‘Clean Spirit’ is an insider look at the Argos-Shimano team as they prepare for and take part in the 2013 Tour de France. They are followed by a Dutch film crew throughout the build up and ensuing three weeks of the Tour as it winds its way through France. The film offers an inside look at what it’s like to be on a professional cycling team at the Tour right now, it’s not a nostalgic look back, it’s an Instagram-filtered snapshot of the way cycling is today, not as it was. Which brings us to this caveat.
The state of bike fan-hood
To be a fan of professional cycling in this day and age is to exhibit signs of bipolarity, you try to be hopeful and trusting while simultaneously hedging those feelings with cynicism and suspicion—because almost everyone in the sport for the past decade at one point or another has looked fans straight in the face and brazenly lied to them. This is the state of modern bicycle racing. It’s the era of “trust but verify”, an era of never placing blind faith in any racer, lest you get played for a sucker when they get caught visiting a dodgy doctor or injecting a veterinary-grade medicine that just hit the market. It sucks, but that’s the way it is.
It was in this atmosphere that the Argos-Shimano team was launched. None of the riders on the team have been caught with dog tranquilizers or bovine supplements, but they are held under the same suspicion as those who came before them, because that’s the legacy left by those who came before them. The Argos-Shimano team was established with a commitment to clean racing, and they have not given us any reason to doubt their commitment—it’s just that we’ve we’ve heard the same words said so many times by people who were lying straight to our faces that the phrases ring hollow, even when they may be ringing true.
And modern riders know that, John Degenkolb says as much in an interview during the film. He recognizes the legacy to German cycling left by Jan Ulrich and Eric Zabel, and he has to deal with their tarnished legacy every day, whether he likes it or not. It’s not fair, but Degenkolb accepts that the only thing he can do is to ride clean and serve as an example of the right way to race. Now, the cynic in me will say, “Of course he’ll say the right thing to the cameras, he’s following the same rule book as everyone who came before him.” True, and that’s another maddening aspect of cycling today, the doped riders were incredibly good at mimicking clean riders—they both say the things a clean rider would say—but, of course, only the clean ones mean it.
What about the movie?
‘Clean Spirit’ does a great job of showing the viewer the story of a group of guys who really care about one another trying to survive the Tour de France. If you are a fan of Marcel Kittel or John Degenkolb, you will be twice the fan you were before seeing this film (and you will also see them in various states of undress as they tighty-whitey their way across France—actually Degenkolb’s whiteys are more of a tighty-lavender-y, but you get my drift). You get to see the team succeed and you get to see the team rally around their teammate Tom Veelers when he hits the tarmac after a “spirited shoulder nudge” from Mark Cavendish. (Cav ends up taking on a bit of a villainous role in the film, and the way the Argos-Shimano guys find ways to stick it to him are devilishly delightful.)
The film crew, while embedded with the team, doesn’t shy away from asking the team staff, soigneurs and doctor (who oddly pulls out a fistful of supplement and caffeine pills and explains that they are legal for the riders to take—and mentions that Kittel doesn’t like to take anything at all) about doping. Most telling is the film of the return of Rudi Kemma, who came forward and admitted to doping in his former career as a racer and served a six month suspension before returning to the team. The crew asks him about his doping past and Kemma explains that during his career he was never afraid of being caught, and that he now knows that what he did was wrong and he’d be found out right away in today’s climate. It’s an awkward exchange, like all of the doping questions the crew asks, but it’s commendable that they asked the questions. They leave the viewers to make up their own minds, they put the questions to the team, and it’s up to us to decide if we think they’re telling the truth or not.
‘Clean Spirit’ is a ‘Sunday in Hell’ for modern cycling, a behind-the-scenes look that is full of views from the buses, hotel rooms and the team cars. You wait with the riders as they prepare for a stage while listening to Jay-Z, you watch as they are slowly worn down by three weeks of stage racing, you see the inside jokes (especially about Kittel’s hair) and you see them rally around one another on their way to Paris. It’s an inspiring tale, and you come away admiring the sacrifice and determination the riders evidence. And hopefully it’s a true tale of clean racing, and not another chapter of fiction from the sport’s past.
