and that means better results,’ he says. We can be sure that a competitive Cancellara will be looking to add to the three Paris-Roubaix and three Tour of Flanders titles he’s won already. To that end Cancellara will undergo bike-fitting at the team’s December training camp in Calpe, Spain, and devise a specific training plan to replicate his annus mirabilis of 2013 when he won Flanders and Roubaix within a week of each other, having bounced back from an injury-ravaged year in 2012.
It was on Sunday 7th April 2013 when Blanco’s Sep Vanmarcke, and Zdenek Stybar and Stijn Vandenbergh of Omega-Pharma-Quick-Step, joined forces with Cancellara to form a leading quartet entering the Carrefour de l’Arbe pavé section with around 20km to go of the Paris-Roubaix one-day Classic. At high speed over the cobbles, both Quick-Step riders clipped spectators.
At the finish in the Roubaix velodrome, it was Spartacus versus Vandenbergh. The result never looked in doubt. Cancellara called on his years of experience, slowing down on the wooden track to force his younger contender to lead, before unleashing a perfectly timed late attack to take his third Roubaix title.
‘I had to play with him in the end,’ Cancellara said after getting the better of poor Vandenbergh.
It was a very different win to the one he secured seven days earlier in Flanders. During that race, Cancellara displayed his dominance of cobbled racing when he rode away from Peter Sagan after attacking the Slovak on the Paterberg with 8km to go. Or, as commentator Carlton Kirby breathlessly described on Eurosport, ‘Cancellara just put in the single biggest effort I’ve ever seen – and he destroyed Sagan.’
That week provided a microcosm of Cancellara’s career. After winning Flanders, he raced the semi-classic Scheldeprijs in Belgium and crashed after 50km, but still finished. The next day, he crashed again while on a recce of a cobbled section of Roubaix. Where most cyclists eat, sleep and ride, Cancellara wins, crashes and recovers.
Experience counts
The man known as Spartacus has forged a reputation for excelling when the levels of suffering are at their highest. While others are blinded by exertion, Cancellara retains a clarity of thought and speed of cadence that sees him attack at the most improbable times. Often it looks like suicide. For Cancellara, it’s science meets instinct.
‘I always have a rough idea of when to make a move, but a lot of race-winning moves are based on intuition. In many ways that’s become more important over the years as the more successful I’ve been, the more the spotlight has shone on me. When I move, the peloton moves.
‘It will be interesting to see if riders like John Degenkolb and Alexander Kristoff can still attack in four years like they do now. To be strong is great, but that’s not everything.’
As one of the perennial favourites for the Classics, and the de facto ‘patron’ of the pro peloton, Cancellara is always closely watched by his rivals. ‘How you handle it is key,’ he says. ‘I’ve always handled pressure well. Yeah, I’m nervous before races – especially the past few years, which kills my hunger – but I’ve managed it.’
There are many theories as to what makes Cancellara such a strong rider (other than those oak-like thighs). Some commentators argue it’s down to his positioning and knack of always keeping out of trouble. Others cite his high cadence as his secret to spring Classics success, and that has some grounding. Each time Cancellara has won Roubaix, the course has remained dusty dry. When he raced the wet ‘Roubaix’ stage of the 2014 Tour de France, he finished fifth, bemoaning the slippery cobbles for forcing him to reduce his rpm.
Cyclist has a theory it’s simply economy of movement. Watch Cancellara in motion and his upper body, head and frame are frozen in time. There’s no lateral movement, meaning every ounce of energy projects the bike forward. His chamois remains glued to the saddle, too. It’s a wise tactic for an athlete over 80kg and 6ft 1in tall, as studies show that heavier riders lose energy fast if they go from weight bearing to non-weight bearing. So committed to this philosophy is Cancellara that he rarely leaves the saddle, even when sprinting in the Roubaix velodrome.
That economy hints at his time-trial pedigree. He won the Junior World Time-Trial Championships in 1998 and 1999, before winning his first senior title in Austria in 2006. He went on to claim a further three world titles over the next four years, as well as Olympic gold in 2008 and numerous prologues around the world including the Tour de France. But in 2009, something changed.
‘I remember the Vuelta that year. The prologue took place in the Netherlands. Usually, like the other riders, I’d warm up for 45 minutes but this time I did just 15 minutes. I’d lost my motivation… but still won. It’s why I can understand that Cavendish is looking to the track in Rio. If you do everything the same, you won’t get the same out.’
Cancellara has since fallen down the time-trial ranks but, according to the team at Cyclefit, he could still dominate if it weren’t for what they call the ‘UCI’s archaic 5cm rule’. It decrees that the tip of the saddle must sit 5cm or more behind the bottom bracket and that the tip of the aerobars from the bottom bracket axle is no more than 75cm, unless the rider is given a morphological exemption.
