EXPERIENCE 22
The Yorkshireman talks coming home, Milan- San Remo and sprinting
It was almost like going back
home, going back to Ineos.
I think you forget and take for granted how organised and how professional and how good a team like this actually is, when you’ve been in it for seven years. And even though I like that style and I like the attention to detail and stuff, you kind of lose track of it. It’s not until you go somewhere else and actually realise the difference; it is easy to take it for granted. With how looked after you are, really we just have to ride our bikes. I’ve really enjoyed coming back and feel like I refound my feet and really kick started my career again.
I didn’t change my personality or anything like that.
I think what changed was, you got a newfound respect for what was actually happening, then the attention to detail and how committed everybody is. I think that’s what changed. I think that’s why, maybe not in terms of wins, but being strongest throughout the year, I think last year was one of my best years, and I think that was just working closely with my coach, working closely with the whole support staff.
I’ve never been the fastest sprinter.
I’ve always been somebody that’s enjoyed the hardest sprints, and I’ve always got involved in the sprints rather than actually winning the big bunch sprints. If everything goes good, and it goes alright on the day, then I’m going to be knocking on the door for the win. It was a bit more of a natural progression, working on that climbing. I’ve been focused a little bit more, and just getting stronger and a bit more mature.
I think physically we’re actually a lot stronger when we’re a bit older.
Most of the time, we go into a race trying to win the overall.
If we can win a stage, fantastic, but as long as we’re trying to win the overall, then it’s always a bit late when one of us can give it a go with a little bit of support to ride for ourselves. I only get those opportunities whenever things have gone okay. Even if I was a designated sprinter for that day, if something happened at 6km to go where we all needed to wait, we’d all wait, and then I’d just go again the next day.
I think it’s quite special to be national champion.
It’s different to any other bike race. Even when I’m 60 years old, riding around, I could still technically have those bands on my arm. For me, I’ve been close for a number of years, the Nationals is always something that I’ve liked to race hard. It’s been good for me as well in training, every time you pull on that jersey, you feel it.
I’ve got no regrets about UAE Emirates.
It was an opportunity.
I look back and I think it was a learning experience.
I needed to do it. It just didn’t work out. I just never got to the same level or raced the way I wanted to. I think it was a combination of a lot of things that just didn’t quite work out.
When I first started, we didn’t have any of these training platforms or programmes.
There was a power meter, the SRM was about, but not really that well used. When I signed with Katusha in 2008, we didn’t have any of that sort of stuff. Our training programmes were given to us in three-month batches on pieces of paper. A lot has changed in the last 10 or 12 years and it’s not until you actually take a moment and step back and actually think about it, it becomes clear.
When it was announced that everything was being cancelled I think I was in the best shape I’ve ever been in.
I just lacked experience in those sorts of races, in Nieuwsblad and in Kuurne. I made quite a few mistakes, just by a lapse of judgement or thinking I could relax at the wrong time, and I always had the legs to rectify those mistakes, but it costs so much energy to rectify them.
Milan-San Remo is a race that suits me and it’s unfinished business.
For anybody that has finished on the podium twice and always contested the finish. San Remo is quite a strange one because you see a lot of guys that either finish 15 minutes down or don’t finish. You always get very small groups. I need to keep trying it because it is a race that does suit me.