Thierry Claveyrolat - Retirement

Retirement

Claveyrolat rode for Z (a children's clothing company) and GAN (an insurance company) before retiring in May 1994. He bought a bar, the Café de la Gare, at Vizille, south of Grenoble, and turned it into a bar -brasserie called L'Étape. It had a neon polkadot sign to represent the climber's jersey he had won in the Tour. The interior was a museum of his jerseys, cups, medals and other cycling artefacts. His former team-mate, Paul Kimmage, wrote:

It was the perfect investment, the redeployment he had dreamed of. After 12 happy and successful years as a racer, he had left the sport on his own terms, with no regrets. Over the next four years, he worked hard to make his new life a success. On new year's day 1998, he bought a scratch-card from the newsagent, shortly after opening up, and won a trip to Paris for the French edition of The Winning Streak where he was invited to spin the wheel and won a million French francs. Among his former team-mates, the perception was that Claveyrolat could do no wrong. Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. But the reality was different.

Kimmage said Claveyrolat had enjoyed the atmosphere of the Café de la Gare, which is why he had bought it. But in converting it, and then turning it into a night-spot with music, he drove away the locals who had made it a success. He said:

There were so many things that he hadn't noticed about the place . The scum who threw up and urinated, regularly, all over the toilet floor. The early starts, late finishes, the guys who had never had enough. Seven nights a week. Fifty-two weeks of the year. But there was no turning back. He would make it work. It was sink or swim.

The lottery win couldn't have come at a better time. He sold a share of the business, used his winnings to plug the black hole in his bank account and determined to make a fresh start. But, within a year, the problems were exactly as before. A bouncer was hired, and paid under the counter, to patrol the undesirables. After a disturbance one evening, the police called and asked the bouncer to produce his carte d'identité. The bouncer didn't have one. He had entered the country illegally from Zaire. Thierry was brought before the authorities and asked to explain himself. Informed that they intended to prosecute, the problem was a drop in the ocean compared to the horror of what was waiting round the corner.