The Bus - How One Moment of Chaos Became Cycling Folklore

The Tour de France is the biggest event in cycling, but it is much more than that. It is the biggest annual sporting event in the world, and just to wear the Maillot Jaune is usually regarded as the pinnacle of a cyclist’s career.

In 2013 Gerry Ryan’s team Orica GreenEDGE lined up for its second attempt at the great race. This was shaping as a defining moment for the fledgling Australian squad. They had won some major one-day races and smaller tours in their first year, but they had not yet delivered on the world’s biggest stage.

Do not get me wrong. It had been a stellar debut in 2012. Matt Goss made the podium in five stages, twice runner up and three times third, and he finished third in the race for the green jersey. But near enough was not good enough. Gerry knew the Tour de France was the event the whole world watched. The riders needed to be at the top of their game to take the next step. The fact that the 2013 Tour was the one hundredth edition meant even more global attention. Seventy percent of a team’s exposure comes in the month of July.

The race began on the majestic island of Corsica, and the headlines after stage one were all GreenEDGE, but for the wrong reasons.

Standing at the finish line of the opening stage from Porto Vecchio to Bastia, Gerry noticed that every team bus was lined up in the compound just past the finish line except for his. He asked team manager Shayne Bannan where their bus was. Shayne told him the hotel was only five hundred metres away, so the riders would just ride straight there.

Gerry looked at him. “And what if Gossy wins the stage. Where will the media gather”

Matt Goss was a genuine chance to win the opener and take the yellow jersey. An urgent call went out and the bus driver, the great Spanish character Garikoitz Atxk, better known as Gari, drove onto the course towards the finish.

As he approached the line, he thought the gantry looked a bit low. His only passenger was the recently retired Robbie McEwen, who told him not to worry. “Gari, all the other buses have fit under it. They have waved you through. It will be fine.”

Gari eased forward with some trepidation. Then came an almighty bang as the bus smashed into the gantry. The air conditioning unit on the roof exploded and smoke billowed into the air. It was absolute mayhem.

We laugh about it now, but at the time it was deadly serious. Phil Liggett was in the commentary box right next to the impact. He yelled at Paul Sherwen, “Let’s get out of here, it is coming down.” SBS commentator Matt Keenan heard Christian Prudhomme, the race director, shouting, “What in the blazes is going on” or the French equivalent. “Get this sorted.”

The first attempt to move the bus caused the entire finish structure to tilt sideways. I thought it was going to collapse.

Meanwhile the peloton was thundering towards the twelve kilometre to go mark at sixty five kilometres an hour. Could the bus be removed in time It did not seem possible.

The organisers began looking at alternatives. There was a timing setup at the three kilometre to go point and finishing there looked like the only option. But it was at a roundabout and would have been a disaster. There would have been crashes everywhere and the whole world would have blamed GreenEDGE.

Shayne Bannan went pale. “We could get kicked out for this.”

Messages went out to teams that the finish had been moved, but not everyone heard it. Some managers told their riders. Others did not get the news. Chaos was looming.

Back at the finish line, frantic work was underway. Someone suggested letting the air out of the bus tyres to lower it. With the help of a very clever forklift driver, Gari managed to reverse the bus out of the swaying structure just in time. Disaster was avoided. Only recently did I learn that it was my friend Dianne Townsend who suggested letting the air out of the tyres.

Managers jumped on the radio to tell their riders the finish was back where it should be. Some riders were hearing this for the first time. Matt Goss told me later, “I heard Whitey say the finish would be at the finish line and I thought where else would it be”

Unfortunately, Gossy crashed in the final dash when he was in the perfect position. Marcel Kittel took the stage.

The incident made headlines around the world. The GreenEDGE bus was on front pages everywhere, including the New York Times. Gerry Ryan was worried. He knew that unless the team won a stage or did something remarkable, the media would keep focusing on the bus crash.

Gerry always said that although this was a bike team and results mattered, we were also in the entertainment industry. Dan Jones had travelled with me on earlier Tours and made a couple of comical Detour films. Gerry saw the raw talent in this young bloke from Sale and brought him into the team. Dan had become the team’s videographer and unofficial psychologist. His Backstage Pass series was showing the world a side of cycling no one had seen before.

Dan had released a music video the year before when Call Me Maybe went viral and pushed GreenEDGE to the top of YouTube. He was about to release another one featuring the team playing inflatable guitars to AC DC. They had ten thousand inflatable guitars ready to hand out along the route.

But Gerry put his foot down. “Dan, you can put that video on hold. We are not releasing it until the team wins a stage.”

He told the riders the next day, “As good as the publicity has been, if we do not win a stage we will only be remembered as passengers on the bus.”

The heat was on. Literally. The temperature was in the mid thirties and the air conditioning on the bus was broken. The riders were sweating on and off the bike.

But redemption was coming.

On day three, Simon Gerrans delivered the team’s first ever Tour de France stage win, beating Peter Sagan in a brilliant finish. The very next day the team won the team time trial in Nice, putting Gerro into the yellow jersey. A couple of days later he passed it to teammate Daryl Impey in one of the most selfless acts the sport has seen.

There was no question. Gerry Ryan’s GreenEDGE team had made the statement he wanted.