We managed to get permission to pester Christian Vande Velde every few days from this year’s Giro. We caught up with Christian in the car on the ferry back from the Stage One of the Giro in Venice. 

schmalz So you had the team time trial in Venice today. Um, nice place for it.

VDV It was nice. It was a pretty cool course. Flat, kinda tight, good course.

schmalz So you have done a lot of preparation for the TTT, and I guess that Mark Cavendish takes offense at this?

VDV Yeah, I don’t really understand that. I wouldn’t say a lot, it’s like two days. People take things a little bit out of context, I don’t know why people take offense. I’m flattered that he worries about us that much.

schmalz It’s not like his team doesn’t do leadout practice, you’re trying to win a stage!

VDV You know, yeah, I’m not going to say much…

schmalz Well, here’s what I have to say about it. You’re not the team that has to draw fake man muscles on the front of their jersey. I think they’re just compensating, Christian.

VDV(Laughs) Thanks Dan, that makes me feel better.

schmalz About the tactics of the TTT today, you guys were second by 6 seconds, which is good, bad, indifferent, Iguess. How did you guys execute your strategy?

VDV I think we were a little bit overcautious. Couple turns in practice we went really fast, we were really conscious of how fast we were going through the line, so I think we were a little cautious and that cost us about 9 seconds halfway. We brought back 3 seconds, but too little too late.

schmalz Did it go according to plan or did you have to improvise on the road?

;VDV You always have to improvise. You never know how you’re going to feel out there, how the conditions are going to be. You’re always improvising in a TTT.

schmalz Did you guys make the call on the road or did someone from the car do that?

VDV We had a formation before, how we’re going to roll out, then we go for broke. That’s pretty much all it is. Columbia was great today, the strongest team won. We did a good ride, but they were just faster today.

schmalz In line, whose ass were you staring at today?

VDV I was behind Danny, then behind Wiggins at the end.

schmalz In the warmup to the TTT, how long did you warmup? What’s the procedure for that?

VDV We rode for an hour in the morning nice and easy, then we took a boat over here, rode the course, on the trainer for a half an hour, then we raced.

schmalz Did you have your ice vest on?

VDV I had an ice vest on, dude. And I had my tunes on my head.

schmalz What was the warmup music today?

VDV Ooo, we went everywhere from Beastie Boys, Biggie Smalls, to Cypress Hill, oh God, I think some Metallica was in there.

schmalz Does everybody use the same warmup music or was that just your own choices there?

VDV That was definitely my playlist, my playlist only.

schmalz Did anybody else go the ice vest route? Did you notice any other teams doing that?

VDV No, but you’re not really seeing the other teams, you’re just trying to concentrate on yourself. I don’t think too many people were doing that today.

schmalz I think that the TTT is probably one of the hardest disciplines in the sport ’cause it combines the pain of TT’ing and the desire to not wanna let your teammates down.

VDV Yeah, totally. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid with team pursuit. If you have a bad TT it’s you, but if you have a bad TTT it’s horrible, because you’ve let your friends and teammates down.

schmalz It seems like you had a lot of 90 degree corners, and there were fans there, that were in the way of your sight lines. Do you just have to follow whoever’s in the lead and kinda pray they make it through all right?

VDV You just, we rode it one time beforehand, but yeah, you just have to let it go. There wasn’t that many corners, there were only five corners, the one you saw at the end, yeah, you just had to let it go and hope that there’s nobody there. But yeah, you come close to clipping heads when you lean into the corners.

schmalz Was it the plan today to end up with just five guys? How did that work out? Did guys just drop off, or was it the plan to burn guys off as you rode towards the finish?

VDV You don’t need any more than five guys, so in the perfect race you wanna burn as many guys as you can. So everyone’s given their all across the line. There’s no such thing as the perfect race, but the perfect scenario is where everyone’s burned all their resources to get the team across the line as fast as possible.

schmalz Who was the director in the car today? Was it Matt or Vaughters?

VDV It was Matt.

schmalz Was he giving you the splits as you were going around? What’s his style in the car, is he a big talker?

VDV Whitey’s pretty quiet, he doesn’t talk too much. Once in a while he gets pretty excited, some guys don’t even know what he’s talking about. He speaks Australian, you know?

schmalz So during the race, are you talking to each other, yelling at each other? Or do you just go about your business quietly?

VDV No, we don’t talk too much. We try to communicate a bit once in a while, but it’s too hard to talk, especially with those damn helmets on your head.

schmalz So who’s your roommate this year?

VDV That would be Julian Dean.

schmalz How do you guys decide that? Is that just assigned to you?

VDV More or less. Julian and I roomed a lot last year, we roomed at the Tour, shit, man, we go back to 1995 Tour of Japan. We have a lot in common.

schmalz It’s good that you have someone you’re familiar with, probably not as gassy as Zabriskie.

VDV(Laughs) He’s not half as gassy as Zabriskie! Not even close!

schmalz What’s the recovery after the TTT, did you just easy ride, did you do something on the trainer?

VDV Just rode on the trainer a little bit, pretty quiet on the bus, you just try to learn from your mistakes.

schmalz Are you going to put the big ice legs on tonight?

VDV I don’t think we’ll be doing the space legs tonight. It’s going to be after 7 o’clock…

schmalz It seems like Venice was a nice place to have the prologue, but it seems it was logistically a little tough for you guys.

VDV Oh man, it’s been really hard logistically. But you know, everyone’s in the same boat.

schmalz I gotta talk about the hair, ’cause I saw the presentation yesterday. You got a haircut. Did you put any Ice Ice Eyebrows on?

VDV No no no eyebrows. I’ve got to go, the police are yelling at me because I’m on the phone.