All the VDV News That is Fit To Print.....

Site Manager’s explanation as to why she has been a bit behind with the Fan Club Site

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 06:57:51 -0500

Well........Not much of an excuse. My hard drive crashed and Apple in it’s infinite wisdom doesn’t allow you to retrieve/import information from iweb as it is in HTML format. ARRRGGG! Not to mention that iWeb doesn’t allow you to use HTML code to copy and paste content. Double Arrrggg!

Another reason that has kept me from my duties can be seen here. She is an awesome student and I thought she looked just like a Dr. Seuss Character with that ‘Do. Not to mention the fact that I am probably certifiably insane to have chosen to teach 8th grade.

Anyway, we’re back up and running and looking forward to a great 2010 season for Christian and his Argyle Cohorts in Garmin Transitions! Paris-Nice is the official opening of the 2010 season and we anxiously await watching VDV show his stuff. Although he may not be Rocking the baby, as he did in Stage 4, 2009, this year because there were no new little Vande Velde’s added to the family; we hope to see some Raising the Roof when he crosses the finish ahead of the Peloton!

I promise to bring you all of the VDV news, pictures and videos that I can get my hands on this season! So keep checking back!

Vande Velde cautiously optimistic ahead of Paris-Nice By: Peter HymasPublished: March 4, 02:32, Updated: March 4 Cycling News

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 06:25:02 -0500

Injured in Algarve, American looks to bounce back in France
Unlike the previous four years in which Christian Vande Velde started his season Stateside at the Tour of California, the Garmin-Transitions captain instead first turned the pedals in anger this season in Europe. Vande Velde kicked off his 2010 season on February 17th at Portugal's five-day Volta ao Algarve due to the American stage race's new, mid-May calendar position.
Despite being happy with his form, Vande Velde's season debut at the Volta ao Algarve did not go as planned as the Garmin - Transitions rider did not start the final day's time trial, hampered by a lingering ankle injury. Vande Velde, however, remained upbeat and eager to resume racing at Paris - Nice on March 7th.
"I was involved in a crash at the Volta ao Algarve with [Gert] Steegmans, smacked my ankle pretty hard, and it got very inflamed," Vande Velde told Cyclingnews from his home in Spain. "It doesn't take much to get you off the rails, but it doesn't take you much to get back on either this time of year. If I'm going to be involved in a crash I'm happy it's in February.
"I had to take some time off the bike this last week, which is definitely not ideal, and I'm just coming back as of right now. But you never know at this time of year and maybe a little bit of rest will do me some good."
Coupled with an extensive winter block of training in balmy Hawaii instead of his Chicago-area home, the onset of the 2010 season is a fresh departure from previous years for the 33-year-old American. It's a change of pace not to come out swinging in the early season for the US's biggest race, but it's something the seasoned American pro takes in stride.
"It's definitely an easier approach into the season, but I don't know if I like it or dislike it because I really liked that goal of being fit for the Tour of California," said Vande Velde. "All you think about throughout the winter time is 'California, California, California'. Nonetheless it's not always good to have pressure on being fit at the end of January while others ease their way into the season and maybe don't start racing until March."
"I do miss California, but at the same time it's nice going into the season a little bit easier. How that will effect me in Paris-Nice, I don't know. It is nice to have over a week of racing in your legs before you hit Paris-Nice."
Along with Vande Velde, Garmin - Transitions has several options for Paris-Nice, March 7-14, the first event of the International Cycling Union (UCI) Historic Calendar.
"Tom Danielson's in quite good form and of course Dave [Millar] will be good throughout the week as he always is at Paris-Nice," said Vande Velde. "We have a few cards to play. Fred [Kessiakoff] also had a really bad crash at Algarve and I don't know what kind of shape he's in, but hopefully he'll be ready to go.
"We have a good team and hopefully we'll have a little luck and turn in a result like Robbie Hunter, who won today [at the Tour of Murcia]. That was great news."
While Robbie Hunter earned the team's first European race win this year, Vande Velde notched Garmin - Slipstream's first European victory last season at Paris - Nice with a solo victory in the fourth stage, the first-ever solo win in Vande Velde's professional career.
"If I could repeat in that kind of fashion, that would be unbelievable," said Vande Velde. "That was a really cool win and one I'll never forget, that's for sure."

Superfan, Ashley, shares 2009 TdF experience!

