Alex Dowsett
From Sky to Movistar to prepare for his debut Tour de France
E yebrows that had been raised when Alex Dowsett left Team Sky for Movistar no doubt inched up even higher when the Englishman won the long mid-race time trial at last year’s Giro d’Italia. However, for Dowsett and his team, that success at Saltara simply confirmed the expectations they had in each other. The British rider had joined the Spanish team on the basis that he would be given opportunities in the biggest races, while Dowsett fulfilled the potential that Movistar had seen in him and which made them the frontrunners for his signature at the end of 2012.
A year on, Dowsett has his sights set on another step up the grand tour ladder, his race programme features a Tour de France debut. This is a special enough event for any rider but holds particular significance for the three-time British time trial champion as the third stage will be run on many of his regular training roads in Essex. Having missed out on an appearance at the London Olympics because of a broken elbow, he admits: “I don’t want another opportunity of a lifetime to pass me by.”
His big race blooding by Movistar last year included debuts at both Paris-Roubaix and the Ronde van Vlaanderen, races for which he was never considered at Sky because of the depth of their one-day race roster. Yet, even though he tells Procycling the cobbled Classics were a fantastic experience and he was tempted by a return, he says they took a huge amount out of him. This year, he explains, he is intending to save all of his resources for July.
“Everything is built around the Tour, nothing else really matters, which is why I’m skipping the big Classics, because last year they were a bit of a baptism of fire,” he says. “I realised I had to train specifically for them and I don’t want to dilute my efforts this year, not when it’s my first Tour de France. Maybe in the future I’ll be able to focus more on the Classics but this year it’s all about the Tour. Just getting in it is going to be difficult because Movistar have a strong line-up.”
Although Movistar will be expecting big things of their sole British rider in the Tour’s final time trial, their principal reason for picking Dowsett is to support to team leader (and fellow petrolhead) Alejandro Valverde’s push for the yellow jersey. “I do fill a role on the team,” says Dowsett. “I’ve become good at looking after the main men, moving them around the bunch, keeping them near the front. I do a similar job to Pablo Lastras and Iván Gutiérrez, so hopefully they’ll take me to do that. I’m certainly not a climber.”
He acknowledges he’s been speaking to team-mates and regular ride partners, and particularly fellow Essex resident Mark Cavendish, about what to expect at the Tour and how to deal with the unique pressures it brings. “The Giro was a step up from anything I’ve ever done before and everyone who has ridden the Tour, and especially Cav, says it’s another bump up again. It’s more nervous, it’s faster all the time, everyone’s a bit twitchy and, of course, everyone’s right at their very top level. It’s like the Wimbledon of cycling. It’s the ultimate,” says Dowsett, clearly under no illusions about the challenge ahead.
“I’m expecting the Tour to be as hard as the Giro was. And the Giro was terrible, just awful… So I’m expecting it to be a bit like that. It wasn’t the bad weather that made it hard. I enjoyed the weather, I’d
“I’m expecting the Tour to be as hard as the Gi ro was. And The Giro was terrible, just awful…”
much rather it be too cold than too hot, that’s for sure,” Dowsett explains, insisting that TV made the poor weather look a lot worse than it actually was. “I did lose the feeling in my feet one day on a snowy descent but that was about it. It could have been worse – well, no, it couldn’t have been worse – but it was okay.
“I based my performance on wine,” Dowsett continues. “At the start of the first week I wasn’t drinking any. During the second week I was having a glass a night and in the third week it was three or four glasses a night. You go through patches where it’s rough and good patches as well. The thing that got me was speaking to one of my mates after stage 4 and he asked how I was feeling. I told him I was pretty tired, and he said: ‘Really? You’re only on the fourth day.’ I said to him, ‘Mate, I’ve done four days of 200km a day.’
“I was tired after stage 1 but that’s how it is. There was one stage where I was that nailed I came in off the stage and went straight to
sleep. I woke up, got on the massage bed and fell asleep, woke and went for dinner, then went back to bed again. It was only halfway through and I thought I was in a bit of trouble but I woke up the next morning and I was absolutely fine. Some experienced guys gave me a lot of advice as well. For example, in the first week don’t try to be in the group that’s ahead of the gruppetto on the climbs, and save every little bit you can.”
Dowsett is quick to praise Movistar for doing all they could to make sure he was as fresh as possible for the stage 8 Saltara time trial. “I did a bit of work looking after boys before that but I didn’t really have to put my nose in the wind,” he says. “They were a lot more confident about my prospects for that time trial than I was, that’s for sure. I don’t think they expected a win, and I certainly didn’t, but that’s the thing about the Spanish, every time there’s a time trial they say, ‘Oh, you’ll win today.’ It’s nice to have that kind of enthusiasm behind you. I’m more of a realist, they are very much optimists.”