‘The rule means he’s trying to ride within the parameters of someone who’s 5ft 10in,’ says Phil Cavell of Cyclefit. ‘Fabian could probably go up to 90cm, which would give him greater freedom to generate power. The same applies to his road bike.’ Then again, Cancellara has always made the most of what genetics and the environment gave him…
Italy meets Switzerland
He was born in Wohlen bei Bern on 18 March 1981 to Donato and Rosa Cancellara. Donato came to Switzerland from Italy when he was 18. He met Swiss girl Rosa, they married and had their only child, Fabian, raising the future star in a small town called Hinterkappelen, near Bern.
‘My dad arrived with little money and just one bag. He did all sorts of work to survive. He was also a cycle tourist rider and raced some events around the city. One day, when I was 13, I asked if I could have a go on his bike.’
It was the start of a successful sporting career, but things could have been so different. If Donato had banned brakepads in favour of shinpads, young Fabian could well have been lost to football.
‘I played a lot. At 13 my life was football and cycling. It was Monday football, Tuesday cycling, Wednesday football, Thursday cycling, Friday cycling, Saturday football, Sunday cycling. I was either racing or playing football. I was an attacker and I couldn’t have been as good as Messi, Ronaldo and Rooney, but in football there are more opportunities for “less-good” sportsmen to make it. In cycling, everyone has to be really good.’
Cycling eclipsed football for young Fabian, and after finishing second at the 2000 Under-23 World Time-Trial Championships he turned professional with a team deemed by many as the greatest ever – Italian-based Mapei. Mapei existed for 10 seasons from 1993 to 2002 and in that time won an incredible 653 times.
Owner Giorgio Squinzi recruited the greatest Classics riders of the day, including Johan Museeuw and Michele Bartoli, giving a young Cancellara an insight into what it takes to win a Monument. Mapei were also vocal opponents of doping (despite Museeuw later confessing to doping), with Squinzi referred to as ‘a man of science and rationality’ by Charly Wegelius in his book Domestique.
‘In 2000 we undertook technical bike-fitting at the Mapei Centre and were the original marginal gainers,’ says Cancellara. ‘That wasn’t as big a focus at Fassa Bortolo [2003-2005] and even less so under Bjarne [Riis at CSC between 2006-2010]. It’s gone full circle as there’s now a much greater scientific focus with Trek.’
Cancellara won his first pro race in 2001 at the Tour of Rhodes prologue – ‘I beat Bradley Wiggins into second’ – before riding into a different league three years later by winning the Tour de France prologue. It was the first time Cancellara wore yellow. Eleven years later, in 2015, he wore the maillot jaune for the 29th day in his career, the most by any rider not to have won the race. He sits 12th in the all-time rankings of days in yellow, one behind Chris Froome.
Cancellara counts 2006 as perhaps the year that had the biggest effect on his career, when he won Paris-Roubaix for the first time. ‘It altered things in many ways. It’s the biggest one-day race, and Switzerland hadn’t won Roubaix since 1923. It also brought more media attention. That and winning the World Time-Trial Champs, getting married and having a baby made it a huge year.’
Professional reflections
‘The sport has changed a lot,’ says Cancellara. ‘Now you race less but it’s more intense. Earlier in my career I was riding with a different generation [the Armstrong era]. Now, a young rider has a greater chance to perform well.
‘The teams also have more structure and there’s more specificity with training.’ He smiles. ‘It’s more Sky style. They brought in things like reverse periodisation [keeping intensity high in winter and increasing volume as the season nears] but no one knows the exact details. Riders must have to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
‘Nutrition’s changed a lot, too. We now have a cook and things are more precise. But I think there’s much more potential with food and science. You can manipulate the type of carbohydrates and protein, and the timing of ingestion, for different results. Are you allergic or do you need gluten-free? Lactose-free? Eggs or no eggs? Lots of different combinations for better results. Though, of course, what Sky do with their support staff and what we do with quality food costs money. You can’t cut corners.’
It sounds like Cancellara is already considering a wider role in the sport. ‘I want to continue with Trek but not in a PR or ambassadorial way. It’s something both of us want.’
Cancellara’s inquisitive nature and devil-in-the-detail approach means bike design could be one option, and he’s already had significant input into the Trek Domane. It’s also clear that Cancellara enjoys the quieter lifestyle of living in Switzerland, and doesn’t feel the need to retain a high public profile. It begs the question, if Cancellara does head down the bike-design route, would the result possess the Italian flair or Swiss precision from his genetic lineage?
‘I’m definitely more Swiss the older I get. The Swiss are more precise. Italians are always late. Today, yes I was late but I blame that on the traffic. Italians are open and very much about the family. Swiss are more closed. Mind you, that probably means I’m still a combination of the two!’
Perhaps it’s this marriage of nature and nurture, science and intuition, that has made Fabian Cancellara one of the most successful riders of a generation.