One-Way Ticket

The new memoir tracing story of cycling since the 1980s, through the eyes of Jonathan Vaughters, founder of team Education First and one of the sport's most towering figures. Jonathan Vaughters' story is the story of modern cycling. From his early years as a keen cyclist in his hometown in Colorado to his unflinching rite of passage as a professional rider with US Postal to his elevation as one of cycling's most resilient, ethical and intelligent team bosses, the highs and lows of his career have mirrored those of the sport itself. Vaughters has had a front-row seat for most of the major events in cycling over the past three decades. He was both a former teammate of Lance and a leading witness against him. And he went on to renounce doping and start the first pro cycling team to dedicate itself to clean riding, which has grown into one of the most successful teams competing today and started a movement that has swept across the sport. This is also not simply a story of races won and lost: Vaughters shows readers how he navigated the complex, international business of building Slipstream into a world-class cycling team. Over the past decade, he has led the sport out of the scandal-plagued Armstrong era. By presenting the world with a team made of talented racers built around a rigorous approach to clean racing, he set a new standard within cycling that has since spread across the peloton. Written from the unique perspective of both a racer and a team manager, One-Way Ticket gives the complete story of what it takes to build a winning team and repair the reputation of a sport.

"Part personal history, part confessional, One-Way Ticket is also a love letter to a beautiful, brutal, hopelessly corrupt, yet paradoxically pure sport. It chronicles Vaughters’s saga as an athlete, but there are many more layers to the story, and that’s what makes it essential reading for any cycling fan and for anyone who followed Armstrong’s rise and fall. It covers the deep history of American bike racing in a way that has never been done. And it’s an honest, unflinching look at cycling’s darkest era from someone who fully lived it." —Outside Magazine

"Vaughters rewrites the book on cycling’s doping era. One-Way Ticket *sheds new light on pro cycling's 'EPO era.'" —*VeloNews

"The best insight yet into the challenges of running a team." —Road.cc

“One-Way Ticket offers a behind-the-scenes perspective of a complex man who, despite being scarred by professional racing, remains dedicated to the sport.” —Library Journal

Auteur

Jonathan Vaughters

Échantillon de lecture
1
Dead Last
I’m not really sure why I signed up for my first bike race.
I was crap at school, and crap at sports. I had very little coordination, very small muscles, and was a good six inches shorter than the next smallest kid in my class. Athletic would be the last term anyone used to describe me. In short, I had the academic and athletic talent of a rain-soaked worm.
So how, or even why, at 12 years old, I decided to make bike racing my big adventure, I have no idea. But it happened.
On an early July morning in 1986 my parents drove me from beige, suburban Denver up to scenic, blue-skied Boulder. I was racing in the Red Zinger Mini Classic, a week-long stage race for kids, fashioned after the famous Coors Classic stage race.
The opening stage was a time trial. I wasn’t really familiar with the discipline, and wondered if just riding on a lonely road, all by myself, was really what I signed up for.
Noticing how nervous and focused my competitors were, I retreated to the back of my parent’s station wagon and wrestled with Angie, our cuddly Bedlington Terrier. Perhaps I was more of a bike rider than a bike racer? Sure, I loved riding my bike around to visit friends and girls I had crushes on. But racing to win? These kids looked bigger, meaner, stronger. They looked like hungry wolves to me.
I timidly rolled over to the start line, honestly not understanding what I was in for. It seemed simple enough: ride five miles, from A to B, as fast as you can. Yet, as is my nature, I’d overthought the whole ordeal, and feltlike sliding back to the family Oldsmobile and asking Mum and Dad to take me home.
But off I went, riding into the unknown territory of a solo race against the clock on Highway 36. Very soon after the start, some other rider went zipping past me. And then, soon after that, so did another. This bike racing deal matched the absolute lack of success of athletic exploits I’d experienced to date in my life.
I was slow. Very slow.
We had set off in alphabetical order, and a few riders behind me, was
Chris Wherry.
Wherry was a tall, handsome legend in 12-year-old Colorado bike racing folklore. He’d won just about every race he entered and he commanded respect, even amongst the other 12-year-old “superstars,” hovering in the dirt parking lot that served as the start line.
Of course, soon enough he came whizzing past me, on his way to winning another race.
As he passed me, he yelled out: “Come on, dude! You gotta try a bit
harder!”
It was quite embarrassing. Duly, I did attempt to up the pace and keep up with him, for all of about 100 feet. He left me gasping and wincing, half in shame and half in pain.
I dragged myself across the finish line. I knew I hadn’t done very well, but I figured I hadn’t been caught by Wherry too quickly, so maybe I’d finish somewhere in the middle of the 12 year-old category. I was being a bit too optimistic.
My parents had brought a picnic to eat in between the morning time trial and the afternoon criterium race. We sat with all the other families patiently waiting for the results of the morning time trial to come in.
I ate a Bologna and cheese sandwich and slurped down a soda, all the while secretly feeding Angie scraps of the sandwich that I wasn’t fond of.
Finally, they posted a sheet on the side of an outhouse in the park.
My father and I reluctantly strolled over to see how I’d fared. Over all the craning necks and taller heads, I finally spotted my name—at the very bottom of the list.
The very last spot.
I was crushed and embarrassed to even be there. I wanted to go home.
I wanted to leave, immediately.
This was just the same as everything else I’d tried. I wasn’t any good at it. Just like school, just like games on the playground, just like trying to fit in. I failed at all of them, and now I was a failure at bike racing too. I just wasn’t any good—at anything.
I spoke to my mother and told her I wanted to leave, immediately. I had no business being there. She was a sympathetic ear, just listening as I recounted how poor I was at bike racing, and that maybe I just needed to leave and go home.
Angie sensed that I was upset. She came over and started giving me little doggie kisses, trying to understand what was wrong. I gave her a long hug and hoped that we’d just get going, far away from this place and these people.
Meanwhile, my mother and father were locked in conversation about something. It was clearly a heated discussion and I watched as Dad waved his arms around.
My parents were never sports-minded. My father is an attorney with an acute love for the constitution of the United States, and a very strong sense of fairness. His love for reading and for justice was very strong and something he passed on to me. He loved helping people and going above and beyond to protect the rights of his clients.
He was well-liked and respected. Often, we’d be given firewood, chicken meat, or help around the house in lieu of payment for bills that his clients cou…