Ned and Dave do the Vuelta

OnTour

David Millar, back in the days when he was racing it, once described the Vuelta as a “hot little bastard” of a race.



This, I always thought, was an extremely well-wrought phrase, born from the ghastly lived experience of pinning on a number and then suffering the whims of a course designed with a penchant for sweltering dual carriageways and vertiginous goat tracks. A helter-skelter mash-up of a Grand Tour played out against a backdrop of endless arid vistas and swollen Asturian skies. Nasty, frankly, but in a fun way, at least for those of us watching on.



He did rather well at the Vuelta, did Mr. Millar, racking up five stage victories, two of which straddled the chasm of his doping ban (so you should make your own minds up about the context). His last pre-bust win was at the 2003 Vuelta, his first post-bust win was at the 2006 edition of the race, where, racing clean, he beat Fabian Cancellara by the merest fraction of a second. A “hot little bastard” indeed.

These days, he experiences the Vuelta from a rather different perspective. Horizontally, for the most part. Let me explain.

The 2017 race was the third Vuelta that David and I have jointly commentated on for ITV’s highlights show. I do not think that I am breaking news (or hearts) when I confess, publically, that we are nowhere near Spain, as we commentate. In fact, it’s weirder than that. David Millar, a resident of Spain, leaves Spain for a month and takes up residency at an Ealing hotel, in West London.



Every morning, he greets the hotel staff, as if he were the Major in Fawlty Towers, and heads off on his Brompton to work. Two minutes later, he arrives. His hotel in no more than three hundred yards away from Ealing Studios, home to a significant portion of British film history, and latterly to ITV’s Vuelta operation. It’s probably fair to say that David’s experience of working on the Vuelta has lost some of its physical intensity over the years.



I have generally arrived at the studios an hour or so earlier, and set about some intensive highlighter work, as well as starting to practice my ropey pronunciation of the key climbs of the day, repeating their teasingly difficult names until they sounds generically, and implausibly garbled and therefore authentic:

‘Colleda de la Hoz’ ‘Coyeda da Oz’ ‘Coead’aOth’ ‘Coyya’oth’ ‘Coth’



A matter of seconds before the live pictures from Spain flicker onto our screens, the door to our tiny commentary booth swings open, and the former time-triallist breezes into work.



‘What’s happening on the bike race, Ned?’



I look round. ‘Oh, you know. Stuff.’ Then I furnish him with all the salient details. ‘Bunch of blokes up the road.’



‘How many k?’



‘82 to go.’ This, for David, is the signal for lunch. And every day it is the same.



The peculiarities of commentating for highlights only mean that, unlike our endless live broadcasts on the Tour de France (for which, let me assure you, we are indeed in France), we spend a good portion of the day watching, rather than talking. In the knowledge that the highlights show is only an hour long, and that the programme can only contain around 45 minutes actual commentary, we do no waste our precious words on the early phase of the race. There is no point. And, besides, there are Singapore Fried Noodles to be eaten. David is capable of demolishing an entire plate in the time it take Thomas de Gendt to sweep up maximum points over a Cat Three climb.



‘Right. Wake me up if anything happens.’ With 73 kilometres remaining, and 38k until the next climb of the day, David assumes his usual pre-commentary position, flat out on his back, eyes closing gently as he listens to the soothing white noise of a bike race; helicopter rotor blades and motorbikes. This serene preparation for the rigours of commentary has become known as reverse planking and is the closest thing to Sport in David Millar’s life right now. And so it goes. The race rumbles on, as the athlete rests.



And yet, what is most remarkable is the sudden transformation he is able to effect, the flicking of a hyper-alert commentator switch. The signal for his sudden re-emergence into the brightly-lit world of the expert summarizer might be a Bardet crash, a Contador attack or a Froome mechanical. Either way, it is awe-inspiring; something to behold.

Springing back into life, David is straight back into the action. In a split second he has grasped the bigger picture, as well as the minutiae of the race situation. I have no idea how he does it. His eyes light up. The words come tumbling out.



“So, this is perfect for Nibali, with Zakarin on the attack, Kelderman’s forced to put his team on the front and…”



And, boom. It’s game on. Suddenly we are both poised on the edge of our seats, literally, and engrossed in the action unfolding on the monitor in front of our desk. When one of us is talking, the other is looking elsewhere, checking facts, pointing at a detail on the screen, moving the discussion on. It’s team work, and it’s not only great fun, it’s also extremely satisfying. We know our roles, we know our traits, we know the rhythm of our words. The kilometres fly past and we hurtle, collectively towards the finish line. The race, the hot little bastard, takes over. ‘Matteo Trentin! Again!’



And then it’s over for another day. Quiet sweeps back into the booth.

I shuffle papers, update a few notes, close my laptop. David picks up whatever cap he has picked for the day, and makes his way to the exit. I follow him out of the studio compound. We roll through the gates on our folding bikes.



‘See you tomorrow.’



‘See you tomorrow, David.’



It’s the Vuelta, but maybe not as he knew it. I wonder which he prefers.