Tim Krabbé > Quotes

“In interviews with riders that I've read and in conversations that I've had with them, the same thing always comes up: the best part was the suffering. In Amsterdam I once trained with a Canadian rider who was living in Holland. A notorious creampuff: in the sterile art of track racing he was Canadian champion in at least six disciplines, but when it came to toughing it out on the road he didn't have the character.
The sky turned black, the water in the ditch rippled, a heavy storm broke loose. The Canadian sat up straight, raised his arms to heaven and shouted: 'Rain! Soak me! Ooh, rain, soak me, make me wet!'
How can that be: suffering is suffering, isn't it?
In 1910, Milan—San Remo was won by a rider who spent half an hour in a mountain hut, hiding from a snowstorm. Man, did he suffer!
In 1919, Brussels—Amiens was won by a rider who rode the last forty kilometers with a flat front tire. Talk about suffering! He arrived at 11.30 at night, with a ninety-minute lead on the only other two riders who finished the race. The day had been like night, trees had whipped back and forth, farmers were blown back into their barns, there were hailstones, bomb craters from the war, crossroads where the gendarmes had run away, and riders had to climb onto one another's shoulders to wipe clean the muddied road signs.
Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns into memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature's payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. 'Good for you.' Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lay with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately.
That's why there are riders.
Suffering you need; literature is baloney.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Do I clap along with them?
No. By applauding I would be saying: Hell, Reilhan, it wasn't that important, it was just good fun. I would be saying: You only beat a part of me, and the rest, what does it care, it applauds you.
But Reilhan has beaten all of me.
He who applauds his victor denies that, and belittles him.
Being a good loser is a despicable evasion, an insult to the sporting spirit. All good losers should be barred from practicing a sport.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Road racing imitates life, the way it would be without the corruptive influence of civilization. When you see an enemy lying on the ground, what's your first reaction? To help him to his feet.
In road racing, you kick him to death.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Suffering is an art.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“En Bram was zijn zoon. Juist omdat hij het niet was - van je eigen zoon zou je verplicht zijn te houden, waardoor je altijd moest twijfelen of je het wel echt deed; van Bram hield hij omdat het Bram was.”
― Tim Krabbé, Een tafel vol vlinders

“On a bike your consciousness is small. The harder you work, the smaller it gets. Every thought that arises is immediately and utterly true, every unexpected event is something you'd known all along but had only forgotten for a moment. A pounding riff from a song, a bit of long division that starts over and over, a magnified anger at someone, is enough to fill your thoughts.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“signs. Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature’s payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. ‘Good for you.’ Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Dan was hij niet boos, zoals je huis niet boos is als je met vakantie bent geweest.”
― Tim Krabbé, Een tafel vol vlinders

“Het voelde alsof zij de enigen op de wereld waren met een ziel.”
― Tim Krabbé, Een tafel vol vlinders

“Any excuse to throw a rider out of a race is OK by me, but not that kind of inborn lack of athletic skill. That's not what racing is about.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Meyrueis, Lozère, June 26, 1977. Hot and overcast. I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Vind je het goed als ik jou gebruik om mijn leven aan diggelen te gooien?”
― Tim Krabbé, Een tafel vol vlinders

“The champions have better bikes, more expensive shoes, many more pairs of cycling shorts than we do, but they have the same roads.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“The first climb won't be for another thirty kilometers, at Les Vignes.
I'm longing for it, just like when I'm doing it I'll long for it to be over.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.”
― Tim Krabbé

“Shifting is a kind of painkiller, and therefore the same as giving up. After all, if I wanted to kill my pain, why not choose the most effective method? Road-racing is all about generating pain.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Una etapa así iba rápido, pero el cálculo de la clasificación requería mucho tiempo. Pero era también lo más divertido y lo más emocionante, porque no podía nunca prever de inmediato las consecuencias de una etapa. Después de un par de etapas iba ya más rápido, porque mi madre necesitaba a veces las pinzas, y entonces se tenían que producir de repente un montón de abandonos. Pero nunca por parte de los importantes, en eso sí que me fijaba. Cuando volvía del colegio, lo primero que hacía siempre era mirar la cuerda de la ropa. Algo me recorría el cuerpo cuando veía mis calzoncillos tendidos, sujetos por Bahamontes y Nencini.”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“Después de unos años, ese chicle dejó de existir. Entonces, nos pusimos a recortar nosotros mismos nuestros ciclistas, en cajas de zapatos viejas: Darrigade, Gaul, Nencini, Anquetil. Mi favorito era Martin van den Borgh. Siempre disparaba su tarjeta un poco más fuerte. Por eso a veces golpeaba el suelo, y rebotaba como un búmeran. Si pasaba eso con van den Borgh, se permitía que fuese lanzado de nuevo».”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“La fotografía de Armstrong con sus siete maillots amarillos en Twitter no me pareció deplorable ni descarada, sino un mensaje sucinto: he ganado mis Tours en las mismas condiciones.”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“Hacia 1990, Armstrong, junto con chicos como Greg Strock, Erich Kaiter y Ernie LeChuga, formaba parte del grupo de los mejores juniors americanos que fueron enviados a los Campeonatos del Mundo y a los que se preparó rápidamente para los Juegos Olímpicos. Strock era considerado el mayor talento. A los diecisiete años, y bajo la dirección del entrenador de la federación Chris Carmichael (que fue después el entrenador personal de Armstrong), le suministraron inyecciones, a veces hasta tres al día.”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“El hecho de que ganase siete Tours con juego sucio no cambia nada al hecho de que los ganó de manera justa. La anulación de estos Tours fue un gesto vacuo, habría sido más lógico devolver sus Tours a Landis y a Contador.”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“¿a quién no le gustaría reencontrarse con un amor de juventud que hubiese vuelto a ser joven otra vez? Hay tantas cosas que reaparecen: el orgullo de ver que medio pelotón ha abandonado, pero tú no; el odio que sientes por ti mismo cuando dejas escapar un grupo en el que deberías haber estado; el sublime desfallecer de la escapada en solitario lograda; el espantoso desfallecer del intento de escapada fallido; el horror de sentir dolor; el goce de infligir dolor; la esperanza de que en la montonera que oyes por detrás de ti haya muchos contrincantes...”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“Uno cae a setenta metros de profundidad y sale indemne (Wim van Est, 1951), otro (Emilio Richli, esprínter suizo, 1934) se cae en un sur place y se muere. Es esta imprevisibilidad lo que hace que el miedo a la caída no abandone nunca a los ciclistas.”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“His specialty was the sprint for sixth place; in that he was truly invincible.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“«Las reglas de mi Tour eran las mismas que las del Tour normal, y corrían incluso los mismos ciclistas. Empecé con cajetillas de cerillas, pero ocupaban demasiado. Entonces me pasé a pinzas de tender ropa. Escribía sobre ellas el nombre y el país de los ciclistas.”
― Tim Krabbé, La etapa decimocuarta: 71 historias de ciclismo

“I take the curves like a wooden puppet, afraid that my center of gravity is going to wind up in the ravine.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Battoowoo Greekgreek.”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider

“Jesus Christ. The nineteen walks over to the glass of forty-three, takes two slugs, wipes its mouth, rubs its chin thoughtfully, stands there like that for a few minutes and then turns to the audience with furrowed brow, arms raised in surrender. Forty-three divided by twenty, that would be a lot easier, wouldn’t it?”
― Tim Krabbé, The Rider