Iljo Keisse (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) is one of the few riders who manage to combine a career on the tracks and the Six Days circuit with a career on the road. When Cyclingquotes.com sat down to talk to the Belgian Six Days specialist in Zürich, I asked him if he found it difficult to combine the two careers.

“No, because what I do on the track is only endurance - the longer races,” Keisse explained. Without being urged to do so, he goes on to elaborate. “What I do as a pro on the track leans very much to the road. If I am in good condition on the track I can perform well on the road. What I do for training is not so different, but the big difference is I race at night during the Six Days. Normally cyclists train from 9 a.m., come back at two in the afternoon with a little bit left of the day. On the track, though, races are completely the opposite. Normally during a Six Days race I will sleep from 4 a.m. until 2 p.m. and then it's like doing a job at night, say at a factory or something. Your life is completely the opposite from road racing. That's the biggest difference and the hardest change coming from the road and all of a sudden you have to switch to a life where you race at night. This is a very tricky transition, both physically and mentally. When I have completed a Six Days race, I often find I require two or three days to settle into a somewhat normal rhythm. I never feel that normal sleep rhythm of road cyclists. I can start training sometimes at 7 p.m. when all of the riders don't think about the bike anymore and are eating and preparing to go to bed. For me, sometimes it's a little bit strange and different.”

The main events on the road for Iljo Keisse during the 2013 season were the Belgian cobblestones Classics and the Giro d’Italia where Keisse rode in a supporting capacity for the team’s designated sprinter, Mark Cavendish. Looking back on his past season on the road, Keisse once again stops to ponder before comparing the two types of races without even being prompted to do so.

“It seems trivial to state that there’s a huge difference between a one-day Classic and a three-week Grand Tour. If things go awry during a stage in a Grand Tour, there’s always another chance to rectify the situation whereas in a Classic you have to wait for an entire year before the opportunity will present itself again in the same race. A lot of preparation goes into a one-day race and everything has to fall into place on the day.”

On a personal level Keisse said he felt more pressure during the Classics due to his nationality and his somewhat freer role compared to the Giro.

“To a certain degree it was quite easy for me to ride the Giro this year. Though I wasn’t the designated team leader in any of the Classics, being a Belgian rider on home soil always adds an extra layer of expectations, whereas in the Giro my sole purpose was to ride as a domestique for Cavendish.”

At this point Keisse takes a sip from his coffee cup and reflects for a while. I’m tempted to break the silence, eager to know what goes through his mind, but something about his demeanour tells me that an interruption would be uncalled for and little appreciated. I take a sip from my bottle of water and wait for Keisse to proceed in a state of delightful anticipation.

“There’s something liberating in riding in a supporting capacity,” Keisse explains. “Even though we ride as a team and we all aim to achieve the same thing, eight of us are riding with no outside pressure. It is unloaded from our shoulders and placed entirely on the shoulders of Cavendish, who is always under tremendous pressure wherever he races. People outside the cycling environment have absolutely no idea about the amount of pressure that burdens Cavendish in every single race. Thousands of people are expecting him to win and countless others can’t wait for him to lose.”

Admiration for Cavendish

Asked how the Briton copes with the expectations, Keisse expresses profound admiration from his team mate. Normally that would be expected from a loyal co-employee but the serenity in Keisse’s voice suggests that the admiration emanates from genuine recognition of a colleague’s mental state of mind rather than mandatory praise for a team mate.

“Of course Cavendish can appear on edge during a Grand Tour, particularly if the first stage win is a bit slow to materialize. In general, though, I am repeatedly struck by his gentleman-like behaviour. He is always extremely grateful to his team mates when he snatches a win.”

Keisse finds it lamentable if hardly surprising that some people are eagerly awaiting and wishing for Cavendish to fail, ascribing such desires to Cavendish’ palmares and comparing his team mate to other sporting greats and arguably the greatest rider ever.

“From a certain point of view I think it’s only natural that people can grow tired of seeing an athlete seemingly winning at will. When Tiger Woods was at the top of his game, it was more important for his rivals to finish ahead of him than actually winning the tournament. If Woods finished 10th, it was a tremendous success to finish 9th. I believe it transcends all sports and even spills into the world outside of sports. Should someone become too successful, there’s always someone waiting for him to fail. Even in the world of cycling this has been seen on several occasions. Eddy Merckx, for instance, was so utterly dominant that many people grew tired of watching him win and were too busy awaiting his downfall to appreciate that they were in the presence of sporting greatness. It’s not a human trait that I value very highly, though.”

During the Tour de France Cavendish was repeatedly outsprinted by Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) including on the final stage in Paris, leading many pundits to speculate that Cavendish might have peaked as a sprinter. Keisse doesn’t subscribe to that point of view.

“There’s no denying that Kittel was the outstanding sprinter in the Tour,” Keisse acknowledges, “but Cavendish won six stages in the Giro and took the points competition while Kittel was doing what?” Keisse asks rhetorically while, to his credit, he fails to point to his own role in assisting Cavendish to his string of successes on Italian soil.

“I don’t intend to take anything away from Kittel and his team. They rode splendidly in the Tour but I think Cavendish suffered from the effects of his efforts in the Giro. The Italian Grand Tour is such a demanding race and it takes a huge toll on riders who also want to compete in the Tour, just look at Cadel Evans, for instance. He finished third in the Giro but was unable to stamp his mark on the Tour. I think what happened was that the break between the Giro and the Tour was simply too short and Cavendish was affected by that.”

At times during the 2013 the Omega Pharma-Quick Step lead out train left something to be desired when viewed from an armchair perspective. During the season Italian veteran Alessandro Petacchi came out of retirement to join the squad, and in August it was announced that Mark Renshaw will leave the Belkin team to team up with his former HTC-Highroad team mate Cavendish at Omega Pharma-Quick Step. Though not agreeing that the OPQS lead out train was defunct at times, Keisse welcomes the additions to the team roster.

“I don’t agree that our lead out train came up short during the past season,” Keisse says, “but the additions of Petacchi and Renshaw can only strengthen our squad and enhance our winning chances.”

Before moving on to discussing his plans for the 2014 season, Keisse takes time to emphasize another reason why he is impressed with his British team mate.

“I’m astonished at his ability to combine his professional career with his spare time interests. Once he has completed all his cycling related duties he summons the energy to turn his attention to other interests and even go sightseeing if that’s what he desires to do. This ability to relax is something that I lack, alas. For instance I’ve been here in Zürich on a number of occasions but I’ve never managed to see the city. I’m too focused on the bike, I’m afraid,” Keisse says.