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I didn’t want any help at all. I just wanted to be left alone to do my thing. I didn’t need anybody to help me. And that left seven other guys free to do anything Alberto wanted. It seemed to me that if we couldn’t win the Tour with seven highly paid handpicked domestiques, we weren’t likely to do much better with eight. It was hardly likely to be my fault.

“No,” said Feltrin, “We’ll need your strength in the first week to hold things together.”

“I need to race from stage 1, or the green is gone,” I explained. The points competition is so loaded toward the rough and tumble of the first few days that anybody coming late to the party has no chance of leaving with the spoils. “I don’t need any help, Stefano; just let me get on with it. You’ve got seven other guys. OK, if Alberto and I are the only riders in the front group, of course I will help. But if seven guys can’t pace him back up after a puncture or a crash, eight guys won’t be able to do it either.”

“We can’t risk it. You might crash in a sprint.”