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 06:23:07 -0500

I'm Ashley, I'm 17 and I'm from Canada.
This July my mom, dad and best friend went to the Tour de France. We had decided this relatively late in about April or May. I was so excited and excited because maybe I'd see Christian Vande Velde. So my friend and I made Garmin t-shirts with orange, blue and yellow argyle. We had dreams of getting them signed and then... Christian crashed. We were worried he wouldn't be there but when he came back to do the Tour de Suisse I was very much looking forward to seeing him in France.
Everyone who I had told about the trip to the Tour had warned me that I probably wouldn't see much and that I probably wouldn't get an autograph or anything. Our first stage was the Grand St Bernard in Switzerland. I cheered for the four or five Garmin guys who came in the pack with all the main contenders. I had payed enough attention to pick out Wiggins but not Christian. But I cheered anyways.
Day two was the Col de la Colombiere. It had been pouring on and off on the mountain and we had been up there for hours (the roads are closed to cars by 10 AM and they didn't come until about 5 PM). The Schlecks and Contador flew up followed by Lance and Wiggo. Eventually another Garmin rider started to come into view. I realised 'It's Christian'. So I start yelling "Go Christian! Come on Christian!". Suddenly I started chanting "V-D-V! V-D-V!" and I saw that he started smiling that great toothy smile of his. So I started screaming even louder and as he passed me he turned his head and gave me one last grin as he started to accelerate up the climb. SCORE!! I was so happy that even though I slipped in mud and had mud all down my backside on the way down from the mountain I didn't care.
Day three was the time trial in Annecy. I waited outside the Garmin bus with my homemade t-shirt on, chatting with some Kiwi who thought I was American and taking loads of pictures of DZ's and Christian's time trial bikes. We did eventually decide to go watch the race at the finish line because that was really close to where the buses were parked. Luckily we also had a straight view to the VIP section with it's commentators and it's two big screens so we could kind of watch. As Christian went by we screamed "VDV!" again because we just had to. We ran back to the buses to see if anyone had stuck around. All the buses had left except Garmin. So my mom decided to wave the t-shirt around in hopes of someone coming out and signing it. Didn't work but she did manage to embarrass me. We gave up on that until my mom sent us back to try again and we saw a guy who looked like JV. We didn't want to bother him while he was on the phone so we went and stood near the bus. As we left it we realised we would lose JV so we ran after him, yelling "JV!" He stopped and looked kind of freaked out that someone knew him but when I asked "JV can you take a picture with my shirt?" I don't think he could resist. Who can say no to a girl with a homemade argyle t-shirt? We chatted a bit and he was very nice but his sideburns weren't quite as pointy as I thought they'd be. So day three was another one for the books.
Day four was our Christian encounter. We went to the start village due to time constraints and we soon began to despair that no one would come close to us because they all signed in and went back to the buses at the start. So we made a mad dash to the buses but the crowd barriers (I hate those things) blocked any good paths. Happily the nice old French people who had stood that hour or two with us let us have our spot back. We decided that pictures might be the only things we'll get but they'll be close. When by some miracle, Christian Vande Velde parked his bike about a foot from where we stood. I started to say "Hi Christian!" but as I'm only 17 (and a girl) I probably wasn't very audible. So my mom yelled "Christian!" and immediately his head popped up and he smiled and waved at us as we smiled and waved at him. Then my mom yelled "Christian will you sign her shirt?" He motioned for us to pass it over and once again the nice French people and even the Silence-Lotto guy (not Cadel) passed it to him. He probably realised it wasn't a jersey or a Tour shirt so he unfolded it on his handle bars and signed it before handing it back. May I say that Lang, another Silence rider, looked quite jealous of Christian's fan t-shirt. For the next fifteen or twenty minutes he would look over every once in a while and smile before the race began and he left to our cheers.
In Paris we waited on the Champs rally close to L'Arc de Triomphe. We cheered during the race but it was the victory lap we were excited for. All the teams went by and we cheered for them all. Then it was Garmin's turn. As they went up the opposite side of the road we began to cheer and scream waving our t-shirts like flags. Matt White and Ryder Hesjedal (Oh Canada!) went by to our screams of "We love you Garmin!" as did Wiggo and a couple other guys. When Christian went by we went nuts. He gave us a peace sign before looking at us and recognizing the shirts. He smiled and waved at us and we celebrated the fact that he had remembered us.
Back home now, when people ask about the trip this is what I tell them first. I have a few stories about other riders and about things other than the race but this is what I tell them because VDV rocks just that much more.

Vande Velde on his 2009 Tour de France: My mental effort tenfold harder July 30, 2009 New York Times

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 06:14:56 -0500

Christian Vande Velde didn't say whether he called because he had read the last item of my Tuesday blog, referring to my missing the conversations we had during the Tour de France.
If not, he certainly had read my mind.
When we spoke late Wednesday, three days after he finished eighth in the Tour, Vande Velde was about to be on the move again. He will leave his European training base in northeastern Spain on Friday and travel west to the Basque country for Saturday's 141-mile Classic of San Sebastian, one of the premier one-day summer races in Europe.
The field is scheduled to include the one-two finishers from this year's Tour de France, Alberto Contador of Spain and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg.

Vande Velde missed San Sebastian last year because he was on his way to Beijing for the Olympics but finished 15th in 2007.
Before we spoke about his plans for the rest of this season, I asked him a couple summary questions about the Tour de France.
Q: You have ridden seven Tours and finished six*. How did the 2009 race compare in difficulty?
A: It was as stressful as any of the ones I have done. You had the pressure of the prologue in Monaco and the team time trial four days later, but then everything stacked up in the final week -- the Alps, the final time trial and Mont Ventoux. I would like to see them spread out the difficulty and the stress a little more.
Q: How did your effort compare with that of previous Tours?
A: My mental effort was tenfold harder because I didn't come in with ideal preparation (he missed several weeks of hard training after fracturing ribs and vertebrae in a May 11 crash at the Tour of Italy). Knowing that, it adds to your stress. Then I crashed three times.
Q: A guy I ride with wanted me to ask you what's up with all the crashes?
A: I'd like to know that, too. I might have been able to avoid one of them, but I had no chance on the others.
Q: What is your schedule after San Sebastian?
A: I can't wait to get escape to Wisconsin for a little bit of vacation. [He was in vacation mode Thursday, according to his latest tweet, in which he described celebrating a ride to the beach with lobster paella and beer.]
Q: Races?
A: I have to decide whether I will do the Tour of Spain [Aug. 29-Sept. 20] or the Tour of Missouri [Sept. 7-13, in which he is defending champion]. If I do the Tour of Spain, I will come home for a week or so and then go back. If not, I will do the Eneco Tour of Benelux [Aug. 15-25] and then come home for good before Missouri.
Q: Would you like to do Spain to show what might have happened in France with better preparation?
A: I would like to be on the podium or get a stage victory in a Grand Tour [the three-week races: Italy, France, Spain] this season, but I'm very pleased with what happened in the Tour de France given the circumstances.
Q: What is your status with the Garmin-Slipstream team?
A: I have one more year on my contract, and I'm really excited about next year.
Q: What will be different about your race schedule?
A: The big difference is having the Tour of California move (from mid-February) to May, which is the same time as the Tour of Italy. I plan to race California, then spend the time before the Tour de France just training. Before that, I will do some of the spring classics and Paris-Nice.
-- Philip Hersh
*Vande Velde's Tours: 85th (1999), withdrew after breaking arm in crash (2001), 56th (2004), 24th (2006), 25th (2007), fourth (2008) and eighth (2009).
Photo: Christian Vande Velde bit off something he couldn't chew in the 11th stage of Tour de France, but he had an eighth place on his plate when the race ended. Credit: Joel Saget / Getty Images

Rest and Reflection on Tour's Off Day by Christian Vande Velde July 14, 2009 New York Times

