Andy Schleck has finished a respectable second place three times in his career at the Tour de France. The Luxemburger realizes that he needs to improve his time trial performance if he wants to make it to the top step in Paris in the future. He and brother Fränk rode at the Derny criterium in Antwerpen, Belgium, on Wednesday.
Andy Schleck knows his training program for the coming winter. "If I want to win the Tour, I have to improve my time trialing," he told hln.be. Schleck spoke ahead of the start to the derny criterium, which Robbie McEwen won in front of Alessandro Petacchi and Jurgen van den Broeck.
Schleck has worked on the race against the clock last winter. "With the team we already did tests to improve the time trialing, but obviously it was not enough," he said. "I always lost the Tour on the next to last day," he mused. A late time trial has been on the Tour plan for a few years, but with no prologue, a team time trial and only one, relatively short, time trial, Schleck's chances seemed high this year.
Heroic riding in the Alps propelled him into the yellow jersey with two days to go, but he had to hand it over to the Cadel Evans after the 42.5km time trial in Grenoble. If he would have managed to get a gap in the Pyrenees, things may have looked rosier.
He will continue to work on his weakness. "I need to get more power," he said, without compromising his strength. "I have to be careful. More muscle mass also means more weight. That will make it harder when climbing. I have to find the golden middle way," he said.
The brothers had not much hope to make it onto the podium in Antwerpen. "I have no experience at all with riding behind a derny," Andy said. "Well, on the track, but not on the road. It is something special, I am really looking forward to it."
Fränk is slightly more experienced. "I already did that before. It is a bit strange, but really nice. A lot of people are out - it will be a great evening."