Dan Martin, leading, and team mate Ryder Hesjedal, far right, on the attack on stage 2 in Switzerland before the Canadian crashed out of the race.
By Brian Canty
Dan Martin has said he's improving day by day at the Tour de Suisse and is hopeful of a good showing on today's seventh stage from Meilen to La Punt.
The 200+ kilometre leg is expected to provide fireworks and wreak havoc with the general classification as it features a nasty-looking hors categorie climb around 10 kilometres before the finish which should shake up the race.
Having performed well on the climbs so far, the Garmin-SHARP rider is optimistic.
"Yeah I'm feeling good," he told stickybottle last night.
"Today was hot and the speed here has been a bit of a shock to the system. It’s been so fast on the flat and that's hard to train for but I've been getting better each day. I'm in a good position now and just been trying to stay out of trouble the last few days."
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Aside from Bayern Rundfahrt, Martin hasn't raced in six weeks and he reckons that is a factor in him being a little stale during the early stages.
"I was definitely lacking a bit of explosiveness the first few days; just lacking a bit of race-pace speed,” he said.
“But the form seems to be coming along nicely now. It's kind of normal to feel that way having not raced for so long though. But the fourth stage was so tough; we did 53kph average for the last 40 kilometres which had a category four climb. So usually I'm sitting in the bunch and we're doing 60-65kph!"
Unlike many of the other teams, Garmin-SHARP has all its eggs in the Dan Martin basket where a high placing on GC is concerned.
That is as a result of Ryder Hesjedal crashing out earlier in the week.
"That was a big blow. We work really well together and he was on really good form. He showed that during the first stage. I'll miss him (today) on that last climb because the two of us could really have played havoc but that's the way it is and I'm just glad he wasn't more seriously injured because he took quite a heavy fall."
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