schmalz We’re talking to Jonathan Vaugthers, director for the Garmin Slipstream Team

JV And I’m talking to Dan Schmalz, guy who bags on me on Twitter.

schmalz Bags on you on twitter!

JV Or on his website, I don’t know. I always forget where I read this stuff.

schmalz Well, Andy does all the twitting.

JV Oh, see there you go…

schmalz I’ll blame it on Andy because I can’t craft a good fart joke in 140 characters Jonathan.

JV Right, right.

schmalz I find it very limiting. That’s Andy who has the brevity and the ability to make fun of you on twitter.

JV Well, I’m ok with being made fun of.

schmalz Well, actually I did tell Christian to call you a benchwarmer for the Starship Enterprise, I think.

JV (laughs) See? I don’t mind that – that’s funny.

schmalz Well, after you called him Piglet, he has to have a comeback for that. So I’m going to be busy feeding him more lines, so if you hear anything mentioning the Starship Enterprise, you’ll know where it came from.

JV I’m just hoping he remembers that joke-hopefully he didn’t hit his head. No, he didn’t…

schmalz Did he get concussed today, what’s the story?

JV I don’t want to say exactly because these things evolve. Christian’s in perfect health. He’s got a couple of broken ribs and then there’s some other stuff that we’re waiting to see when the MRIs come back and so on. But his injuries should be stuff that he’s able to get back to training fairly soon. But again we have to wait and see how that evolves.

schmalz Yeah, tomorrow’s going to be a painful day for him I imagine. 

JV Yeah, we’ll have a full medical report coming out here soon. We just have to wait a day or two; MRI stuff shows up a day or two later.

schmalz So will Allen Lim be awake for the next five days crafting a new plan to get ready for the Tour?

JV Well, I don’t know – does Allen sleep? I didn’t know that he did.

schmalz I think he just goes into a lesser state of activity like sharks do.

JV Exactly.

schmalz So he’ll be able to get a new plan started, it will give him new purpose.

JV Oh yeah, don’t worry we’ll have a new plan one way or the other.

schmalz So Mark Cavendish said you were being disrespectful. You terrible, terrible man.

JV Oh yeah, I think that perhaps sometimes I get fairly enthusiastic, and I really do love team time trials; it’s a beautiful event and I’m not afraid to show my enthusiasm for that event. I really just think its a visually beautiful event. It’s very artistic and precise. It’s an event that the general public sees cycling teams as teams, not individuals. The teams are fighting it out, not the riders. It also is an event that unifies a team as opposed to divides. The guys total sacrifice everything for one another to win – and if it happens, everyone wins. I mean, even the staff is really involved, hands on, with TTTs… All the special bikes, training… The staff really take ownership in the result. Everyone takes ownership because if we perform well it’s Team Garmin-Slipstream that did it, not an individual.

I’m not myopic about TTT, but I do truly love the event; no doubt about that. I just do. And as long as I am in charge of a team, we will put extra effort into TTTs. Win or lose.

I just felt like after our spring full of injuries that it was a re-start to the season. Of course we wanted to win Tour of California and of course we did everything we could d win Roubaix… But neither worked out and in between the two the team was massively compromised with serious injuries and surgery. I just felt like the Giro was the first place we’ve been healthy in a while… So, it was a re-start for us. But I guess with Christian, that didn’t quite work.

schmalz Well, it’s a tempest in the very tiny, tiny teapot of professional cycling, and if I were you, I would pay him to keep popping off about the team time trial because, in all honesty, it’s made it more exciting than any team time trial I’ve seen.

JV Well, I mean, hey at the end of the day great rivalries are what makes sports. The Yankees and the Red Sox, the Raiders and the Broncos, and so on and so forth. That’s what makes sports. In some ways, it’s kind of fun. I just don’t like it when I forget to express myself totally appropriately. Because as you know, I’m fairly conversational with journalists, so I really don’t just stick to a script. If anything, I just yabber away like they’re my friends. And sometimes, I get really excited about racing and thing I say can get slightly misconstrued.

schmalz Well, I like to imagine you guys having some sort of 1980’s video dance fight off, like a Michael Jackson “Bad” video. You’re going to be Michael Jackson and he’s going to be the dancers that were in the gang that were oddly rhythmic and able to dance at the drop of a hat.

