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Fred Rodriguez, Davitamon-Lotto

30 June 2005

Talking with USA Fast-Man, Fast Freddie

Fred In Milano, photo: BiciRace.com

Fast Freddie is a champion, both in the United States and also on Italian roads. The tifosi are accustomed to seeing Fred Rodriguez blaze a path of stars and stripes while sprinting at high speeds. From Saturn, Mapei, and on to Davitamon-Lotto, Fred has proved his strength through well-deserved victories. BiciRace.com caught up with Fast Freddie to ask him about his preparations for the upcoming Tour de France. Read on to find out all about the Tour, Italian bikes and caffè.

Euro Life and Training

BiciRace.com:  Is it pretty hot there in Spain today?
Fred Rodriguez:  Yeah, It's a pretty warm one. It's getting up over 40 [°C].
BR:  So, are you doing most of your riding in the morning, then?
FR:  No...I don't mind the heat. I've been riding all day. I've been taking some easy efforts after Suisse ... I'm not really putting in the effort in, so it doesn't really affect me, until I start training hard.
BR:  What kind of work-outs are you doing right now?
FR:  Well I just took 4 days easy, coming off Switzerland. Right now it's just refining.
BR:  Is there any motor-pacing coming up before the Tour?
FR:  Probably a little bit of speed work coming up. Just to get behind the motor and get some high speed. Getting behind the motorcycle - and getting used to the intensity of the high season and the Tour de France.
BR:  Who's doing your motor-pacing?
FR:  My father's here, so he's helping me out. He comes out once in a while to spend some time here with me in Girona.
BR:  He's a pretty good cyclist himself.
FR:  Yeah. He's done everything since he was in his 20's, and he's 71 now so he's got a lot of miles behind him.
BR:  BiciRace.com recently had an interview with Tom Danielson in April. Have you been helping him adjust to Spain?
FR:  You know, I'm always willing to give any advice to these young guys when they come over. I remember talking to him a lot when he was on Fassa Bortolo. After my experience with Italian teams, I just tried to give him my thoughts of what I thought he should be looking at. Helping understand their culture and how people deal. The mentality is different from American mentality, etc. I think he's had a couple of hiccups with that team. And culture is different. I think that he is in a lot better of a situation here in Spain with the Discovery Team. He's been pretty happy here with the training and having other Americans here ... It's been pretty motivating for him.
BR:  Who are the guys that you train with in the area?
FR:  We all have our own training program. We're pretty specific on how we train, so we usually do our own thing. But once in a while we'll coincide and we'll go out together. If there's a long day and it's not going to be too hard to stick together, we'll go out together.
BR:  When you guys get together, who's winning the town sprints?
FR:  Well, ya know, I'm the only sprinter, so ... It's not very fun when I go training around with these guys and I sometimes say, 'Hey, let's sprint for the town', and they're like, "Awh, no ... That's OK." (Laughs)
BR:  Last year, BiciRace.com was watching the Giro d'Italia, and you were speaking perfect Italian with Alessandra De Stefano of Rai, nice job! We're assuming your Spanish is great. What do you speak mostly in your home base of Spain? Spanish? What about Catalan? Or English?
FR:  I speak Spanish fluently and Italian. Being on an Italian team, you really need to speak Italian or you're not going to communicate. Spanish is from my parents and my Colombian background... I don't speak Catalan, but I understand it. Catalan is unique. For me, it seems like a mix of Italian, Spanish and French all mixed together, so it's easy to understand.

Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and The Sprint

Fred at Brabantse Pijl, photo: Capture-The -Peloton.com

BR:   You've got a pretty tough for the upcoming Tour: McEwen, Evans, Merckx and you. Please explain to the BiciRace.com readers the team goal overall? Stage wins? Sprints? Will you have an opportunity for any stages?
FR:  Well, realistically the main goal is to win stages. Robbie has proven to win stages and he is our main weapon. I have some freedom on the harder stages, the ones that don't suit Robbie as much. Axel can always pull off a win here and there. Cadel basically has had a lot of bad luck in the past and finally gets the freedom to ride for GC again. I think the team is hoping for a top 10 with Cadel. I think he has the talent to do that. And Axel always is always a player, getting in long breakaways in the mountains, pulling off a stage win like he did in the Dauphiné Libéré. Robbie for sure will win a stage or two. And I'm hoping to add a stage in there too.
BR:  Will you seek out escape groups?
FR:  No, no. I do not go for escape groups. I've never won in a breakaway. In a breakaway, it just doesn't happen. My goal is to win one of those stages that's a bit hilly maybe, with a select group of 40 riders that make it over, and it's still a group sprint, maybe a stage where Robbie just doesn't feel like he has a chance of winning. Also maybe a stage where a breakaway is at the end of the race - that's a whole different thing.
I'm a logical person and I look at breakaways as a gamble. There are three big gambles that you take when you decide to get into a break. First you gamble that you can get in the right breakaway, the second part is that you gamble that the breakaway makes it, and the third gamble is, are you one of those lucky guys who can actually breakaway from a breakaway? It's not that often that a breakaway actually comes in for the sprint, which would be to my benefit. [Me] being a sprinter, everybody knows that that's the last thing they want ... So, they're going to attack and attack and if I don't go along, then - geez, it will never work for me. The breakaway is not my intention. My intention is to go there and try to win a stage. I seem to be a little bit better of a climber than Robbie, and so for those stages when he gets a little bit of a snap taken out of him, that is where the team hopes that I will step up and take some action.
BR:   Do you have some good friends on the team? You've been racing with some of the same guys for awhile.
FR:   Yeah. Axel since Mapei and Robbie from when we were on Domo-Farm Frites for a couple of years. Also Leon Van Bon???. And then you look at the staff; a lot of the staff are people who I've worked with for a really long time. From mechanics to directors...
BR:  As far as how the sprints develop, how does a sprint in the Tour de France differ from a Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a España or say, a Milano Sanremo sprint?
FR:  In the Milano-Sanremo you've been racing a long way, and really it comes down to who has some legs leftover after such a long day, and sometimes it really varies. The Giro and the Vuelta have really similar sprinting tactics. The top sprinters are up there and everyone tries to stay away. I didn't do the Giro this year, but I have heard that it's becoming more like the Tour de France because the ProTour is collecting all of the top teams to go to all the races, so it's becoming more of a mixture of riders trying to go for the sprint. The problem with the Tour de France is that (French) riders are just hoping to get a top ten in the stage, because if they can get a top 10 in the stage, that's considered a big accomplishment. You have people fighting for wheels that can't even get close for the stage win, but as long as they can stay on the wheel, they might get a top10 finish. Then you've got all the GC teams with their teams fighting in there to try and keep their GC guys from getting in a crash. The Vuelta and the Giro however have been more selective and more divided with the sprinters lining up and doing their thing and the GC riders following closely behind.
I think things are changing. The ProTour is really making all of the grand tours very equal. The French mentality, I don't know why, but it seems like the French riders are all about attacking. I'm not sure if that's their teams' tactics, but any time you see an attack, it's probably a French rider, and that's changed the Giro a lot lately.
BR:  Can you share with us a little bit of a sprint breakdown? Tell us what it's like in a sprint at 10K, 5K, 2K, and then 1K to go?
FR:  It all depends on the team and the team strategy.
BR:   How is it for your team now? With Robbie and you being sprinters.
FR:   Robbie and I are both fast guys that can get to the line first when we are in the right place at the right time. We prefer our team to wait a bit longer to make the move within the last 5K and try to come from behind and make it a quicker high speed finale. We would just be flowing with 10K to go, trying to get up the front with 5K, and then making the rest to the front with 2K. Only up at the front near the end, Robbie likes to come from behind.
BR:  And would you rather have at least one guy up there in the final 2K?
FR:  I'd rather have a Petacchi lead-out. (Haahaa!)
BR:  What's ideal for you, given what's available?
FR:  Ideally I'd like to have a couple guys get on the front end so that I don't have to waste too much energy to get up there... And then hopefully some of the team is able put the hammer down, keeping the speeds high, using our strength and power. I tend to be better when it's really fast and a really hard finish.
BR:  Are there any other tricks that you can share with us in a Tour or Giro sprint?
FR:  Keeping it cool and knowing that you have the strength to move up when you need to. Some riders go way too early to get into position, and they waste energy. Saving energy for the last couple hundred of meters and knowing how to get in the position that you need to be at the right time. You can be in that position many times and loose it right away. It's how you get there and not wasting energy to get there that makes the difference between winning and losing. I've done plenty of sprints where when I get towards the finish, and before I start sprinting, I already know I'll lose, because I've wasted so much energy to get there. When I won the Giro d'Italia stage, I did a really good job of floating the peloton. That's probably a main thing I need to work on for the Tour, how to float in the peloton in order to save energy for the last 300 meters.
BR:  Which teams can the BiciRace.com readers expect to keep the pace high in the sprints in this year's Tour? Your team? Other teams?
FR:   I'm probably going to be one of the guys to keep high speeds for Robbie. Even without Petacchi there, Fassa Bortolo has some good trains. Liquigas-Bianchi has a lot of strong Italians who can keep high speeds. And of course La Française des Jeux.
BR:  Winning a stage in the Giro d'Italia was amazing, especially against Alessandro Petacchi. Would you rank that win higher than your USA champion wins?
FR:  They're completely different races. One day races, like the Pro-Championships are my type of race, my love and joy. Winning a race against Petacchi shows that in the right situation, I can win against one of the top sprinters. And winning the US Pro-Championships also showed me that I am one of the top winners for one day races. I look at them as separate events.
BR:  What would be your favorite or ideal race to win?
FR:  Flanders! And Second Milano-Sanremo.
BR:  And what's the outlook for the Worlds this year?
FR:  I think it's good. It's my style of a race - a one-day race. I hope to do well. It's a hard race, and also the perfect type of race for me to do well, and I'm hoping to have a good team. Madrid is the perfect race for me to do well in. The problem for the US team is the worlds are at the end of the year and a lot of the American guys want to go home. I have a feeling we will have a good team. Chris Horner should be able to do well. Also the Domestic Americans can handle it and do well.
BR:  And you'll be the clear leader for the Worlds?
FR:  I think so.

