Passista
My first article on Velominati was to introduce one of my favorite cyclists, Eros Poli. I refered to him as a domestique on the Mercatone-Uno team. This faux pas was properly pointed out much later by @KaffeineKeiser, a commenter who suddenly surfaced and unfortunately submerged just as quickly, like Das Boot in the Straits of Gibraltar.*
I do take exception to you calling him a “domestique”. Eros was a “passista” of the highest order. A team position no more or less glamorous than the former, but one that certainly warrants its own designation.
To der Keiser, calling Eros a domestique was to call him a mere bottle carrier. I was completely unfamiliar with the term but in debt to der Keiser for setting me straight. Poli was an Olympic gold medal winner in the four man team trial. He was engine number one on Cipo’s Mercatone-Uno original lead-out train. He raced Paris-Roubaix. I’m sure he carried his share of bottles. Everyone carries bottles up from the team car when necessary. Poli was a passista first, a domestique second.
More light was shed on “passista” when Pez published the excellent Italian for Cyclists a while back.
Passista (pahs SEE stah) – Francesco Moser fits the bill here. The passista is a big, powerful rider able to maintain 50 km/h for an hour at the front of the peloton. Their strength and toughness make them naturals in the northern classics.
By that definition, Jensie Voigt is a classic modern passita, our own Frank Strack too. Tom Boonen is absolutely one judging from the work he has been doing this week at the head of the peloton in Paris-Nice. Boonen’s elbow infection foiled his usual preparation for the Spring Classics so he signed up for a week-of-beauty spa called Paris-Nice. Need some fitness? Ride from Paris to the Mediterranean at ass hauling speed, do hour sessions at the front of a professional peloton. On the rainy cold days, do even more.
Passista is a type of rider rather than just a job description within the team. I don’t think there are designated bottle carriers these days. One can’t be really good at just riding back and forth to the team car. A friend who has done it told me how damn hard riding back to the field at high speed towing an additional seven kilos really is. No one makes it to the pro ranks on their bottle carrying savy. The fact that one is on a team for a particular race means one is a badass, except for the newbies who are just hoping to finish and gain some race experience (like Andy Schleck). If this is their mission, then either they are future badasses or their team lacks any depth and therefore sucks. Julian Dean may have carried bottles during each stage during the Tour but he still had to man up for the last twenty km and be faster than everyone except his team’s designated sprinter. He was the lead- out guy.
If I had chosen my parents perfectly, I too would aspire to be a passista. Pure climbers- too small, pure sprinters- too crazy; who wouldn’t want to be a big cobble crushing beast that can can just ride people’s legs off when required?
*Yes, for you Das Boot fans, I know that was an imperfect metaphor.
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See, I learn something new every day.
Love the Moser image. And love this depth in the article. Thanx
What a great word. Take this as a nomination for Sean Yates into the Passista Hall of Fame
Boonen = Passista Veloce
@gilly
Perfecto. That’s italian isn’t it? He is a better example than Jensie. Yes, he will go in that hall-o-fame.
Definitely not a Passista, but as bottle carrying goes, Cavendish demonstrated ably last year that wearing a white top with rainbow stripes doesn’t stop you being sent back to the caravan for supplies. That was perhaps a case of a team having too much strength, rather than not enough…
There’s also passista-scalatore (think Chavanel) and passista-veloce (think Sagan).
Great insight, as usual. I’ve always cheered the team work horse that quietly does his job to make someone else look better.
@Pedale.Forchetta
That’s even better.
@Gianni – Great article. I didn’t remember that term. It made me open up the Inner Ring lexicon which I highly recommend. Sure enough, there it was. Nice addition to the vocabulary.
Very nice, but as you say:
who wouldn’t want to be a big cobble crushing beast that can can just ride people’s legs off when required?
The mind of the passista must be the most self motivated in the peloton. This seems to be the hardest of tasks, and one that after an hour on the front, nobody can continue to make you do but yourself. I find it hard to fathom that anyone wishes this for themselves, but that for those who do it, there is no escape. It ceses to be something you want to do, and becomes something you can’t stop doing. If they were to stop the entire self identity would evaporate and the world would come crashing down, much like the unraveling of a lie gone on too long.