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 06:11:31 -0500

On Monday, after nine days of racing and hundreds of kilometers, we stopped. We rested. For some, the rest day simply comes and goes. For others, it disturbs the rhythm of the race. But for most, it is a time to relax, to talk with our families, to laugh with our teammates, to nap and, more than anything else, to disconnect from the Tour de France.
On a rest day we have the luxury of being in the same hotel for consecutive nights, a rare occurrence on the Tour. The rest-day program is often simple: a short ride with the team and interviews with reporters, and the rest of the day is ours. Naturally, we hope and pray that the rest-day hotel is a five-star joint.
We’re cyclists; we don’t ask for much. Good food, free wireless and comfortable beds make us happy. But we drew the short straw on this one, and our rest-day hotel was a step above camping. Luckily for us, our chefs, Sean and Laura, made it seem better than a stay at the Peninsula. Well, almost.
As the saying goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and that is especially true for cyclists. Because of Sean and Laura, the initial disappointment in our rest-day hotel was countered with meals of curry rice and chicken, heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, paella and Monday night’s feast of potato salad and barbecue turkey legs. There’s nothing like returning from a ride to the smell of sweet barbecue. It feels like home.
Sean is an expatriate from Colorado who has cooked all over the world. He now finds himself driving a camper through France, cooking in other people’s kitchens, out of the camper or on a Weber grill, for nine cyclists who eat enough for 18. Each night as I leave dinner, stuffed on my second helping of rice pudding, I feel so full that I don’t ever want to eat again. And each morning I wake up famished, looking forward to whatever they’ve prepared for us. We start and end each day with these two, and that is as close to feeling like home as it gets.
So, if you’re ever in Urús, Spain, stop by El Racó d’Urús and see Sean Fowler. Ask him to make you a plate of something we would eat during the Tour, and see if you can finish it. Then picture yourself doing the same morning and night for 23 consecutive days while staying below 5 percent body fat: 6,000 to 7,000 calories a day is a lot of kilometers.
C’est le Tour.
Christian Vande Velde is an American cyclist who finished fourth in last year’s Tour de France. Riding for the Garmin-Slipstream team, Vande Velde was in eighth place over all, 1 minute 24 seconds behind the leader, when he wrote this report between the 9th and 10th Stages. He will file periodic updates of his experiences at the Tour.

Finding Meaning Amid the Pain of a Race by VDV New York Times

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 06:08:30 -0500

Christian Vande Velde is an American cyclist who finished fourth in last year’s Tour de France. Riding this year for the Garmin-Slipstream team, Vande Velde will file periodic updates of his experiences at the Tour.

No one needs to be a professional bike racer, riding 200 kilomoters a day up and down mountains in searing heat and freezing rain. You do it because you love it.On days like Sunday, a brutal mountain stage at the Tour de France, you take inspiration wherever you can get it. I didn’t give up because I knew that my friends and family who are watching at home weren’t giving up on me.
As I came across the finish on Sunday, I found myself holding onto the guardrail (or should I say Gavin, my soigneur), unable to catch my breath. I was suffering the entire climb and had no idea what state I truly was in until I was forced to stop 10 feet past the finish.
Heaving, trying to get a hold of myself, I realized that I hadn’t held anything back and thus have no regrets — everyone’s worst enemy.
At the bottom of the final climb I was with my teammates David Millar and Bradley Wiggins. We moved toward the front of the bunch because we knew that there were switchbacks and that we needed to be out of trouble for the final kilometers.
Staying at the front, ahead of crashes and the larger group, is always the safest place to be. It went fast and I gave it my all. That’s all you can do on the road. I felt physically sick for hours after the race and even had a laugh or two at my own expense with Millar pointing out how miserable I looked.
Monday was our second and final rest day, and aside from taking a quick trip to check out the time trial course in Annecy, I rested, Skyped with the girls at home and took care of the little things.
As we began Tuesday’s stage, another epic day of climbing, I sit in 12th place over all. People keep asking me if it’s what I expected, what will happen next, if my role will change. What I can tell you is this: after my horrible crash the Giro and coming back for the Tour de Suisse — where I was still racing with broken bones — I consider what I’ve done here so far a success.
I feel a hundred times better than I did in Monaco, and every day my condition improves. I think it will continue to improve as we move into this last week. This Tour is different from last year, when I was alone for large parts of the mountains.
Having Bradley here on the climbs with me is physically and mentally reassuring. Being able to look across the group and see another jersey with our name on it — to have someone to yell to and say, “How’re you feeling?” has changed the experience dramatically.
Bradley and I will continue to support each other and work for each other in this last week, just as we have all along. The team is in a great position right now, with two of us in good standing. Anything can happen in the Tour, that is the beauty of this event. You just have to keep pushing yourself. It’s a dirty job, and I’m happy to do it. Plus my brother is smashing himself on his bike as you read this. One person inspired.

Christian Vande Velde: Steady As He Goes by Joe Lindsey, October 20th, 2009 Bicycling

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 06:04:14 -0500

Garmin-Slipstream’s Christian Vande Velde looks for less of a rollercoaster ride in 2010 as his Garmin team reups its sponsorship until 2013.