Technical Talk: Moser, Colnago, Merckx and Ridley

The Fast Freddie Kit, photo: FFFC

BR:  Moser, Colnago, Merckx... You've ridden some super bikes in the past. What was your favorite of those frames?
FR:  They all have their distinct qualities. I would say my carbon Colnago was best all around, soft but very easy to push. My Eddy [Merckx] was probably the most responsive. It was Scandium AL tubing with a lot more snap, probably more suited for a sprinter. Then you look at Moser, it was kind of like the Colnago, with a new breed of high-end carbon... Light-weight, responsive and a smooth ride.
BR:  So, you're happy then with your bike this season?
FR:  Yes. And then Ridley is really making it nice with a stiffer bottom-bracket, their standard carbon bike is solid for the sprint.
BR:  Who usually oversees the painting of your frames for Stars and Stripes?
FR:  I think that evolution has played a big part, and now my Lotto bike is the best so far. Now the big deal that Fast Freddie is in the right font and spelling. [laughs] Moser did a great job considering it was done really quickly.
BR:  Can you tell us about your Crankbrothers "quattro pro" pedals?
FR:  I went to work with Crankbrothers because I was having trouble with an injury. Last year my agent hooked me up with them. At the time they did not even have a road pedal, just the Egg-beaters. I was riding Moser, and Moser was using Look. Then my knee problems started coming up again. I went home after the Spring classics and switched back to my Egg-Beaters. I said, OK, I will give these pedals 2 weeks, and they worked.
Basically, The Crankbrothers technology is similar to a Speedplay with a lot of float. Then I started to help them develop their road pedals, and basically that's how the whole relationship started. It's a good pedal. Cutting-edge technology. There's a really unique way of clipping in. They are really really reactive on feed-back, it is just getting better and better.
BR:  Are you their main athlete, spokesperson, and their main tester?
FR:  Yes, basically. I have helped them evolve the product. They have come on as a team sponsor, and now they are trying to figure out the full spectrum of the Pro-Peloton and look for a lot of pro athletes. The pedal is really evolving.
BR:  What's your involvement with you fan club? The FFFC or "Fast Freddie Fan Club"?
FR:  Well, the fan club came about through some friends. At the time there was a guy in the Bay area who thought there was a lack of a fan club. So he emails me and asks how things are going, works on the website, my involvement with coffee, an insight into me and my friends. Chit chat, etc.

Coffee, Caffè, Beans, Roasting

Fred at Brabantse Pijl, photo: Capture-The -Peloton.com

BR:  How do you like the caffè in Spain, Italy or even the US?
FR:  I like coffee in the [San Francisco] Bay Area. Fast Freddie Coffee. Most of it is brewed for the French press, and also espresso. Italy has a culture for espresso, how it is made, and they stick to that. While in the bay area it's more about blending and trying different things to come up with more flavors and mixing different beans at different temperatures to come up with something new. Darker, more berry, chocolate hints. There are just different styles of doing it.
BR:  Have you ever experimented with any home roasting?
FR:  No, I've mostly just experimented with my roaster's machine. I have the ability to go to the roaster. On a side-note, contrary to what a lot of people think, when you roast coffee you shouldn't drink it right after the roast. Coffee needs between 24-48 hours after the roasting for the beans to breathe - to let out all of the flavors.
BR:  Do you see your involvement with the coffee industry growing after cycling?
FR:  Yeah. One of the things that I am trying to do is relate coffee (Fast Freddie Coffee) to sport. One thing our team does is drink a lot of espresso. The first thing we do in the morning before a stage race is drink coffee. There are many benefits of coffee for athletes: good for metabolism, it burns fat and gives mental stimulation, increases pain tolerance, etc. And I'm trying to promote my coffee in a fun way and also a little more sports-orientated. My coffee is related more to athletes and to people who are active. I have a niche market for active people who enjoy a high quality coffee and also get the benefits in stimulation from the coffee.
BR:  Yes, that makes sense. The connection of coffee to cycling is pretty apparent. From Rancilio at the past Giro's to the guy in the mini-van at the Southern California races. What you're doing is very cool. Keep the espresso flowing!
BR:  What type of machine do you have at your house?
FR:  I have just about every kind of machine: Espresso, drip machine, French press, Moka. French press - most flavor. Moka, also great. I like the drip machine the best.
BR:  So, at your house it's not strictly your own coffee, but you go out and buy other beans to try?
FR:  Oh yeah. I love doing that.
BR:  Well, thanks so much for joining BiciRace.com for an interview.
FR:  No problem.
BR:   Good Luck in the Tour!
FR:  Thanks. Bye.

Be sure to check Fred Rodriguez out at his personal website.