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Christian Vande Velde, Team CSC

31 October 2005

A Review of 2005: Hold the Clams

 

Christian Vande Velde (Team CSC) is the definition of domestique. This year he worked his legs to the bone for Ivan Basso and Carlos Sastre, but in the past he was driving the pace for riders like Roberto Heras and Lance Armstrong. Team Manager at Team CSC, Bjarne Riis, values this type of rider, but also knows that Christian can play the key role. Read the BiciRace.com exclusive Halloween interview with Il Americano: We discuss everything from chrome lugs to Italian passes. Enjoy...

American, Spanish and Danish

BiciRace.com:  Thanks for joining BiciRace.com and Happy Halloween.
Christian Vande Velde:  Thanks. Did you get any children at the door?
BR:  Yes, we had some visit yesterday, the day before Halloween. They got pieces of a chocolate bar [and later BiciRace.com stickers].
CV:  Did you do your research for the interview?
BR:  Yes, we always do. [laughs] It is a professional operation. First, congratulations on resigning with Team CSC for one more year. [Read: The CSC Show Goes On: Vandborg, Vande Velde and Luttenberger]
CV:  Thanks.
BR:  How did you like coming to Team CSC from Liberty [Seguros-Würth]?
CV:  I liked it a lot. Personally the change was for the good for me. The way I go about training and racing works better for me with Team CSC. But it is always hard to change teams ... I was just starting to get comfortable at Liberty when I changed to Team CSC, and it is never easy to change teams. You start to get very close to the riders by the end of the year, and right now it is the same way at Team CSC. I am really excited for next year and building on those friendships.
BR:  Going from USPS to Liberty did you find it a big adjustment in the team environments? [Vande Velde raced with United States Postal Service from 1998 to 2003.]
CV:  The team environment at Liberty was good for the most part, excluding the [2004] Tour de France, where you felt like you were at a funeral the whole time. We just had a bad Tour with all the riders, but excluding that, the team environment was great.
BR:  You have gone from an American, then Spanish and now Danish team: What can you tell BiciRace.com about the little differences? The differences in food, time after races, ...
CV:  On Postal, primarily an American team, seven of the eight guys would have a BlackBerry. They would be e-mailing each other across the table, but at Liberty after dinner you would have a coffee and sit at the table for another hour. After dinner at Postal Service, the guys would immediately get up and all go right back to their rooms, then go online to talk with their wife or family. ... Team CSC is an international mix; there are a lot of English speaking guys on the team, even more so than my final years at Postal. In fact, English is the official language of the team.
BR:  So even guys like Sastre are talking English with you?
CV:  It just depends on who is around. At the Vuelta we had a mix of guys, Giovanni [Lombardi], Andrea Peron, Manuel Calvente: they always spoke Spanish because all of those guys speak the language perfectly.
BR:  You have ridden for some great teams: USPS, Liberty, and now Team CSC. All of them have great Director Sportifs: Johan Bruyneel, Manolo Saiz and Bjarne Riis. If you could put all of those directors in a race, who would win?
CV:  Bjarne would kill everyone! [laughs] He would win in all the categories. I don't think that Bruyneel has ridden his bike at all since he has retired.

The Paramont and Snake Ally

BR:  [laughs] Moving back in time to your first road bike ... Will you describe it?
CV:  My first road bike was a Nishiki that I had when I was 14 years-old. Then I upgraded to a Trek 1200. But my first real racing bike that I ever had was my dad's old Paramount. It was his road race bike from the 1972 Olympics. But that bike ended when I drove into the garage when it was still on the roof rack.
BR:  [laugh] Oh geeez! I have heard about that happening, but never have known anyone to do it.
CV:  The truth is that I still feel terrible about it, because now I am going back and starting to appreciate those kind of bikes. It was pearl white with chrome lugs, chrome tips ... It was gorgeous. At the time, it was 27lbs [12.25kg] and at the time all I wanted was a titanium or aluminum bike. But this year my wife got me a present, she is having Michael Barry's dad build me up a bike.
BR:  Very cool. What type of bike?
CV:  It is called a Mariposa. His dad makes these beautiful custom steel bikes. I am pretty much having him remaking that old Paramount. It will be Pearl white with chrome lugs, chrome tips and everything!
BR:  Are you going to have him put the old Shimano STI gruppo on the bike?
CV:  [laughs] No no, that thing is long gone. I think I will have him go with the 'old' Campy carbon 10-speed.
BR:  When was your first race?
CV:  Well it was part of the Quad City races. It was called Snake Alley. It was the first big race of the year, which was on Memorial Day, the first big race in late May! The race had a brutally steep climb with cobble stones, snaking up the side of this hill. Then there was just a sharp downhill, to complete the loop of the criterium. My dad told me 'don't do the race, you're going to crash, it is dangerous.' But I had to do it. I got myself into the break, and I was just going crazy down the descent, and of course I crashed. All I could think of was my dad's voice in my head, saying 'don't do the race'. [laughs] And I ripped my $80 Louis Garneau shorts, the ONLY shorts that I had. So that was my first race experience.