The 2009 season was set to be a confirmation for Christian Vande Velde. The revelation of the 2008 Tour de France, Vande Velde, 33, was looking forward to a Tour route that suited his abilities. A strong team was at his back, and despite some horrendous weather that changed his offseason training plans, he had enjoyed a successful spring with a stage win at Paris-Nice.
Then it all went wrong on Stage 2 of the Giro d’Italia, as he hit the deck in one of those senseless crashes that bedevil the early stages of all Grand Tours. With just under two months until the start of the Tour, Vande Velde struggled to put together decent form as he recovered from extensive injuries, including five fractured vertebrae, two broken ribs and a hairline fracture to his pelvis.
Despite all that, Vande Velde managed another top 10 finish at the Tour (and played a role in supporting the emergence of his teammate, Bradley Wiggins, as a GC contender in his own right).
Vande Velde took time this fall to talk to Bicycling about his 2009 season, and his plans for 2010, which will be his 12th pro season. As this interview went to press, it was announced that his primary team sponsor, Garmin, renewed its sponsorship of the team through 2013. And a much-discussed possible addition of two-time Tour winner Alberto Contador receded as a likely event, even as speculation that Wiggins would transfer to the new Sky team also died down. With his season over and his team’s roster essentially set for 2010, here’s what Vande Velde had to say about the year that was, and the one to come.
Boulder Report: At what point this fall will you sit down with the team and evaluate 2009? What’s that process like?
Christian Vande Velde: We will probably do it a bit later this year. You take your calendar out and look at how you raced, how you prepared and what you did to prepare, how that all worked out and what the team goals are and your personal goals (for next season). Really, you just try to find out what’s best for you and the team. It’s a mix and match deal to try to blend the best of both worlds. Historically, we’ve found I do well with a big load of training and racing – a lot of work. It looks daunting at first, but it’s what I need. As far as who’s involved, it’s me and Jonathan planning it together, but we also talk with Adrie (van Dieman, team trainer) and Allen (Lim, team physiologist).
BR: Looking back on the season now, do any epiphanies emerge, or do you need more time and space to reflect on it?
CVV: Not really. Everything that was in my control worked out, taking away the crash in the Giro. I know I have to give myself more time and space in the winter. Last year I was pretty much confined to the home trainer and the gym in December and January, and that was hard both mentally and physically. This year, we’re not going to try to reinvent the wheel by training in Chicago. I’m going to Hawaii or San Diego in December and going straight back to Spain in January.
Some guys can train in a hard winter. Jason McCartney does it exclusively with cross country skiing, but I can’t ski worth a damn; I need to not have a foot and a half of snow. That said, the year before (2008) I got third in the Tour of California and I was still riding in cornfields in January, so it can be done.
BR: Last November, you told me that one of the biggest things that had changed for you from 2008 going into 2009 was confidence. Tell me a little about how that affected your 2009 season.
CVV: Part of confidence, for me, is knowing that I ticked off all those boxes – training as hard as I can, being as good and smart about it as you can be. Whether that’s sitting on the trainer or going out in the snow while everyone else is training in warm spots is hard on your confidence because you know you’re not doing everything in your power to get better. You can’t control the weather, and what you do have control over isn’t that much.
I did so much work in the gym last winter. I was physically so strong that my physique changed; I haven’t looked like that since I was 18 and still wrestling. It didn’t take long to get my (bike) fitness back – I mean, I got top 10 in the last stage of Paris-Nice (not to mention won a stage – Ed.) and I was zero to hero in a week, but a week after that, I was just destroyed. It’s not healthy to play with your form like that.
BR: You mentioned having control over things – outside of training, what did you focus on?
CVV: The big thing was taking my diet more seriously. Not grabbing a bottle of wine here and there. I started working with the Zone Diet people to work on good versus bad fats, and shifted to an anti-inflammatory diet. I was really focusing on those finer details and I felt like that started paying dividends.
BR: When did you first start to suspect your diet needed changing?
CVV: I was looking into it as early as 2007, and the beginning of 2008, but I didn’t really start it in earnest until just after the Tour de France that year. Around June and July, when the hot weather comes, I have more ease taking the weight off. And I was just on a different level with all the work I had put myself through; I had such a massive base, and hadn’t really stopped training since the Giro/Tour the year before.
BR: What do you think has worked best for you?
CVV: Everyone’s different but, for me, what worked best was staying away from simple sugars, red meat and alcohol. Those go a long way for me. Some are easier to stay away from than others, but when I have a goal and that goal gets closer, it’s easier and easier to do. I’m not gluten-free, but I do try to keep that out. I love bread, and I love beer, and those are two things I struggle with. Beer is like wheat in a bottle more or less.
What’s been helpful is how the team has embraced that and offered gluten-free options to everyone, going the extra mile. Like at the races, every morning Allen will make the rice cakes in the morning. That’s the best thing about the team. Between Allen, Adrie and JV, they put together a lot of the pieces of the puzzle. I mean, no one really wants to spend their time making that stuff – the ice vests and drink mixes and all that, but that’s how you check off every box.
BR: Leading up to the 2009 Giro, it seemed like everything was going, if not perfectly, pretty damn close. Do you agree with that impression?
CVV: I still had a bit of the unknown, actually. I hadn’t raced since the Tour of the Basque Country, but I was pretty optimistic. In a perfect world I would have changed my December and January prep, but considering all that, the spring did go quite well.
BR: Then, you crashed in the Giro. I’ve seen quotes that you aren’t quite sure what happened. Did you ever figure it out?
CVV: The road curved a bit to the right, and what I thought at first is that someone rode into my wheel, and then I was down. That’s pretty much it as far as I know.
BR: It was apparent immediately that you were hurt, but the extent of the injuries made that even more clear – five fractured spinal processes, two broken ribs, a hairline pelvic fracture. Describe the first couple of weeks after the crash – what were you thinking about the Tour, about your recovery prospects in general?
CVV: I really always thought I could race the Tour; it was a matter of what role I’d be in. I could easily have gone and said no to doing the Tour de Suisse and took the time to recuperate and been a mid-level support rider (at the Tour de France). If I’d taken another week and a half off the bike, it would have been a lot easier on me. But that’s not really my psychology. The Tour de Suisse was the first goal. But that was really hard. I wasn’t in a good place, and I wasn’t happy. I was always trying to find ways to heal faster or easier and jump back on the bike. And then I started questioning myself: why was I doing this? Should I relax? Would it even be possible?
