MR CONSISTENT
Dennis is a consistent performer in time trials. He’s a three-time national champion in the discipline, and took the yellow jersey in the stage 1 TT at the 2015 Tour (his irst TT win as a pro). He's been less dominant than a lat track bully like Fabian Ca
“I was always told, ‘You need to work on your delivery of messages, Rohan!’” he laughs. “But my sports psych’ now is more for the mental side of things while I’m on the bike.
“If I’m happier on the bike, 99 per cent of the time I’m happy off the bike,” he said.
This is quite an extraordinary revelation, and very much at odds with what has traditionally been considered ‘best practice’ for professional riders. Decades of convention dictates that a happy, stress-free home life helps riders concentrate better and perform better in races.
“For me it’s been a case of trying to get the best out of me on the bike, and then using those lessons off the bike as well. You’re in a more stressful situation when you’re on the bike, so why would we not learn from that?” Which brings us to whether Rohan Dennis is prickly.
He laughs, and says: “What I’ve found is that it’s not so much the big things that annoy me, because they’re out of my control. It’s the things that are within my control, the things that could have been avoided, which I’ve either brought up as an issue, and it hasn’t been addressed or has been ignored and then it happens again and again, and then it’s like, ‘Why isn’t anyone listening to me? What does it take?’ And that’s where it’s sort of... It’s my delivery of telling someone something. Sometimes they probably think, ‘He’s attacking me, he’s having a crack at me,’ and they don’t actually listen. They’ve just gone, ‘He’s angry - I’m not going to listen,’ he says.
“Whereas, slowly, I’m getting to the point where I’m articulating that message a little better. It’s getting through more often. And most of the time it’s behind closed doors. That’s where I like to keep it - that’s where I feel it should be kept. Not at the front of the bus.
Such changes come automatically with maturity and experience. Dennis agrees, and also as a result of the sports psychology. “But I still have my little episodes,” he says with a grin.
While Dennis admits that he’s worked hard on eliminating the more confrontational side of his comportment, an athlete still requires an element of hunger, aggression and ambition.
“There are boiling points - 100 per cent,” he reveals. “And maybe the time triallists or pursuiters are more likely to be control freaks. It’s in those disciplines that they can control various elements, whereas in the bunch it’s all about reacting. Manuel Quinziato [Dennis’s ex-BMC team-mate] once said to me: ‘Be like water.’ I was, like, ‘Take your Buddhist crap somewhere else,’ and he was, like, ‘No, seriously, in the peloton, be like water and if something gets in front of you, just flow around it.’ That makes sense, and I understand where he’s coming from, but it’s just hard for me to always do it.
“I’m just not that kind of person who thinks, ‘Oh well, I’ll just go around it.’ I want to go through it. I want to smash that rock out of the way so that I can take the fastest possible route. And that’s just the
way I think some of us are. But there are harder people to work with than me,” he says.
“I have to deal with what I’ve forged for myself, and so far I have been pretty good at trying to keep it behind closed doors. But different people understand me in different ways. Some people understand me more and others less.” M ore than a year into Dennis’s four-year plan, this should be the season where we see the biggest bounds forward, all being well. There are some good signs – he’s worn the leader’s jersey at the Tour, Vuelta, Dauphiné, Suisse, Tirreno, Eneco Tour and more. “But I’ve not won most of them,” he says, and it’s exactly that he’s looking to change. He’ll ride the Giro, set to start in Jerusalem with a 10km individual time trial. “I’m not too fussed to make a repeat of Utrecht in 2015,” Dennis says. “The opening stage at the Giro is a good opportunity for me to make a positive start, to get a bit of a confidence boost, and to gain some time on the climbers. But I’m not going to be flying on day one: I need to fly in the time trials that come later in the race.”
Surely, though, the pull of the opportunity to wear the Giro’s pink jersey and complete the grand tour set is strong?
“It would be nice, and it’s a really hard thing to say no to. But I have to think ‘big picture’. I want it in Rome. I want to wear it on the last day. No offence to the Tour de France or Vuelta - and to ever do it again would be awesome - but I’ve worn those jerseys after the first day. I need to learn how to wear them in Paris, Madrid or Rome.”
And whether it’s the Giro’s pink jersey, the Tour’s maillot jaune, or the red jersey from the Vuelta, Dennis isn’t fussy. “None of them are my favourite colour anyway, so it doesn’t really matter,” he smiles. “I just want to be wearing one of them on the final day.”