Can I nominate Marc DeMeyer?
Would Juan Antonio Flecha fit the bill?
Ian Stannard?
@Gianni Great article, great subject choice. I’ve always loved watching those “boring” bits in the middle of stages or races when the pace begins to get up, preferably when there’s a decent break to be reeled in over good rolling countryside or a plain with evil crosswind when the diesels get called to the front to drive the peloton home whilst the rock stars look for shelter. It’s a proper hardman role for sure.
That photo of Jens is a cracker, always makes me think of Johnny Rotten.
Roger Hammond was an great Passista. Maybe theres something to be said for an apprenticeship in Belgium and a background in cyclocross.
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Is passista like a super-domestique kind of dude? Like a Johan Van Summeren who ends up winning Paris-Roubaix? On a flat tire?
@Chris That mug of Hammond is downright scary. If it wasn’t for the Cervelo/Castelli jersey and the ear thingamajiggy, I’d swear he came straight out of turn-of-the-century crime novel.
Part of the depth and beautiful complexity of our sport. Domestique is no more a ‘third-class’ rider than passista. I was looking at super-domestique Ted King’s training numbers on Strava: 243K of climbing thus far in 2013. Badass…period.
Tom Boonen was basass this week at the front of the peloton in Paris-Nice in the phantom aerobar position!
@freddy
Or he just came out of the coal mines after a long shift.
@freddy
Passista is a badass, end of story. He could be a team leader like Moser or Boonen or a Hardman like Sean Yates. Van Summeren used to be a lead out man for Robbie McEwen? C’est possible? And a Belgian and he fits the description too. Guys like Van Summeren and Servais Knaven may not have been the team leaders but still had the power and technique to win Paris-Roubaix on their own given the opportunity.
Stu O’Grady = Passista Australiana.
Could Andrea Tafi be a member of the Passista brotherhood?…I can also nominate Neil Stephens and one Melchor Mauri for countless hours of pulling for Jaja back in the great ONCE days.
@Barracuda
Not sure if Bauer = Passista Canadiana, but I love this Cor Vos shot of him and Rooks in a breakaway during Milano-San Remo, 1986. Kelly won. Looking foward to the weekend!
Svein Tuft is the current Canadian passista, I’d reckon. From the Wikipedia article: “He was praised for his 200 km solo ride in front of the peloton during stage 2 of the 2012 Tirreno-Adriatico. During the race, he reportedly burnt 6500 calories. Mark Cavendish tweeted it as “Ride of the day.. No, make that ride of the millennium, goes to GreenEDGE’s Svein Tuft. 200km ALONE controlling the peloton! Respect”.”
@chrismurphy92
I saw that as well @chrismurphy . Boonen does that more and more often it would seem. Remember Paris-Roubaix 2012 when Boonen went out in front with 50km++ to go? He pulled the phantom position many times in that last 30km. It was great!!
-Dinan
Passistas. My favorite type of riders.
Kiriyenka in Paris-Nice seems to be a passista in the making – 30km on the front including reeling in the breakaways.
Speaking of badass, have a look if you can at the coverage of Tirreno yesterday, or photos. Not often you see pros WALKING up hills – even Sagan and the climbers were having to zig-zag across the road to keep their speed on a 27% gradient.
Apparently the entire grupetto decided to abandon the race, which left poor Taylor Phinney to do 120km on his own, because he wanted to do the TT today. But he missed the time cut and was eliminated.
I’m in two minds – it was a good stage because it produced some decisive racing, and it is a rare thing to see a breakaway finish group consisting of riders like Nibali, Sagan and Rodriguez. On the other hand a stage where 50 riders abandon is not ideal – maybe partly to do with timing. If today had been a sprint stage they would have had something to stay in for.
@starclimber This is what the reward is ,the true respect of your peers, they know full well the job that is being done.
