ON THE JOB TRAINING
STILL RACING BUT WITHOUT THE KNOBBLY TYRES
his March, I’ll turn 24 as start my second season as a pro road cyclist. There’s nothing unusual in that and conventional wisdom has it that I ought to be a much better rider this year than last. My problem is that it’s difficult to apply conventional wisdom to my career because my route to the peloton was so unconventional…
Like some other road cyclists, I have a mountain bike background. I started racing when I was 13 and finished up riding crosscountry for Giant Italia. In 2011, I was in South Africa training for a World Cup event when I broke my finger. Since I couldn’t ride crosscountry at that point, trying out a few road races initially just seemed like a good way of maintaining my fitness levels.
However, I’d always been intrigued by the road and wondered whether or not I’d enjoy it. Needless to say I did and I also realised that I was pretty decent at it. I was able to stay with the best on the longer climbs and the length of the races seemed to suit me. I liked the way each race evolved and also the tactical element. I got third and fourth and, to be honest, I surprised myself.
The nature of cross-country races was changing anyway, with shorter climbs better suited to more explosive, punchier riders, which was bound to have a negative effect on someone like me. So I decided I’d give the road a real go and see where it took me.
That September, I rode the World CrossCountry Championships in Switzerland and that was that. For 2012, I signed for the Palazzago road team with people like Fabio Aru. I still
SINCE I COULDN’T RIDE CROSS-COUNTRY, TRYING OUT A FEW ROAD RACES SEEMED LIKE A GOOD WAY OF MAINTAINING MY
FITNESS LEVELS
didn’t really know what to expect but in May I won a mountain stage and the GC at the Giro del Friuli Venezia Giulia, a big Italian stage race. That was a really big moment for me.
Italian under-23 racing is a pretty cutthroat world but thankfully Gianni Savio offered me a chance with Androni. Eighteen months earlier I’d been competing for Italy at the World Championships, and now here I was riding 300km at Milano-Sanremo!
All things considered, the season went pretty well. They put me into the Giro and I finished 23rd. I couldn’t live with the likes of Vincenzo Nibali but most days, I was there or thereabouts on the climbs. I lost 25 minutes in two days when I got ill but otherwise it was a great experience. I also won the white jersey at the Tour of the Med and did a decent ride at Lombardy. AS REGARDS THE differences, I never really had time to think about them! Obviously the races are much harder and longer but the main difference is the speed on the flat. I’d had to learn to ride at 60kph among the amateurs, and I’d had to learn it fast. But among the professionals you can find yourself doing 70kph sometimes and that’s brutal if you’re not accustomed to it. With my background I wasn’t, so at the beginning I was just clinging on for dear life. When they selected me for the Giro, the objective was simply to get round each day and see where it took me. The good thing was that I realised I can absorb big days and that I can do well in the Alps and the Dolomites. The longer the race went on the better I seemed to get, which is surely a good sign for the future.
If I stay healthy I’ll ride the Giro again, though clearly there’s a lot of work I need to do between now and then. I’m way behind the others in the team in many respects, simply because I don’t have the experience that they do. I’ve ridden very few time trials, for example, and I don’t have much experience of being in the gruppo. There’s so much stuff I need to work on if I’m going to become a good road rider.
So, for me, this season is about trying to establish what kind of cyclist I’m going to be. That doesn’t stop the expectation, though, and some of the Italian media are talking me up. I suppose that’s natural given the circumstances but I don’t really know what to expect and neither does my team. It could be that you’ve already seen the best of Diego Rosa but equally there might be a lot more in the tank. I guess the best thing to do is not think about it too much and just let the road decide… Diego Rosa first caught the eye by attacking in the snow at Milano-Sanremo. He’s likely to share leadership with Franco Pellizotti at the Giro