So I got on the bike maybe 10, 12 days after the crash and it was way too early. I had to take another three or four days off, and then I had a real gradual approach back. I couldn’t even ride up my driveway the first few rides. I live on a pretty steep hill in Girona, and Al (Lim) would pick me up in the team car, drive us to the other side of town and I’d ride. Then we’d put the bike back in the car and he’d drive me home. That was a pretty humbling experience, as a pro bike rider, to have to be picked up like that. And I’m thankful that I’m such good friends with Al, because it kept me at ease and he was just relentlessly positive about it. He’d say, ‘That’s amazing that you rode an hour and a half today!’ I’d say something like ‘Al, it’s pathetic. I’m a pro.’ And he’d just say, ‘It’s twice as long as you rode yesterday. That’s amazing!’
BR: Just before the Tour de France, you told me that the Tour de Suisse was essential for your comeback, not just in terms of getting those 1,500 kilometers of riding in nine days, but mentally, to get back in the mix. Still, going into the Tour de France, did you have any sense of what was possible, of how you might do?
CVV: It was a complete unknown, honestly. It was totally a matter of how I’d recovered. The last week in the Tour de Suisse and just after it I pushed really hard to eke out everything I could, to get my threshold up just a little higher. But I went to Monaco not knowing how I would do. I was over the moon with that (17th place in the opening TT) and that just set the course for the rest of the Tour.
BR: What about Brad? When did you really start to see him transform into a GC rider – at the Dauphine? Giro?
CVV: You know it came a lot earlier actually, in training camp. Watching him on the bike even at our November camp, and watching him lose weight and do Roubaix and the Classics and watching his mentality change, and seeing how far he could push himself. I would say before the Giro is when I started thinking about what he could and couldn’t do. I think I had more confidence in him than he did; I knew what I had done. I had no doubt he could be in the top five at the Tour.
BR: You said his emergence helped motivate you because you had a teammate to ride with in the high mountains. How did that help?
CVV: It took a lot of pressure off me – that I wasn’t the last man standing every day. It gave me something to do. If I was looking after him, in all honesty, it kept my mind off myself and how I was doing. It made it easier to push myself hard. I don’t know whether I would have finished where I did, because I might not have had the ability to be up there all the time.
BR: Other than an early tumble or two, the first couple of weeks of the Tour seemed to go pretty well for you, and the course overall suited you. Did it help you ride into shape, or would you have done better with some harder stages in the Pyrenees?
CVV: I felt really good in Andorra, but yeah, it would’ve been a different scenario. The way the course ran this year it gave me the opportunity to grow into the Tour. It was really stressful the first two weeks, actually. There was the rain on the Barcelona stage, the crashes, the stage into la Grande Motte (where Columbia split the field). There were lots of chances to get hurt or lose time. It’s that old cliché that you don’t win the Tour but you can lose it in that first week.
By the last week I was getting tired; I would have a good day and then a bad day, moreso than in the past. I was lucky that on the hardest day, to le Grand Bornand, I was having a good day – the best day I had actually.
BR: Speaking of specific stages, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what exactly happened on Stage 14 (when George Hincapie’s bid for yellow was foiled by a chase by Garmin and Astana). What happened? Is George still mad?
CVV: Ah, I don’t even know. We were trying to stay out of trouble at the front, and in the last 7k it was extremely hectic and to stay up front makes it easier for us.
BR: Did you feel like Garmin got singled out for criticism? At the finish, George was also mad at Astana.
CVV: Yeah, I do feel we got singled out, but I don’t want to get into it too much. I’ve talked to George and, yeah, he still might be mad. We’ve been friends for a long time and I don’t think you can forgive that that easily.
BR: A lot of the controversy seemed to center on whether you guys were trying to deny George the yellow. We saw Dave (Zabriskie) on the front riding pretty hard. But you said those last kilometers were really hectic, and it seemed that way in the coverage I saw - even Columbia looked hesitant in setting up Cav in the sprint. Sometimes the impression among fans and journalists is that with radios in your ear and a TV in the team car that you have perfect information. What’s going on in the pack – how much do you really know?
CVV: It’s definitely not the case that we know what’s going on all the time. Our radios weren’t even working that well, and sometimes I couldn’t talk to my teammates if they weren’t right next to me. So you wouldn’t know of a crash or how far off the break was. We had days where the radios didn’t work at all. I guess that was good training for the day without radios.
And in the case of Dave, a lot of times he doesn’t even know who’s in the break. He’s told to chase and he goes to the front and does it. I mean, that day, he thought Sammy Sanchez (Euskaltel) was in the break. And afterward I’m like, ‘Dave, Sammy isn’t even in the race.’
BR: What’s your thought about the race radio controversy, in general? Are they a good or bad thing?
CVV: I don’t know; I have mixed feelings. I mean, there’s enough danger that we don’t need any more. It’s nice to know what things are going on. But does it give you an advantage? No, everyone has the same information. So it would cancel out if we didn’t have radios. My biggest fear is that there are a lot more cars in the caravan now, and if we didn’t have radios we’d have some added danger from all the team cars coming in and out of the pack, and the stress that adds.
BR: Looking to 2010, there are some pretty significant roster changes on teams, and a few new teams altogether. How do you think that might affect racing and the Tour specifically?
CVV: I think it’ll be great. It’s a great angle for cycling that the sport hasn’t been this good, this competitive, for as long as I’ve been a pro anyway. I mean, dividing up the power at Astana, Sky with a beautiful big budget, there are four great teams and two entirely new ones, so I think it’s 100 percent positive; I’m all for it.
BR: And how does Garmin fit in that mix with more competition? You guys got dinged some this year for getting second and third a lot of times. But the team had some great late-season wins. What does that say about next year?
CVV: It was frustrating; we’re still talking about how many times we came close. We’re getting there and getting close and getting a lot of results – like 100 times better than last year. We always get compared to Columbia, which confuses me because we have like a quarter of their budget. I don’t want to belittle our team, but it’s not a good comparison just because on paper we’re both American teams.
We had a great season. It was frustrating at times, but I’ve had more success the last two years than all my previous seasons combined. I can’t say anything wrong about it. Wiggo did something that hadn’t happened in 25 years (a British rider in the top 5 at the Tour), and we did that in six months on this team. So yeah, if you’re an armchair critic, we haven’t always closed the deal, but we’ve had some amazing successes and I think we’ll continue to next year.

