Inside Cycling with John Wilcockson: Cadel Evans on Romandie, the Tour, his injury, and Phinney

A revealing interview with the Tour de Romandie winner

Editor’s note: Every week through the 2011 road season, VeloNews Editor-at-Large John Wilcockson is writing about key features of the week’s racing. This 12th installment focuses on man of the week Cadel Evans.

GENEVA, Switzerland (VN) — As one of the world’s leading mountain bikers before he turned full-time to road racing in 2002, Cadel Evans prides himself on his bike-handling ability. So it was somewhat ironic that the March 31 crash that almost compromised his 2011 season happened off-road.

“I was out in the forest, going back to my roots,” he told VeloNews in an interview at his BMC Racing team’s hotel in Yverdon, Switzerland, at the weekend. “I was riding my cyclocross bike when I had a little tumble. I hit my right knee on the bike as I tumbled off, bruising what’s called the vastus medialis (quadriceps muscle). It swelled up noticeably.

“Luckily, I keep good people to help me. Last month was a good example. After the crash, I had treatment from my physiotherapist six days a week. I also had four visits with the orthopedic surgeon. Without those people around, every day you lose waiting for an appointment means a day lost. I was nearly counting the hours to get ready and be here in Romandie in good shape.”

Thanks to all the therapy, Evans recovered but had only minimal training coming in to last week’s Tour de Romandie. That wasn’t much different from his preparations for the previous UCI WorldTour stage race he won in March, riding just two single-day races (one of which he quit because of bad weather) before he won Tirreno-Adriatico.

Asked how he can come straight from training to winning major races, Evans said, “Yeah, with the experience, you learn to adapt your training and tune yourself better. And I think I’ve become better at that in the last few years, coming to races and being pretty competitive right away.”

Talking about his ride in Romandie — which he ended up winning by 18 seconds over HTC-Highroad’s Tony Martin and 19 seconds over Astana’s Alexander Vinokourov — Evans said, “I was pleasantly surprised to do so well on the mountain stage to Leysin; and, of course, I really had a chance to win (at Romont).”

Romont is where Evans had to stop his uphill charge to the line when the last rider from a break that he was overtaking swerved out and blocked the BMC rider’s path — and he still managed to salvage second place behind stage winner Damiano Cunego of Lampre-ISD.

Evans also said the following day’s finish in Neuchâtel “was a little disappointing” when he allowed Martin and Vinokourov to escape an 80-strong peloton 3km from the line and grab time bonuses.

“I could have crossed the gap but I felt that the sprinters’ teams would bring them back. But if someone had said to me two weeks ago — and you saw the size of my knee — you never would have believed I’d be competitive here. So I can’t be disappointed.”

Then came the time trial where Evans clinched the GC by putting time into Vinokourov and resisting a challenge from Martin with a tremendous, full-power performance on the second half of the 20km course. It ended with a 1km climb twisting up between green pastures to a wooded ridge, the Signal de Bougy, which provides a panoramic view of Lake Geneva and the French Alps.

Before tackling his TT, Evans said, “You have to lay everything out on the road and then you get there — it’s around 10 percent to the last 500 meters. Phew, you have to be careful, you have to judge that one.”

He judged it just right to take over the yellow jersey, which his BMC team defended impressively on the final stage to Geneva. There was no comparison with the BMC team of 2010, in its first year as a top-flight squad, when there were clear weaknesses at the Giro d’Italia and (less so) at the Tour. The team’s new strength seems to have given Evans much more confidence

“Yeah. I’m in a slightly more upbeat atmosphere than I was at my last team (Silence-Lotto of Belgium),” he said with a touch of irony. “Now, I give nearly my best every race I do (without being pressured). You can’t squeeze any more out of me because I squeeze a fair bit out of myself.

“Why put pressure on people? It just makes riders nervous and makes them make mistakes. The mood at BMC is really productive but it’s also, I think, really healthy. Not just for me as a rider, but for the young riders coming through … and for the health of the sport I would like to see more teams with a similar mentality.”

He wasn’t talking specifically about his team’s rookie Taylor Phinney, 20, but when asked about rumors of the American phenom possibly starting this year’s Tour (to mainly help in the second-day team time trial), Evans said, “It would be unfair on Taylor to put him in the Tour. He hasn’t had the base of racing that he was expecting to have. And to jump in the Tour de France… Well, I rode my first Tour at 28. So my theory is, wait as long as possible before riding the Tour.

“Some guys start the Tour at 23 and they can’t even see the front for three weeks. How do you go back with the mentality to try and win the Tour? I don’t know. It’s a lot of progress that you have to make.”

Talking of the upcoming Tour, Evans said, “We’ve got 12 really good riders to select from; they all deserve to be there. But we can only go with nine. We had a good team last year but we’re going to have an even better one this year. Certainly for the first week we’re well adapted.

“In terms of pure climbers I’m interested to see how our new rider Amaël Moinard can work with Steve Morabito. Also new is Ivan Santaromita; having him around has been great. We live quite close to one another and train together when we’re both home. We’re both on the same training with Andrea Morelli, and from Romandie on we do the same program. He’s a good person to collaborate with.”

In fact, after the finish of Romandie on Sunday, it was Santoromita who drove Evans, his wife Chiara and dog Molly back home from Geneva to southern Switzerland. But it will be Evans in the driving seat come July.

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