JV Actually he’d probably be a better dancer than I would, quite frankly, he’s got all that quick twitch fiber. I’m sure his moves are better than mine.

schmalz Did you know he was a ballroom dancer?

JV Oh, I didn’t know that. I had no idea. See? There you go, once again it’s Cav two, JV zero. Because I remember taking these dancing classes with my ex-girlfriend back in the day and oh man, I stepped on her feet all the time.

schmalz Don’t lie, you know you have a whale of a “running man” inside of you somewhere.

JV (laughs)

schmalz You strike me as a Cabbage Patcher, Jonathan.

JV Really? Hmm…

schmalz Tyler was second today to Petacchi, but the last couple of stages-the stage I saw today it looked like he was boxed at the end-but at the end he was gaining on Petacchi when the stage finished.

JV Yeah, yeah… Tyler needs a clean run at the finish. That’s just the style of sprinter he is, but he’s getting closer. And right now Tyler’s climbing really strong, so I think that as the race evolves and when we get to some of the later stages in the race and some of the other sprinters are a little bit more fatigued; and Julian Dean-who just had another surgery less than three weeks ago-once he starts to come around a little bit as a lead out guy for Tyler, I think that as the race wears on some of those later stages may really suit Tyler fairly well, so we’ll see.

schmalz Well yesterday Petacchi kind of shouldered him off of Cavendish’s wheel and went on for the win, so I think that he’s getting some lessons.

JV Yeah, for sure. Tyler’s obviously a winning sprinter, but this is the first year where he’s been in the hunt in all the big races. He’s consistently a top five sprinter in all the big field sprints, so he’s going to learn some lesson for sure. I know that this diverges from team time trial, although it’s hard for me to think any other way than that, the combination of David Millar and Brad Wiggins, and especially when Julian Dean gets his form all the way back-and even Cameron, who is world points race champion-that’s a pretty potent lead out team. It’s just that we haven’t put all those guys together in the same race this year, due to all their injuries. We’ve finally got them all together in the same race so they can start figuring out how to work together as a lead out team for Tyler. Even though that is team time trial-esque, because I do like to talk about that.

schmalz You’re a little fixated. It seems Tyler right now, this year is in the same position that Cav found himself in last year-near the front, but not making the final sprint to finish the race off. But there’s no reason to think that he can’t do that. If nothing else, it’s fun to see an American mixing it up in the sprint stages of the Grand Tours.

JV Yes it is. I really want him win a stage in the Giro and then hopefully he can go to the Tour de France and wins some stages there. But it’s tough competition, there’s a lot of top guys: Petacchi, Cavendish, Tyler… Sprinting is always a tough world to get ahead in, which is why it’s impressive how much Cavendish has won over the past couple of years.

schmalz Yeah, right now his 200 meter jump is amazing.

JV Oh, yeah for sure.

schmalz Tyler seems to be more of a power sprinter than Cav, who’s more of a punchy sprint type, so it will be interesting to see how they go head to head and what evolves out of this. And this could be a match up that goes on for a good ten years.

JV Yeah, it’s true, they’re both twenty, well Tyler’s a year older, he’s 24 and Cav’s 23. It could go all the way until they’re 33 and 34. It’s interesting you put it that way, I’ve never really thought of it that way. They’re different styles, Cav’s a little quicker, and Tyler’s more of a Thor Hushovd-big gear and can also do really well in a prologue-type rider. Cav can ride a fair prologue as well, so their style is slightly different, so it will be interesting to see how that evolves like you said, over time.

schmalz And it looks like you’ve lost the opportunity to use the Giro this year as the Christian Vande Velde petri dish for any experiments you’ll do for the Tour. 

JV Yeah, it’s true.

schmalz I think you were going to especially look at the issue of rest day routine and preparation for Christian at the Giro…

JV Yeah, we’re going to have to see how his injuries evolve. Obviously we’re going to have to do a different run in, and I don’t know what’s thats going to be just yet. Whether it’s going to be the Dauphine or the Tour de Suisse, I don’t know. Ask me that in three or four days and I’ll have better answer for you.