Andrew Talansky of Garmin-Sharp has already proved that, despite his young age, he cannot be ruled out as a possible GC contender when it comes to the major races of the cycling calendar. American rider managed to finish the Tour the France within top ten on his first appearance and his march through last year’s edition was rather a story of a rise than fall, but he claims that his biggest objective for the coming several seasons is to improve on consistency, gain experience and gradually grow to the leading role.

The young Garmin-Sharp leader, runner-up in both Tour de Romandie and Paris-Nice admitted, that he has some precisely defined targets for the 2014 season, but maintaining consistency throughout the whole year seems more important to him at this stage than claiming spectacular victories.

“I have another three or four years until we can really see what I can do and each year is a stepping stone to get there. On the way it’s about learning how to be a leader on and off the bike,” he told Cyclingnews.

When it comes to the matter of experience, Garmin-Sharp has a highly rejuvenated roster this year as the veterans in the likes of David Zabriskie or Christian Vande Velde called it a career, and Talansky admits that their mentorship will be dearly missed within the ranks of the American World Tour team. However, their young leaders have multiple appearances in grand tour races under their belts and nothing suggests they shouldn’t live up to the expectations.

“They’re designing the team’s hopes around the GC, with myself, Dan Martin and Ryder Hesjedal and they’ve brought in people to do that. It’s fun for me to have Ben King on the team and I think it’s a little younger. We miss guys like Vande Velde and Zabriskie but it’s a good group this year,” he told Cyclingnews.

“I still speak to Christian. He’s such an experienced person and that’s what we’ll miss. He’s been in pretty much every race and every situation. He’s was a great person to have out on the road.”

“With leadership you can look at someone like Bradley Wiggins. He doesn’t relish being in the public spotlight or all the attention being on him but he learned how to deal with it because he had to.”

“Obviously the goal for me is to improve a bit each year. I’m not looking for a massive jump all of a sudden. Last year I proved I can race at the front in the one week races and I’m already a top ten GC rider for the Grand Tours. I want to improve on that, to go to the Tour and not have a bad day in the mountains, but really I just want to be consistent all year. I’ve set some targets for Tirreno and Romandie and I want to turn up for those races and go for the podium there.”

Talansky has inaugurated his 2014 season at Challenge Mallerca, where he didn’t finish Trofeo Ses Salines and came 32th in the Trofeo Serra di Tramuntana. Now he will stay on the Spanish island where Garmin-Sharp organizes their middle-February training camp.

“Having a camp in February allows us to have a camp that’s really focused and it allows us to have the time to put in a big block of work around the middle of the month.”