The Englishman emphasises that such experiences have vindicated his move to the Spanish squad, although he confesses there has been a degree of cycling culture shock having being groomed within Sky’s supremely focused set-up. “The atmosphere is completely different to Sky. It’s super relaxed, everyone is really friendly but it can be a bit crazy at times. I remember back to the team time trial at last year’s Tirreno-Adriatico, and the approach being hugely different to Sky. It felt like disorganised chaos. At Sky it was like, ‘This is when you do your turn…’ Then you have a timetable for when you warm up since everything is very regimented. You know in what position you’re going to be coming into the final corner. It was that regimented.
“But at Movistar it seemed everyone was everywhere. I barely knew where I was meant to be on the start line, who I was behind and who I was in front of. I just thought we were going to do terribly but then we ran second to Quick Step – obviously ahead of Sky – and that’s when the penny dropped. I realised that these guys, as disorganised as it might have appeared, really do know what they are doing. The way they rode was different but effective.” Not surprisingly for a set-up that dates back to the late 1980s, Movistar can be set in their ways sometimes, according to Dowsett: “For example, I’ve been on at Pablo Lastras to try the aero helmet – the filled-in road helmet – but he’s like, ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like it…’ But then today he told me that they’d like to get road race skinsuits and I looked at him surprised and said, ‘What about the helmets?’ He said they’ll try it, as well. But then he wants me to separate my pasta from my meat at dinner and eat them separately like the Spanish do. I told him, ‘We’ll see…’”
The engaging Essex man says he is aware of his team changing in other ways, too, largely in response to innovations made by Sky. “Movistar do look at what Sky do. When I first joined there was a period when they – and probably every other team – realised that they needed to change, that they needed to up their game to compete. This was back when I didn’t know one word of Spanish and I was sat in a meeting room and I kept hearing the words ‘Sky’, ‘Froome’ and ‘Wiggins’.
“They’ve now got a sports science team behind them, a nutritionist, and all kinds. It’s like there’s a Formula 1 mentality coming into cycling and the more of that the better, I think. That’s where the gains that would previously have been made by unlawful methods back in the day are now being achieved with things
like the wind tunnel, diet, and all of the information that we can gather from power output. All those are contributing to teams making gains.”
Yet, from the outside at least, it appears that what has always been a conservative nature is still firmly entrenched in particular aspects, notably the decision to send 2013 Tour runner-up Nairo Quintana to the Giro and Vuelta rather than giving him another shot at the yellow jersey. It is impossible to avoid comparison with the management’s backing of Pedro Delgado at the very end of the 1980s, when Miguel Indurain was clearly the coming man. Of course, the Tour’s long TT doesn’t suit the Colombian, but he could be out of sight by then if the mountain days go his way.
Dowsett says he knows nothing about Quintana’s plans for the year beyond what he has read in the press. “But I’m assuming he’s not and that Valverde will be the man for the Tour,” he admits. “It could change because teams do change their minds quite regularly. But for me it doesn’t really matter a great deal who the leader is. I’ll have to look after them no matter who it is. It might mean looking after someone like Beñat Intxausti, too.”
As for Quintana, Dowsett points that he’s only 24 and has plenty of years ahead of him. “Yes, he could win the Tour but that time trial at the end, which is flat and 55km, could be hard for him. Froome is the stronger time trialist so Nairo would have to put a lot of time into Froome in the mountains before the TT, but that would be difficult if Froome goes as well as last year. I know the team and how seriously they take the grand tours and their GC contenders. They will have sat down and looked at these races and ascertained which ones suit Nairo best. So I’m sure there are very good reasons for the decisions they’ve made.”
As the conversation returns to his own ambitions for the season, Dowsett points out a significant change that he believes will assist him and the rest of the team’s riding staff. After more than two decades with Pinarello as their frame supplier, the Spanish squad have switched to Canyon. The move, Dowsett acknowledges, has not been easy, especially
“I think the Tour will be absolutely mind-blowing and it’s not something that I want to miss”
for the riders who have been part of the set-up for many years. But he insists it is paying off.
“I’m very happy with the bikes. I think the Canyon time trial bike is one of, if not the fastest bike there is. It gets overlooked quite a lot I think because they haven’t had a fast time trialist on it, but now you’ve got Castro [Jonathan Castroviejo], Adriano Malori and hopefully myself. I think we can do some damage on it,” he affirms. “I remember Mick Rogers saying about HTC that when everyone there got on a good TT bike and had a solid position, they all started getting top-20 in the TTs, even the non-specialists. I think we could see that happening with Movistar this year.”
Assuming he does get selected for the Tour, Dowsett says he can’t wait for the Grand Départ, and especially that third stage on his home turf. “It’s going to be super fast that day. I’ve been asked quite a lot about whether I’d like to be in the breakaway. As cool as that would be, I’m conscious of the 18 remaining stages. But first things first, I’ll have a job to do and that will be down to the team. I think no matter what happens that day, the whole event will be phenomenal. The crowds at the Tour of Britain, and especially in London, were bigger than anything at the Giro. I think the Tour is going to be absolutely mind-blowing and it’s not something that I want to miss.”