VDV Gets Schmalz'd Again VDV end of season interview Thu, 10/22/2009 - 7:47am by schmalz Transcribed and edited by Peter McCormick. NY Velocity

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 11:17:27 -0500

schmalz Today we’re here with Christian Vande Velde of the Garmin Slipstream team. You’re going to have a new sponsor next year. You’re going to be Garmin-Pom next year?
VDV I really don’t the official name of the team but Pom is definitely going to be part of the family.
schmalz  There’s going to be a Pom there somewhere. Have you had the obligatory Pom Martini?
VDV You know what? I haven't. That’s a good idea actually. We’re going to the Pom headquarters next week in LA so I’m sure we’ll get the chance to do that there.
schmalz  Sure. Just get to the punch bowl and pour a big flask of booze into there and you’re going to be all set.
VDV (Scandalized giggle)
schmalz  It’ll make that meeting much more interesting than anyone thought it would be.
VDV Someone’s got to spike the bowl.
schmalz  So you’re in the off-season now. I think the Tour of Missouri kind of ended your season for you.
VDV Yeah. It definitely ended my season whether I’d have liked to have or not. It was…damn, that was a long time ago already. It was so far off, I'm already thinking of next season. I’m already thinking of the next few weeks. I’m going to be training in the saddle and in the gym much earlier than I cared to but I’ve had a great month already.
schmalz  So what’s the final bone count for the year there, Evel Knievel? How many did you end up cracking?
VDV I don’t know. Eight? Yeah.
schmalz  There was the Giro where you broke your back and then there was another one where you broke something else, wasn’t there?
VDV No, I probably just re-broke some of the vertebrae that I’d already broken in Switzerland and stuff like that but, whatever; it was neither here nor there.
schmalz  It seems like the entire year was the Year of "Plan B". You get going and then, oh, here’s a crash...
VDV There were a lot of us in that same boat. It’s never fun when you’re constantly chasing your tail. It adds a lot of stress to your life and it’s really not fun. Obviously it wasn’t planned; but it didn’t turn out so bad but it didn’t turn out so great at the end. It was a very bittersweet year.
schmalz  At the end of the year do you just take a complete break and not look at your bike or do anything cycling-related for a while or do you just ride slower?
VDV Actually I ride faster but just really short. I ride and go kill myself for just an hour or two, on my cross bike, and that’s about it. I have a lot of fun doing that. I’d never do that in the middle of the year – killing myself on a cross bike for no reason, just hammering. It’s a good time.
schmalz  So are you back in Illinois. Are you going to do the cold weather training again?
VDV No, not to the extent that I have in the last few years. I’ve smartened up. It’s obnoxious already: it’s 42 degrees and rainy as I speak to you, and it’s October, and it’s been like that all week. It’s been a big bummer. I’m taking that as a cue and I’m leaving Sunday for San Francisco and I’m going to ride down the coast for the Million Dollar Challenge, so that’ll be really fun and a nice way to get out and ride your bike. Then I’m going to Hawaii in December with the family.
schmalz  So you don’t have to break out the Grand Marnier in October and risk that borderline alcoholism at the season start?
VDV No, I’m getting a grip on the Grand Marnier, drinking it when I’m not even that cold.
schmalz  Recreationally?
VDV Recreationally, exactly.
Fame: The Man Who Lives Near Mark Buehrle
schmalz  Do your neighbors in Illinois have a concept of what you do? Do they know you’re the world traveler/international cycling man of intrigue that you are? Or are they just like, “Oh yeah, that guy down the road: he rides bikes or something.”
VDV This last year, a lot of people started realizing what I do. My aunt’s a radio personality and she gets on the radio and so a lot of people hear me on the radio and see me on TV. But for the most part it’s still just kind of weird. You know, "the guy that they see who rides to the Gatehouse all the time, and on his bike and who doesn’t really ever go to work".
schmalz  I guess it must be like living next door to a polo player. It’s great. I have no frame of reference for it. I don’t know what a polo player does. I can respect it, I guess. I know they ride horses, but if you were the most famous polo player of all time I don’t know if it would make all that much of an impression on me.
VDV Yes. We have some friends who are professional sailors and they take things just different – especially here in the states in Chicago.
schmalz  Do you get more attention when you’re in Girona than when you’re in Chicago?
VDV No. No one says anything in either place. They just say "hi" and that’s about it. I’m in the middle. I’ll give you an example. Mark Buehrle lives down the street from me.
schmalz  Right. I have no idea who that is.
VDV Well Mark is the only guy who pitched a perfect game in a long, long time.
schmalz  Oh that’s right, he’s the White Sox guy.
VDV He lives down the street, and everyone in the tristate area knows who Mark Buehrle is. I say I live down the street, and people say: “Oh, that’s where you live!” It kind of puts things in context. I’m a professional athlete but I’m not like that. Far from it.
schmalz  I live adjacent to an actual professional athlete!
VDV Exactly! An actual!
schmalz  Yeah there's a real athlete right down the street. He only pitches one in every five games but who’s counting? Not the same sort of thing. So, you’re just taking a break, getting to know your neighbors again, and trying to explain to them what bike racing is all about. They’re probably more impressed that you were at the Olympics, aren’t they?
VDV Probably. You know, you’re right. The Olympics go along way in the States and in most Anglo countries, the Olympics is a big deal. In Australia it’s massive and in the UK, it’s even bigger, I believe. You get a lot more oohs and aahs when you say you’ve been to the Olympics.
schmalz  You whip out that track suit and they go, “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.”
VDV That’s what it’s all about, man. The schwag.
schmalz  Well, they’ve announced the 2010 Tour route. Have you begun planning for the race the day after? Or five minutes after?
2010 TdF Route and Hotel Life
VDV Everyone definitely checks it out and scours the map to see exactly what we’re doing, but next year, given that it is Pyrenees-heavy, it will be very easy to go and check out a lot of the mountains. It’s only a couple of hours’ drive from Girona. You get a good impression of who it’s going to be good for, who it’s going to be bad for, when you to use your strength – all those kinds of things. Everyone has their own agenda and an idea of what’s going to be good and bad for them. It’s going to be stressful, as usual. There’s always that big week looming at the end of the Tour, and you’re going over cobblestones in the first week of the Tour, being up north in Rotterdam, where the weather can still be atrocious still in the middle of July.
schmalz  It seems like for a contender, it’s going to be an extra-stressful early week. There’s going to be cobbles, cross-winds, rain, there’s going to be all kinds of things out there.
