Danny Summerhill has just completed two major stage races on the American schedule as a trainee with the Garmin-Cervelo team. Summerhill, who rides for the team’s development squad, was invited to join the World Tour team alongside riders such as Christian Vande Velde and Dave Zabriskie to race the Tour of Utah and the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in Colorado.
“I’ve been nervous for the last two weeks," he told author Mark Johnson, who is currently writing and photographing a book on the team. "At Utah I had much more nerves because it was like being a stagiaire for this team was a fluke somehow and I was scared I was just going to get dropped instantly on the first day. Obviously that didn’t happen and it shook some of those nerves out.”
“I mean, I beat Andy Schleck to the top of a climb [last week]. That’s obviously saying something about the conditions that we are in,” speaking about the altitude the race in Colorado faced.
About the major opportunity to learn from the more experienced riders around him the 22 year old said, “I’m so open and ready to do just anything and pick up anything that I can on their behalf.
“It’s always tiny little things where you start out. For instance, it’s like, holy moly, I’m in a van about to go get lunch with Dave Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde, Tom Danielson—all of which are Tour de France major contenders. It’s like how the hell did I get here? Trying to chill myself out from that — that’s a learning experience right there.”
Once he had gotten over his nerves, Summerhill seemed to have settled into professional racing and picked up a top five stage placing in each of the races. The team’s plan was to work for him on the last day of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge as Vande Velde had given up on fighting with sprinters for bonus points in order to win the race. Summerhill managed fourth on the stage won by Liquigas-Cannondale’s Daniel Oss.
“The more opportunities I’ve been given to do stage races, a little bit every time, I enjoy them more and more. I have much more of a mentality to set out on one day [races] and kill it, kill myself and be screwed the rest of the week.”
CEO Jonathan Vaughters has already signed Jacob Rathe and Alex Howes from his under 23 development team. It’s still unknown whether the move to the elite team will be a permanent one for Summerhill, but he certainly has plenty of promise.