Georgia, Giro and Camps

BR:   What a story! Back to this year, stage 5 of the Tour of Georgia. You put in a huge attack at the foot of Brasstown Bald. Was it a good feeling to be delivering such an attack on home soil in front of the crazy fans?
CV:  It was a lot of fun. I have not had a race in the United States that had suited me for a long time. It was really cool ... We had a fun team, and a bunch of laughs. We did not have the final punch to win the overall but we had a great time.
BR:  Will you go back for the Tour of Georgia in 2006?
CV:  I really hope so. I really thought it was a great race and good training for the Giro d'Italia. But the first priority will be earlier, at the Tour of California. We will have a training camp in California in February before the race. But now the plans are still up for decision.
BR:  How does the California camp fit into the schedule with the early season Tuscany camp and then the boot camp?
CV:  I really don't know. I just don't know how it will all be accomplished. There will be the Tuscany camp, the boot camp, home for Christmas, and then California ... leaving about four days free.
BR:  Moving on from training, in 2006 you have California, Georgia and then the Giro d'Italia, what will be your role?
CV:  [pause, then laughs] Well, I kind of said in the past that I would like to do a great Giro. Then I read that Bjarne had said that I would be in the top 10. But no, if I have a good off-season, and I have a good spring, where I can keep my back under control, and other problems that have been nagging me over the last couple of years, then I think I can have a great Giro. I would love to ride for a top 10 in Italy.
BR:  Yes, Riis has mentioned your name as a top 10 GC rider, and BiciRace.com also believes this is a strong possibility. But how do you see yourself fighting off attacks from the likes of Damiano Cunego and Roberto Heras?
CV:  Well, I don't think Roberto will go for the overall. But yes, Cunego will definitely go strong there, and a mountain of other Italian riders. I am not even thinking about fighting the other guys, just keeping my physical condition well over the winter so I can train well and then have a solid try at the Giro.
BR:  Do you have any favorite climbs in Italy?
CV:  Ah, I had such a bad Giro this year that all the climbs are not my favorites! So I don't have any favorites. But you know it is a perception point. When you have a bad day on a climb you don't like it, until you have good legs, and then you realize the climb is not that bad.
BR:  Did you suffer up the [Passo dello] Stelvio with Ivan Basso?
CV:  No, not with Basso. I was about three or four hundred meters behind him. No, OK, I guess I would have to say my favorite climb was the last climb of the whole Giro.
BR:  Sestriere or the gravel climb before it, the [Colle delle] Finestre?
CV:  Yes, Finestre, I liked that one a lot actually. If I had good legs then I could do well on that type of stage. It wasn't that bad ... It was bad in a couple of places, but for the most part it was fine. I mean we ride on dirt roads all the time in Colorado, and in comparison the Finestre was not bad at all.
BR:  Are you going to ride the Giro without any care of the Tour de France team selection?
CV:  It will be in the back of my mind. But I really want to do a good Giro. Then if I go and do a good Tour de France, that would be icing on top of the cake.

Vuelta: La Musica!

BR:  Moving on to this year's Vuelta a España: You finished 11th in the opening TT [Stage 1] and 10th in final TT [Stage 20]. It was really a good Vuelta for you. So what are you listening to in your headphones when you are warming up for those TT's?
CV:  Everything from Jay-Z to Minor Threat, it is mostly metal or hip-hop for warming up.
BR:  What is your newest music acquisition?
CV:  Ah, some Jazz ... Dave Holland Quintet.
BR:  OK, so you are really in off-season mode right now! [laughs]
CV:  Yes, in fact we just went and saw a concert in Barcelona at the Palau de la Música Catalana. It is really beautiful and historic place. We saw Phil Woods, who is one of the most famous jazz saxophonists.
BR:  So you are in the off-season now, what are you doing for exercise?
CV:  A bunch of the stuff that you hate to do. Mundane exercises that strengthen my back, the occasion fun mountain bike ride, and a little bit of golfing.
BR:  Who are you riding with on the mountain bike?
CV:  I have been riding with Tony Elias. He races for Yamaha in the Moto GP. We share the same therapist, and we got to know each other. They are fun and cool rides.

Clam Soup and Fall Classics

BR:  After the Vuelta you got sick and were unable to go to the World Championships. When we interviewed Phil Zajicek [Read the Phil Zajicek Interview] he said that your withdrawal was due to food poisoning? You have been a pro for a while, don't you know better than to have some dodgy seafood before an important event?
CV:  [laughs] We went to a three star Michelin restaurant! It was soup with one clam in it. ONE Clam. We all had the same "chef's menu" with about 10 to 12 small courses. One of them was this soup. Everything was fine until then the next morning and I felt like I was going to die. I called Michael Barry, who ate with us, and he was very sick too. Then my wife and Michael's wife got sick about four hours later.
BR:  So then you were able to pull yourself back a week later in Zurich. What a wet and cold race! What was your motivation to continue in the race? (24 minutes down by the finish).
CV:  It was horrible weather, but I stayed in the race because of Team CSC's battle with Rabobank for the ProTour team classification. In the same group with me was Grischa [Niermann] of Rabobank. We were both the third, and final, rider left for our teams. Neither of us could stop because the other one was there. In hindsight it did not matter because our team rode so well in Paris-Tours and Lombardia.
BR:  Then two weeks later it was Giro di Lombardia. How did it go for you?
CV:  It actually went great. We had a pretty good race. I attacked hard in the middle to help bring the advantage of the escape group down. Then after that it was the hard Ghisallo. There was nothing to be done there, because if you were not in the top five it did not matter. It was good for us because we had Carlos [Sastre] and Fränk [Schleck] riding up there and very well for the team. ... Carlos was actually stronger that day, but on the Ghisallo he just ran out of gas. It was good for Fränk, ending well for the season, and it will give him a lot of confidence for next year.
BR:  Well that is all we have for you. We appreciate you joining BiciRace.com in an interview.
CV:  No Worries. Thank You.