Tejay Van Garderen was certainly one of the most positive surprises of the opening month of 2014 season, as the 25-year old American proved to step up his level by being surpassed only by Chris Froome (Team Sky) at the Tour of Oman. His spring was resembled more of a rollercoaster than a steady upwards trajectory, however, as similarly promising performances at the Volta a Catalunya and Vuelta al Pais Vasco were interrupted by marred by illness and crashes Paris-Nice and Tour de Romandie.

“I had a crash in Romandie, was sick in Paris-Nice, but at the same time, I had a good Tour of Oman, a good Catalunya and a good País Vasco, so I know that the fitness is there.”

Returning to competition following his Tour de Romandie crash and altitude training camp held in Aspen, Van Garderen preferred to take no risk in the Criterium du Dauphine opening prologue, but still managed to prove that improved climbing skills didn’t significantly diminish his time trialing prowess as he finished ninth on the 10 kilometer-long course.

Going full gas would most likely let the 25-year old BMC captain challenge main Tour de France contenders, Froome and Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) in yesterday’s prologue, yet the young American took the right decision to avoid unnecessary risk after he crashed in the opening time trial of the tour de Romandie and was forced to abandon the race two days later.

“After crashing in [Tour de] Romandie,” the American told VeloNews, “I don’t want to take any risks.”

“Sometimes things happen,” said van Garderen after previewing the Dauphiné course Sunday morning; he would go on to finish 13 seconds behind stage winner Chris Froome (Sky) in the 10.4km stage.

Questioned by journalists following his performance yesterday, Van Garderen once again confirmed that he treats Criterium du Dauphine as a dress rehearsal ahead of the French grand tour and explained that testing his disposition against the main Tour de France contenders is extremely important at this point, as it is hard to gauge how far they are with their preparations and which aspects need further improvements.

“I need to just to get some race rhythm in. I’m going to try to go high on the GC but I know that my goal’s a month away,” he said. “I just want to see where my rivals are, see where I’m at compared to them, what I need to work on in training.

“If I’m getting dropped early in the climb, then I know that I need to work on climbing. If the accelerations are hard, then I know I need to work on that.”

“It’s like that every year in the Dauphiné. You get some people from the Giro d’Italia coming in, you don’t know how they are going to go after such a hard race, and you have some guys that took the whole month of May off,” he said.

“Froome hasn’t raced since Romandie, Contador since País Vasco, Nibali has been at altitude. … Every guy who contends to the Tour usually uses the month of May as a build-up so no one really knows where anyone else stands.

“It’s always an unknown, but it’s not rocket science — the guys who are always up there are going to be up there this week.”

The young BMC captain also emphasized that he wasn’t too concerned about missing several races from his initial schedule, as he managed to build solid foundations for his condition during the winter break.

“I know that I train really well, I can come off a big time [away] and always be good, you saw that a couple of times this year, like in Catalunya. Racing definitely helps, it gives you that extra boost, and I’m hoping to get that from here to the Tour.”