The voodoo cycliste
High on the climbs and cols above Nice, a crime spree had been taking place. Out of sight but not out of mind, an anonymous rider was snatching Strava KOMs more effectively than Burke and Hare ever snatched their bodies. There was blood on them there roads…
Ignore the poetic licence for a moment and consider the cold, hard facts. At one point, Ce…oops…Kong Fùfù held over three hundred and eighty KOMs in the Cote d’Azur and Alpes-Maritimes. I’m going to say that again, three hundred and eighty, more than one for every day of the year on routes that must surely be some of the most competitive anywhere on the planet.
The area is brimming with pros living and training, using famous climbs and not so famous cols to put the miles they need into their legs before and across the season.
“Living in Nice there is a high density of both climbs and professional riders, which makes the KOM times on Strava quite competitive locally. It's not that most pros are looking to go take down KOMs on Strava in training, but we all train on the climbs and by default, we'll end up setting some fast times.” Joe Dombrowski, Cannondale-Garmin
And that’s before you even consider the thousands of high quality local club riders and the myriad of enthusiasts who travel here to ride from the four corners of the globe.
But who is he (I’ll give you that scrawny bone for free), this stealer of records, this hunter of pros, this magical Magua of the mountains?
“Honestly, at first, I thought that Kong Fùfù was just a pseudonym for one of the local pros. Not every pro rider wants their identity on Strava known, so I know of several guys in the area that will post under pseudonyms.” Joe Dombrowski, Cannondale-Garmin
Like Roswell, Atlantis or who killed Roger Rabbit, the lack of any firm information only deepens the mystery. The clamour for answers creates an echo louder than the original voices and conspiratorial theories arrive to fill the void. A never quite made it pro with a grudge against those who have?
An instrument created to unsettle riders from rival outfits and knock their confidence? Or one whose purpose is actually motivational, to drive team members to train harder and climb faster. Was Kong Fùfù really just a marginal gain wearing our new gloves?
Rumours were rife and stories abundant. Of him going head to head and neck to neck as a young (ish) MTB rider with Jean-Christophe Peraud who has a third place finish in Le Tour to his name, of him leaving Sky’s go to domestique and sometime team leader in his wheel and of him riding away from another pro who only a few weeks later went on to finish fourth in the Paris-Roubaix. And still it went on.
“Occasionally I'd get the 'Uh oh! Kong Fùfù has stolen your KOM on climb 'x' email” Joe Dombrowski, Cannondale-Garmin
Of course it sounds implausible, improbable and down right incredible that an amateur can keep such company but when you consider that his time for the Col de La Madone is only two minutes shy of Chris Froome’s, it becomes clear that this is a rider who can mix it with some of the very best climbers in the world.
Yet despite the mass of, often contradictory, information, the single most important question remained answered. His identity.
To be continued…