Where he spent 12 hours hauling the coal cars up and down the mine via a chain gripped in his teeth.
+1 for Vasily Kiriyenka – anyone who stops to put all their teeth back in after unnecessarily hammering off the front down a slippy descend mid race, should be granted a day of rest – but not Mr V – awesome pull down to Nice – everyone sat behind him, almost as if afraid to go past in case he went faster
correction Vasil Kiryienka….respect
@Barracuda
+1
Team Sky has a virtual monopoly on these guys. Stannard tops the list for me…
@ChrisO
I agree. Too tough. Didn’t they do the climb three times too? At least the race director was good enough to admit as much immediately afterwards – which was acknowledged by none other than passista-veloce, Mr F. Cancellara.
@ChrisO think the problem may have been scheduling the stage before a final very short TT stage. No point in team riders continuing. I think it was abeautiful stage -and could have been improved by scheduling it a day before team riders were needed.
Sagans effort was nothing short of extraordinary. A
And very interesting to see Evans working hard in the second group. Doing favors on a rainy day for another rainy day. Or just training when it’s raining?
Thanks, Gianni for bringing a new word into my velolife! Very cool. I have a question – can someone under 175 cms be a passista or does the job require being a bit of a hulk?
ChrisO – I was able to catch the last 50km of T-A yesterday. It was great to watch as it made me feel much, much better about the times I’ve had to zig-zag across the road on a particularly insane climb. The toughness of the climb, the walking, and the admission by the director all bring up an interesting point in light of all that has/is going on – is including such a wild parcours the type of thing that forces racers to seek out “help” or is it just part of the job of a PRO? Sagan, Nibali, and Lil’ Prince all seemed to handle it.
I’m of the mindset that it’s still exciting, no matter how slowly they’re going up a hill. Just curious how others feel.
@PT
@Skinnyphat
I read someone describe them as Skyborgs the other day.
@ All This is what @chris was reffering too. You tube at about 42:30 (Tirreno – Adriatico 2013 – [30%] FULL RACE stage 6 – Porto Sant’Elpidio “º Porto Sant’Elpidio) .
Tirreno – Adriatico 2013 – [30%] FULL RACE stage 6 – Porto Sant’Elpidio “º Porto Sant’Elpidio
@freddy nice, Bauer was a hardman and always on the cusp. I wish he had just a little more in the tank at Paris-Roubaix…
Speaking of Ted King, anybody remember him pulling for just about the entire Tour of Cali last year? He was on point for huge amounts of time.
Passista….I love it and a new term to me, thanks Gianni.
For current riders, I was thinking of Lotto’s Adam Hansen…..completed all three grand tours last year (only 32nd person in cycling history), rode a long breakaway (failed to finish it off with like 400m) in the tour, protected JVDB, rode lead out for Greipel, raced over 100 days for 2012. A hardman.
@VbyV
That’s because he’s from New Hampshire (I’m biased by living here too).
What about the big, bad Bernie Eisel?
@Dr C
Yes! Beast. I guess he has been around the peloton for a while but Sky was very wise to pick him up. His leading the field for hours into Nice was amazing. Sky looks like the strongest team this year, by far.
@Tobin
Jesus, how do you beat a guy like Eddy Planckert. Look at his legs, then look at his face! The man was hard as nails.
I saw Bauer a few years a go in New Mexico, he was leaning against his SpyderTech team car, by himself. I am a massive pussy for not chatting him up.
@Gianni Bauer may have been able to shave a few ounces if he wasn’t wearing a Specialized Beer Cooler on his head… looking at Planckert it is probably just as well, he looks about two seconds away from going full on Hulk.
Huh?
http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/03/news/phinney-rides-emotional-four-hour-solo-quest-at-tirreno_277623
Sorry, tried linking the article and the text and link disappeared.
Lest we forget, Eros stood 6’4.5″, and slogged that carcass up Ventoux on Stage 15 in ’94 for the win.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxTnLaH3gVA
@Dean Abt Indeed. Click the link on Eros’s name in the first line of the article, too.