American cyclist Christian Vande Velde has shown the ability to be one of the world’s top stage racers, finishing fourth at the 2008 Tour de France and ninth in the 2009. But the Garmin-Transitions cyclist can also be one of the peloton’s most accident-prone: he crashed out of the Giro d’Italia in 2009, and again in 2010. Then, he tumbled out of the 2010 Tour de France with four broken ribs.

 

Such misfortune has not stopped Vande Velde, 34, from starting yet another Grand Tour—he’s currently racing at the Vuelta a Espana. This time, instead of racing for results, his top objective is simply to finish.

 

In all fairness, Vande Velde is not a dangerous rider. He has ridden in an impressive 16 Grand Tours throughout his professional career and finished all but four of them. In addition, his crashes at this year’s Giro d’Italia and Tour de France were virtually unavoidable.

 

Now, Vande Velde talks openly about one of cycling’s most avoided subjects: fear. “I do have fear,” the always-amiable Vande Velde told Bicycling in a telephone interview last weekend. “I was definitely thinking about stopping quite a few times. I mean, it hits home when family and friends are looking at you asking, ‘Why?’"

 

Vande Velde is committed to beating the fear. “At the end of the day, I just love to race and I know if I can get past the fear, past the pressure I put on myself, I can be one of the best,” he says. “That’s what drives me. And I don’t want to look back and think that I didn’t leave everything on the road before I hung up the cleats. So now I just want to get through this race.”

 

By comparative standards, Vande Velde is off to a reasonable beginning. He has already made it to stage five, farther than in his two previous Grand Tour starts. But perhaps more importantly he has already made it past his first crash, as he fell on Monday’s stage three but continued to the finish with only minor bruises.

 

“I’m beyond myself!” Vande Velde said in a follow-up conversation after Tuesday’s stage. And while he has lost more than 14 minutes on each of the last two stages, he is pleased with how he is riding. “It’s been gnarly with the heat down here and a lot of guys are really messed up. I can’t believe how good I feel. But I don’t want to turn myself inside out in the first week. I want to ride into shape as the race goes on.”

 

While Vande Velde’s goals are modest at this Vuelta, he hopes to ride well in the high mountains and strives to help team leader Tom Danielson. “Tom really deserves to have our support here I just hope I can have some standout performances being at the front and helping him out,” Vande Velde says. “I’d love to win a stage as well, but it all depends how the body reacts.”

 

Though Vande Velde has made it through five days of racing, he understands that two and a half weeks of racing still await him and has not lost track of his main goal. “First and foremost,” he says, “I need to stay out of trouble.”