Martin in TT mode at last week’s Tour of the Mediterranean before his forced withdrawal
By Brian Canty
Assuming his team have procured new bikes in the wake of theirs being stolen at the Tour of the Mediterranean last weekend, Dan Martin’s next scheduled race is the Tour du Haut Var in France this weekend.
The race, a UCI 2.1 event, is characterised by two hilly stages and has a winners’ list in recent years of Jon Tiernan Locke, Thomas Voeckler and Martin’s team-mate Christophe Le Mevel. Take from that what you will, but it's a race that could well suit Martin’s climbing prowess, provided he’s over the head cold he reported on the morning of last Saturday when he realised his team’s bikes were stolen.
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Martin will hope to build form for next month’s Tirreno Adriatico in Italy (March 6-12) where he will get a chance to put his time-trial training into practice in advance of the bigger races in the summer.
The former Irish national champion and Vuelta stage winner has been doing more training on the TT bike than previous years, and just recently he spoke in praise of the TT bike Cervelo made especially for him.
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“It’s the most incredible time-trial bike. It’s the easiest one I’ve ever ridden and handles almost better than my road bike. That’s not saying anything bad against my road bike but it’s one of the best handling bikes I’ve ever ridden.”
“And my position is actually pretty good so yeah, I’ve been working on my time-trialling a bit this winter and we’ve found out the muscles I need to work on in my core to be able to maximise power output....it’s about working specific muscles to help me ride faster in a TT position.”
“Last year the only time trials I did were at the Dauphine and the Tour. And I couldn’t do anything at the Dauphine because I’d had my crash. So the Tour was the only place where I really did one. This year I’ve got time-trials at Tirreno which I’ll be doing so I’ll have a lot more races where I can practice the time-trial.”.
Following Tirreno next month, he suggested he might even make his debut at Milan San Remo, which falls on St Patrick’s Day this year.
“The team want me to really have a look at San Remo for the future. I’ve never done it before but with Nibali up there last year, he’s a similar type of rider to me so maybe I can play a part in the final. They’re making it harder every year and the harder ones are races that suit me so the team are looking at that as a possible goal for the future. Obviously I’ll need to ride it first to learn the race but it’s exciting to know they have that faith in me to do well in it.”
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