Michael Woods’ pro cycling career began at an age when other riders start to burn out. Now, the Canadian climbing specialist is competing for stage wins at the Tour de France. A Big Read, by GareJoyceNHL:
Michael Woods’ pro cycling career began at an age when other riders start to burn out. Now, the Canadian climbing specialist is competing for stage wins at the Tour de France.
Says Sullivan, now a coach at Michigan: “Our careers didn’t overlap, really, different generations — I only raced against him one time but you could tell that he had a really competitive streak.” Whatever hope he held for a comeback ended with a 10k road race in 2012, a run that again became a limp. Dread became grim acceptance: If he raced again, the outcome would be the same. The only question was whether or not his injury would require surgery. His involuntary entry into the real world seemed to break Woods. “My entire ID was wrapped up in being a runner,” he says. “Many nights I’d just lay in my bed, staring at ceiling, wondering where I went wrong.
As he began to train and race, Woods was able to quickly determine his strengths and weaknesses, what was baked in his cake by all his years as an elite middle-distance man. “Being a light runner gave me a huge advantage on the climbs immediately, but I did struggle on some of the flatter races,” he says. “Really, I was just learning to ride and learning there was a lot more to it than cardio or aerobic stuff — how to manage yourself in a crowd of bikes, race strategy.
He didn’t have a big ego but he did understand something about getting attention. On his honeymoon in Hawaii in December 2013, Woods set a record on the Haleakala Volcano, which is billed as the longest paved climb in the world. Starting in the tropical heat at sea level, Woods climbed 3,045 metres to the snow-covered summit. His time for the 56.
The next year, Woods made his debut at the Tour de France, at age 32 one of the oldest riders in the 2019 field, ten years older than the eventual winner, Egan Bernal of Colombia. Despite impressive results elsewhere, Woods’s experiences with cycling’s most fabled event have been star-crossed and painful.
The environment might have been a disappointment but the race was a marathon epic. The course was brutal and race-day temperatures approached 30 degrees — a full third of the 130 riders would have to drop out. Richard Carapaz, the Ecuadorian who finished third in the Tour de France, broke away and won the race by more than a minute, but Woods kept himself in a tightly bunched pack of eight riders shoulder-to-shoulder on the final straightaway chasing the silver and bronze medals.
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