After enduring a tough 2014 Tour de France, crashing multiple times and leaving the event after stage 11, Andrew Talansky of Cannondale-Garmin is focussing his efforts in the 2015 events solely on the French Grand Tour.

“The Tour is absolutely my goal,” Talansky said to Cyclingnews. “When I said that I have unfinished business with the Tour, I meant that I want to go there and ride the race that I know I'm capable of, that the team knows that I’m capable of, and essentially, just get to ride my race. Whatever that means result-wise, we will see, but I believe it will be great and the team believes it will be great. That is the most important thing… I just want to get the opportunity to ride my race at the Tour.”

The American, who won the 2014 Criterium du Dauphine, says that he would only settle for something better than the top 10, setting himself lofty ambitions for the biggest race in the world.

“I mean a top-10 is the minimum to improve on from a couple of years ago. I think that if I get to ride the race that I would like to, and we have things go generally right – because you’re never going to have everything go perfectly – but if things go just a little better than last year, then I think it will lead to a great result in July.”

“I’d like to just focus on the process, focus on training, focus on showing up like I did for the Dauphiné, and be ready to take the opportunities when they arise.”

With the Tour being so climber-friendly, Talanksy will concentrate most of his training on going uphill, which he says he has already noticed an improvement on from the previous seasons.

“It’s a little more climbing-centric and so I will train more on the climbs to focus on that this year,” Talansky said. “I think that last year my climbing took a step up from what it had been in years past and became a strong suit in addition to my time trial, rather than just relying on my time trial and hanging on in the mountains. I’m looking forward to it because it’s a little bit of a different course than the last couple of years, it’s a new challenge."

26-year-old Talansky had already achieved big results in his short career, like stages and second overall in the 2013 Paris-Nice, but the Dauphine win was on another level entirely.

“The Dauphiné was my first time winning a race at that level,” he said. “The way in which I ended up winning, with Ryder’s help and the team’s support, it was all unexpected. I think that made the experience even more emotional, a shock and a surprise. It was a good experience.”

Having crashed out of the 2014 Tour, he says he is looking to learn from that experience and use it to power himself on to better things in 2015 at the Tour.

“That experience at the Tour taught me, and reaffirmed what I though, that when you ride GC, you can crash and you know that things can go wrong, but you don’t really expect that the whole race will be over for you,” Talansky said. “Maybe you fall, maybe you lose a minute, maybe you have something not go exactly the way you want, but you don’t necessarily expect to be completely out of the race, to be completely gone.”

“It was a terrible day for me, but I like knowing that something good came out of it. That people took motivation or inspiration, and took away something,” Talansky said. “The moral of the story was that sometimes there is no reason to keep going because you’re not going to win and there was nothing to be gained, but you do it because it was about something bigger than that, something with in yourself, your teammates, your family or whatever the case may be. It made me really happy that people found something good out of something that, for me, was so terrible.”

Despite his young age, he is the joint leader of his team along with Irishman Daniel Martin, and Talansky is looking to develop himself into more of a leader this season.

“I think the best way to lead is by example,” Talansky said. “My teammates know that I’m very focused and dedicated, methodical in training and all that, but that I’m also fully committed to supporting my teammates. I’ve learned that the way you treat people on and off the bike, the way you interact with people, I think all kind of lends itself toward being a good leader."

“I would like to see myself continue to grow into that role, where the guys are excited to ride for me and know that when they do, and when they commit to it, that something good is going to come from it, something that we can all share and be proud of, and regardless, be proud of the effort that we put into it.”