VDV Yeah but they took out the team time trial and there really aren't too many things more stressful than a team time trial. At all. So they traded it out. There’s no team time trial but we have a ton of cobblestones within the last 30 K of the race, so it’s almost equal.
schmalz  But even though it’s stressful, wouldn’t you have preferred to have a team time trial, because you did so well in the team time trial last year?
VDV For sure.
schmalz  How else are you going to knock Cadel of the race?
VDV He can leave that to himself. I would have loved to, first and foremost, won one of those team time trials in the Tour. We came in second in both grand tours this year and that really stunk. I just wanted a chance to win a big one in the Tour.
schmalz  Well you didn’t lose by much. It was really tight. You had four-and-a-half guys, as I remember.
VDV It still goes down as one of the most amazing things I’ve ever been a part of, being with the two Daves and with Brad that day and Ryder; that was really insane. If I could ever go that fast again in a breakaway, I think you'd win the Tour de France.
schmalz  So did you ever think you’d have such an intimate knowledge of the geography of France? You could probably run a pretty nice bus tour. Or you could run a pretty terrible bus tour that takes you to all the terrible hotels of France. Either way.
VDV Yeah. You know you’ve been over there too long when you start going to the same hotels twice and three times, even when you’re just walking or driving by and you need a place to stay and you think, oh my God, I’ve been here before. That’s starting to happen… it makes me good at pretty lame Trivial Pursuit questions for mid-Europe.
schmalz  “Which section of France is known for its liver cheese?” And you’re like: Oh! I know that! Do you ever find yourself on some French road; you don’t know where you are, but you’re: “I remember this piece of road. I think I took a whizz here or something happened here before … Do you have this déjà vu when you’re in France?
VDV You definitely get déjà vu, but I don’t race that in France that often except the Tour so that stuff on those roads that you’ve ridden up, like Tourmalet, for example. I’ve raced a ton of times, up and down, that and a couple of races, but for the most part I’ve only done, I think, seven Tours now, but it’s not really that many. Not like George [Hincapie] or Eki [Ekimov]. They know every nook and cranny.
schmalz  You’ve probably already done the hotel map when you look at the start and the stop cities. You’re like, “Yeah, this one’s going to suck. This one’s going to be terrible.”
VDV That’s true.
schmalz  No sleep tonight … this one’s going to be terrible. This one’s going to be awful, no shower here. You probably have whole different experience of it, just from travelling from place to place there, because have to worry about where you’re going to go and the logistics of everything.
VDV It is a nice thing but it’s not something you really want to brag about: that you’ve lived in hotels for 200 nights a year and not [incomp]. It’s something I would definitely appreciate getting away from. Unless we’re always staying in a very nice hotel. If you’re going to put me in the Peninsula for 200 nights a year, I’m a happy person.
schmalz  The only other people who spend so many nights in hotels are probably prostitutes, right?
VDV (Laughter) You’re not far away.
schmalz  You’re almost like an escort service, all that travelling. So: how do you handicap the Tour next year? It looks like it’s going to be very good Tour for Alberto and Andy Schleck, for Andy especially, because they have fewer time trial miles.
VDV I think that’s correct. Andy’s improving massively every year in the time trial. In the last two years he made huge steps. With Alberto, everyone keeps going on about that he’s a skinny climber; he can’t time trial. They forget how fast he really goes until he reminds everybody, and he wins. The only thing against Alberto is his agility, to go fast on the cobblestones.
schmalz  It’s Spanish kryptonite, isn’t it?
VDV Andy’s a really great bike rider now and there isn’t going to be any problems for him at all.
schmalz  It’s sweet, because he’s going to be able legally to drink the Champagne on the podium.
VDV That’s always a good thing.
schmalz  It seems that the mountains they’re talking about are going to be more decisive later in the Tour – which mountains always are because everyone gets tired – but it’s the Pyrenees that are going to be later, correct?
VDV Yeah.
schmalz  What kind of rider does that suit?
VDV They say it’s steeper and rougher roads in the Pyrenees. I don’t know if that still bodes true completely, but it is a little bit hotter down there… And then it just depends on how many hard mountains they put back-to-back. You can have a hard stage, but you put the Tourmalet in the middle of things, like they did this year, and you have a hundred-person field sprint. So it really depends on where you place them – what was the day before, what’s on the line, how the weather is – there are a lot of factors that go into it. But you have the perfect storm like this year in le Grand Bornand and then all hell breaks loose.
schmalz  So it depends on the way the Tour is laid out; what they’re looking for that year, which towns have paid enough to the ASO.
VDV But you also need a sick launch-pad, like the Schlecks had last year on the penultimate climb in that stage. The stage wasn’t even five hours long but there was just an amazing amount of climbing. I think it was something like 15 or 16,000 feet of climbing that day.
schmalz  And they had Alberto helping them out.
VDV Yeah. Once.
schmalz  I think that was the only time he helped out. I don’t think he’s going to be helping out much more.
VDV No, never again.
Getting Along in the Rolling High School
schmalz  Now, as far as the off-season stuff goes, you have obviously no say in what the roster changes are going to be. So do you hear about these things just through Cyclingnews or do you just read about it or do you get any information beforehand at all?
VDV Once in a while. A lot of times the things we did earlier in the year, I have a say in. But for the most part, there are things I've learned that I want to be involved in and things I don’t want to be involved in, just because I have enough problems on my own plate.
schmalz  And maybe JV isn’t going to listen to you anyway.
VDV Exactly. Or make it work in the wrong way. And at the end of the day, it’s his business and not mine, and I'm an employee of his. Of course if I really feel strongly about it, I’m going to speak my mind. At the same time, I don’t want to get too involved.
schmalz  Well I think the nature of pro cycling, since it’s such a rolling high school of about five hundred guys, everyone knows each other already, and when you get placed on the team, it’s, "Ah well, I already know them or I know of them." I don’t think there are too many riders who would have objections to being together on teams.
VDV You’re right. But it’s trickier than you think. There’s getting people who will all hang out, who would appreciate being on an American team and speaking English around the table, who could gel into something like that – and who could also go very fast and live over in Europe for the whole year. It’s an interesting blend of people you need to get, especially given that we have – and this is a good problem – is that we have Radio Shack and Sky this year, along with Columbia; that’s just doubled the teams we have for Anglos. It’s a great problem to have. Nonetheless this makes it a bit harder to pick riders.
