Jonathan Tiernan-Locke has been talking to Daniel Lloyd about his preparations for his debut season with Team Sky and his potential targets for his first season at the top level of the sport, possibly riding the Vuelta and certainly the Ardennes Classics in April, where he sees himself particularly suited to Liege-Bastogne-Liege with its short but punchy climbs.
Tiernan-Locke, who joined Sky from Endura Racing after capping an outstanding 2012 with the overall win in September's Tour of Britain, was speaking to Lloyd in the second part of a video interview. You can watch part one, in which he reflects on the past 12 months, here, together with an overview of the long journey he has made to break into the top tier of the sport.
One thing Tiernan-Locke says will change is his training schedule as his workload expands way beyond the 12 hours a week he claimed he was doing last year, ehen he had 50 race days.
The 28-year-old started 2012 with convincing wins in two high-profile early-season races in France, the Tour Méditerranéen and the Tour du Haut Var, but says this year he'll aim to come out of the blocks slower so he can be at his peak during Ardennes Week in April.
There, he believes that the race to which he is best suited is Liege-Bastogne-Liege rather than The Amstel Gold Race, part of the route of which he raced in the world championships in September when as Great Britain's surprise choice of protected rider he got into an ultimately doomed break but still finished 19th in the longest race he has ever ridden.
That race feautured the Cauberg in the closing loop, but Tiernan-Locke feels it wasn't super-selective - since the interview, Amstel Gold organisers have revealed that as in the world championships, April's race will now feature a flat 1.7 kilometre section after the Cauberg has been crested, which will change the character of the finale and hamper the chances of many pure climbers.
In the interview, Tiernan-Locke also reflects on his tips for who will do well in 2013 - including tipping Garmin-Sharp 24-year-old, Andrew Talansky, as potentially stepping up to challenge on GC at major races.
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Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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