Tejay van Garderen says he has shown solid form and consistency all season long and the time has now come to win a major European stage race and his target is the Tour de Suisse.
"I think I've shown consistency and solid form. My level is high, but I just haven't had that outstanding result," van Garderen said from a training camp in Andorra last week. "I think now is the time the form really needs to be there, and start ratcheting it up that one extra level. From what I've seen in training I'm there, we just have to test it in these next races."
van Garderen says he was hoping for more wins in the spring, but says he was still pleased with his results and is in Switzerland looking for a stage win or the overall.
"It's too bad it didn't snowball from the Ruta del Sol with more victories but I've had some solid results since then. I'll take another chance at Tour de Suisse, try to get another win - either a stage win or a high GC place, then it's full gas for the Tour."
The American on BMC says he hasn’t changed much this year, but he has enjoyed racing solely in Europe for a change and doing some new races.
"I wouldn't say there was an earth-shattering difference in my build up to the Tour as opposed to other years. It's been nice to stay on one Continent, and not do any time changes or extra travel. We swapped out Paris-Nice for Tirreno-Adriatico, that was a good experience. Then I did Ruta del Sol instead of Oman, which was nice to not have the burden of jet lag. It's been nice to do some new races, see some new scenery."
Another change he has made was doing the Swiss race over the Dauphine, where he was second to Chris Froome last season.
"It was kind of my call to do Tour de Suisse, just to branch out from my normal routine a little bit. I like the course, it has a time trial and a prologue, whereas the Dauphine only has one uphill prologue, so it was good to get another couple tests in the TT bike. There are some solid summit finishes in Tour de Suisse, while the Dauphine doesn't seem to have as many mountains."
30.03: The Bueng Si Fai |
30.03: Gran Premio Miguel Indurain |
30.03: Volta Limburg Classic |
31.03: Ronde van Vlaanderen |
31.03: Ronde van Vlaanderen |
29.03 - 01.04: Ster van Zuid Limburg |
01.04: Gran Premio del Perdono |
01.04: Ronde de Mouscron |
01.04: Giro del Belvedere |
02.04: G.P. Palio del Recioto |
Marcel KAMSMA 36 years | today |
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Riccardo FLORIAN 21 years | today |
Milton WYNANTS VAZQUEZ 52 years | today |
Sven DE WEERDT 46 years | today |
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