schmalz  You and all the riders on Garmin seem to be pretty friendly with one another. Would you say it’s the friendliest team you’ve ever been on? How does it rate in the whole spectrum of liking the guys you ride with?
VDV The last two teams I’ve been on have been really great in that sense. CSC was an incredibly tight team. A whole lot of us had kids and everyone was married, more or less; everyone had the same likes and interests. That was a really tight team. This [Garmin] has turned into a very tight team. It’s always hard the first year, when you make the team and there’s a lot of people from all different sides and you have to weed out – people start weeding out themselves, actually. At the end of this year and next year, it’s going to be really tight and success comes with that, I think.
schmalz  The team has had a lot of big wins toward the end of the year, which is great because there are only so many second places that you can stand throughout the season until you start to go nuts. Tyler had his grand tour win and Dave Zabriskie was able to pull off the Tour of Missouri. That helps also: success really does make people happier to go to work.
VDV No doubt about it. It makes me more inspired and if you’re sitting at home watching your teammates, you want to be part of that. Success breeds success.
schmalz  Unlike Astana, where everyone’s trying to be rats jumping off a ship, apparently. I don’t know if they can or not. It seems as if they would be the anti-friendly team right now because of the way the whole situation is set up. Everything is gone; they’ve got no buses. I don’t know whether they’re going to get around in horse carts; I don’t know how they’re going to get from one place to another. Maybe Vino [Vinokourov] has a station wagon… Have you had any contact with Bradley Wiggins? Do you know where he’s going to go? He probably hasn’t told anyone anything, right?
VDV I went to Dave Millar’s wedding in London and had a great time. I was with him and the new manager of the Sky team; we all sat at the same table, actually, and we agreed right away that we weren’t going to talk about anything, and just have a good time and drink too much wine.
schmalz Talking business can be boring at a wedding.
VDV We didn’t want to throw any tables or anything like that.
Working With Wiggins and Where the Bottles Are
schmalz  It was interesting during the Tour when it showed that Bradley was going to take over the team leadership role. I heard that you were kind of helping him out because he’s not a neophyte in stage racing, but I think he is new to the role of being the leader in a stage race. So I think you had to tell him about where to position himself, where to be, how to save a little energy here and there. Does that sound right? Were you kind of guiding him around?
VDV Yeah. I definitely helped him out when I could. In some things he didn’t need any help at all. He’s incredibly confident and knows what he can and can’t do, really well. You don’t become a couple-time Olympic champion not knowing those kinds of things. If anything, I helped him out more with public perception and talking to the press, things like that; getting him to relax a little bit. That’s where you can definitely win or lose the Tour de France when those sorts of things begin to mount. That just sucks the energy out of you.
schmalz  It shows something about the way your team is structured and the way you regard each other. He kind of showed he was going to be the team leader as the race wore on and then you rallied behind him, instead of trying to lose him at the hotel or not getting his car to show up at the hotel to go to the time trial. I’m looking at another team that shall remain nameless – there’s a big difference between the way the two teams went about it.
VDV Yeah, but at the same time, to be fair to other guys, I’ve never won the Tour de France. I’ve never even been on the podium on the Tour de France. If I’d won it a ton of times or won every grand tour I’d ever entered, like Alberto, that’s a completely different story; I might have a different mentality. That means, first and foremost, that I’ve been a domestique a lot longer than I’ve been a team leader, so that’s actually more of my normal role. It’s not that I want to be there as much anymore, but I’m happy to help out whenever I can.
schmalz  And you know where the bottles are and you know how to do that.
VDV No, I can’t really find the bottles anymore, I don’t know.
schmalz  You can’t find these bottles? “I don’t know what these bottles are.”
VDV I can’t find them. I haven’t found them in a while.
schmalz  You’re going to have to help me out here. I like that. You’re getting a little bit of the diva thing going on there, Christian. It’s going to help you out. If you don’t expect yourself to pick up bottles then no bottles will be picked up by you. So what’s the plan for next year? Is it going to be the Giro as preparation again?
VDV That’s still to be declared, man. It’s hard: I really want to be in both places at the same time. I know the Giro really did me well last year and at the same time, the Tour of California – I’ve never missed one and it’s an awesome race. Having such a high-profile race in the United States... It would hurt not to be there. It’s going to be hard. I want to make the decision before the new year, though. It’s always nice to have a plan.
schmalz  Do you get to decide or is the decision pushed upon you?
VDV I think it will be a little of both. We’ll just weigh all the pros and cons, and how much of a big deal it is for sponsors and team-wise and how much of a benefit it is to the team.
schmalz  But if you threw a big enough tantrum, you’d probably get your way.
VDV I could probably get my way if I did that. But I like to keep the peace as long as I can.
schmalz  Something along the lines of, "I’m not picking up my own goddamn bottles."
VDV Aw, I can still do that. It’s not that hard.
schmalz  You’re going to cause as much trouble as you can. Is the winter training routine going to be the same as last year? You were happy with the way that went? It’s just that you happened to fall on your ass at the Giro, and that threw a monkey wrench in everything?
VDV Oh man, I wasn’t happy at all with the way it went last year here. That was horrible. It took so much more energy than I cared for, to be here in the frigid winter. That’s why I’m actually in stage left, going to Hawaii. I think that will make it much easier and a lot more fun for both me and my family. We’re going back to Spain in the first week of January. My daughter will be going to school there and we’ll just get back into the rhythm.
schmalz  That’s the big key, being able to get your family to go with you to Hawaii. Because they'll be, "Well hell yeah, let’s go there!"
VDV Exactly. Not like: “Let’s go to Silver City! It’ll be great!” No, it won’t be great.
schmalz  “We’re training in Missouri!”
VDV “It's great down there, really. The’ve got a great Holiday Inn! It’s so cool!”
schmalz  “You’ll love the Ozarks!”
VDV [Recovering] To be fair, the Ozarks in July and August are sick. But not in January.
schmalz  Christian, thank you for your time. The only thing I can say for this season is, stay off your ass. Jesus Christ.
VDV I’ll really try. I'll try my best. I don't like it.